As mentioned in the previous post, I went shooting today. PD had some new hand-loads for us to try out (notice the smoke in the pics), and they were pretty nice. 147-grain round-nose bullet with some powder weight (3.5 gr Tite-group?) I don't remember off the top of my head. Made for a low-recoil, slow-cycling bullet that was pretty darned accurate. Very sweet round.
Anywho, I'm on the last stage, where we draw and fire 2 rounds from retention, then engage another target while moving to cover. My first shot goes off fine, then the second does something funny, and the third round will NOT chamber. I racked the slide, no dice. Released the mag, reseated, racked again...nada. The slide will NOT go into battery, so I declare my gun broken, unload, and step away.
I took the gun apart, and when I pulled the barrel out, I found the problem. The bullet had only travelled about half an inch down the barrel. No powder in the bullet - a squib. When there's no powder in the bullet, the primer is the only source of propellant, and it's not enough to get the bullet out of the gun.
The good news is that the bullet didn't travel far enough to allow the next round to chamber. We're usually VERY good at hearing a squib, and stopping the shooter. This time, I was the shooter, and I did not hear it. Because the bullet was in the way, the next round wouldn't chamber, and the gun would not lock into battery.
The bad news is that if the bullet had gone a little further down the barrel, and I had fired the next round...well, a couple of things could have happened. I've seen a Glock where that happened, and subsequent rounds pushed out the previous bullet, and stuck the following bullet. I've also see a Glock where the barrel bulged after doing that same thing, and quit working because the barrel wouldn't allow it to go into battery. I've also seen pictures of Glocks that have exploded - a KB, or KaBoom, as they're called. Those can be serious.
If the latter had happened while holding the gun at retention...well, that would have sucked. Just feeling pretty lucky today. No harm, no foul.
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