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Old March 9, 2012, 05:52 AM   #14
SwampYankee
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Join Date: November 1, 2008
Location: I can be found on a number of other forums.
Posts: 1,333
Quote:
I'm sorry, Swamp Yankee, but that was a round without powder.
I posted this picture and discussed it at length on the forum when it happened, 3 years ago.

1. I think it was a plated bullet. It was 158g. According to Speer, 3.8g is the minimum for a lead bullet.
2. I pulled all the remaining bullets (I made 50, can't remember how many were left but they all had powder).
3. I hand loaded them all with an RCBS Rocker Chucker and I checked every case visually before I seated the bullet, to ensure powder was present.
4. I must have loaded a couple thousand rounds before this one, I have since loaded tens of thousands of rounds. In that time, I have never had another "squib".

So, it could have had no powder but I doubt it. We all make mistakes but I am religious about visually checking the cases when I load by hand (I use a powder cop on my Hornady LNL), so I don't think so.

This is from my earlier post Jan. 19, 2009

Quote:
I did a little more research this afternoon and found a thread on the S&W forum boards along with a couple other random ones here and there on other sites. A number of people have experienced the exact problem I am having, that is, when you try and use W231 above 32 F, it works fine. When you try and use it below 32 F, the chrono results plummet and people start getting squibs. Happens both with handguns and shotguns.

The explanation given is that double-based powders contain nitroglycerine, which becomes very insensitive at low temperatures and simply does not ignite properly. W231/H38 is apparently the worst when it comes to cold temperature malfunctions. You can either add more powder or switch to a single-based propellant. Some double-based propellants are better than others (Titegroup seems better than W231 and Lil'Gun is barely effected) but it is a repeatable effect.
I think the culprit was a combination of low powder, cold temperature, plated bullet and powder position in the case. Some manuals recommend using lead charges for plated bullets but that may not always be effective.
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