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Old August 13, 2022, 03:45 PM   #1
Bucksnort1
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Intrusion of the Feed Ramp 40 S&W

For the S&W in my Lee manual, this statement appears.

"Do not use reloads in Glock or similar guns with chambers that do not fully support the cartridge doe to the intrusion of the feed ramp".

Please explain this.

Also, why does this not apply to factory ammo?
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Old August 13, 2022, 04:58 PM   #2
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It means because of the way the feed ramp cuts slightly into the chamber, or ‘intrudes’ for more reliable feeding. Because of this part of the case is left unsupported by the chamber allowing the cases to bulge slightly. This isn’t a problem in a first firing, but resizing sometimes leaves a slightly thinner section of the case where it bulged from being unsupported. If this thin part of the case should happen to align with the unsupported part of the chamber in subsequent firing the case could blow out.
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Old August 13, 2022, 06:39 PM   #3
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.40cal Glock pistols and their lack of chamber support is/was very real but has evolved a LOT over many years.

If you are handloading for a Gen 1 .40cal Glock, you very much can blow out some cases and make them scrap or dangerous for use.

Glock in the last 15 years? No worries.
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Old August 15, 2022, 07:46 PM   #4
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Quote:
Also, why does this not apply to factory ammo?
Because factory ammo is previously unfired. The case has never been fired, exapanded to fit a chamber, then resized and reloaded.

So that, even if fired in an oversized chamber, it usually doesn't rupture during firing.

Remember that firearms, particularly those designed for military use are seldom very "reloader friendly". That's simply not the mission of the designers. They design those guns to feed, fire, and eject new (factory) ammunition, ONCE per round.

If they happen to tolerate reloaded ammo, that's great for the rest of us, but of no concern to the designers, or their primary intended customers, the military.
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Old August 16, 2022, 12:53 PM   #5
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What GEN is your glock? Glock Smile issues were later resolved in Gen 4 and Gen 5 models.
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Old August 17, 2022, 01:29 PM   #6
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were later resolved in Gen 4 and Gen 5 models.
Are you saying that Gen 4/5 were even more resolved than Gen 3 Glock .40 cals?

This was a real deal genuine issue but really hasn't been for a long, long time. I don't currently own a Glock .40cal but my G29 10mm is an MML-prefix Gen 3 from 2008 and it's good to go and the .40cal Glocks I had around that time (all Gen 3's) were also good to go.
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Old August 17, 2022, 01:32 PM   #7
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Yeah my Gen 3 G20 & G29 are fine. Purchased new in the 2014 neighborhood.
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Old August 18, 2022, 07:33 AM   #8
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Quote:
Remember that firearms, particularly those designed for military use are seldom very "reloader friendly". That's simply not the mission of the designers. They design those guns to feed, fire, and eject new (factory) ammunition, ONCE per round.
Please list the design feature(s) that are included in guns that are reloader friendly.
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Old August 18, 2022, 10:36 AM   #9
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The guns I consider "reloader friendly" are those that have chambers cut to normal specs, not "generous" or "relieved" and that do not seriously bend, dent, crush, bulge, or otherwise mangle the brass.

It varies a bit with different guns, of course, but nearly all revolvers and many semi autos (though not all) are "reloader friendly" the way I look at it.

With rifles its about the same, but there are exceptions there, as well. The .303 British in SMLE rifles is one, quite often
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Old August 18, 2022, 01:31 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dahermit View Post
Please list the design feature(s) that are included in guns that are reloader friendly.
A revolving cylinder.
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Old August 19, 2022, 11:26 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by 44 AMP View Post
The guns I consider "reloader friendly" are those that have chambers cut to normal specs, not "generous" or "relieved" and that do not seriously bend, dent, crush, bulge, or otherwise mangle the brass.

It varies a bit with different guns, of course, but nearly all revolvers and many semi autos (though not all) are "reloader friendly" the way I look at it.

With rifles its about the same, but there are exceptions there, as well. The .303 British in SMLE rifles is one, quite often
In other words, chambers cut to standard SAAMI specs? If so, then military chambers are also "reloader friendly" if I am not mistaken.
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Old August 19, 2022, 11:37 AM   #12
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My Glocks (Gen 3) don't "Smile" the brass. That is a bulge on one side, Smile is made by the ramp.
But when obtaining bulk range brass, I found I needed to examine each, and discard any with Smiles. Then, I had to pass ALL through a Lee bulge buster, before they would drop into a case Guage. About half seemed to require significant force. That is done after sizing. You can see the circular base bulge (all the way around the case), where the sizing die can't reach. I recently did 2000 range 40 S&W. About 2% were discarded Smiles, and half took a lot of force. I was hammering (opening and closing the jaws) them as many as 5 times each in a Lee hand press.
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Old August 19, 2022, 04:48 PM   #13
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In other words, chambers cut to standard SAAMI specs? If so, then military chambers are also "reloader friendly" if I am not mistaken.
some are, some, not so much. Remember that SAAMI is a voluntary organization of SPORTING ARMS and AMMO Manfacturers, and SAAMI standards are not necessarily military standards or other nations standards.

One of the most famous military "unfriendly" rifles isn't a US rifle, its British, the SMLE, in .303 British.

And, it also shows the possible differences between military specs and commercial ones. Generally speaking SMLEs are often referred to as having "generous" chambers which is a polite way of saying "oversize". The explanation usually given is that the chambers are cut a bit large, to allow battlefield mud & debris "somewhere to go" and not overly hinder the working of the action.

This works ok for the .303British, because the round headspaces on the case rim, and as long as that space is in spec the rest of the chamber being "generous" doesn't harm functioning. The result of this, for the reloader with one of those rifles is that, the combination of "generous chambers" and normal resizing works the fired brass a lot and case life is short because of that. It is the unusually short case life that, to me, puts it in the "not reloader friendly" group.

Exceptions do exist, of course, and interestingly enough, COMMERCIAL .303 British rifles rarely have "generous" chambers, so case life with normal reloading methods is the normal average.

I found the HK 91 to be "unfriendly" to reloading, and curiously it was NOT the fluted chamber. It was the fact that the rifle wanged fired brass off the rear edge of the ejection port hard enough to seriously dent the case body with a sharp "crease" at the bottom of the dent. This worried me as a potential failure point if the case was reloaded. Addition of the "ejection port buffer (a hard rubber block) reduced the depth of the dent and removed the knife edge crease and cases were reloadable and functioned well.

Reloader "unfriendly" guns are not impossible to use with reloaded ammo, they are not "reloading impossible" they are just "unfriendly" meaning more work (brass prep) is needed than more "friendly" guns.

I do realize that the 9mm/40 cases bulged by a relieved chamber are reloadable, but personally I'm not comfortable doing so, I feel the extra stretch of the brass and where it is means the case is more likely to fail sooner than one fired in a "standard" chamber.

Do note that succeeding generations of GLocks and similiar guns have reduced the amount of "relief" in their chambers from what was originally made. Think there might be a reason for that???
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