Rounds pushed further into the case.

When I clear my Colt 1911 of the round that is in the chamber, sometimes the rounds that come out are pushed further into the case. The bullet seems to hit the feed ramp with so much force that the round bounces vertically to an extent. I am using brand new Chip McCormick Shooting Star mags and the ammo is Federal Champion 230Grain FMJ What could be causing this, i will take photos when I get home from work

zack991 said:

When I clear my Colt 1911 of the round that is in the chamber, sometimes the rounds that come out are pushed further into the case. The bullet seems to hit the feed ramp with so much force that the round bounces vertically to an extent. I am using brand new Chip McCormick Shooting Star mags and the ammo is Federal Champion 230Grain FMJ What could be causing this, i will take photos when I get home from work

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It's generally referred to as "bullet set-back," and it's fairly common with .45 ACP, and in my experience most guns in the caliber do it.

Pretty much any 1911 does it due to the angle at which the round is fed into the chamber. Load a round by running the slide home slowly by hand to see what I mean.

Just be glad your gun isn't a .40 S&W! That caliber has major problems with setback in just about every brand of ammo, and it's a bigger problem because .40 is already a high-pressure round.

Also a problem for old Glocks, the ones without a fully supported chamber.

In my experience it's not really a problem with a .45 1911. My advice: try to only let it happen to one or two rounds, as it seems to me that the shorter OAL of deeply setback rounds can cause feeding issues. After awhile, shoot the top round (or throw it out if you're worried) and move on to another.

1911s are traditionally proofed with a double-pressure round, so they can handle more pressure than the standard cartridge is designed to deliver. Personally, I have fired every set-back round I've "created", and never had a problem.

In .45, that is. I throw away .40s that are set-back.

Hmm... interesting! Significant bullet setback is rare with the Beretta M9, Glock 20 and Sig P220. You may want to ride the slide forward from now on when using the M1911. It couldn't hurt to cycle the rounds as well!

My Sig 229 is a .40, and I've put close to 1000 rounds through it. Never had a single fail to feed, fire, eject, or anything. Or whatever this problem you're discussing is. Which I can't quite picture.

Hello Zack,

How many times has the round been chambered when you start to notice the set back?

In my carry 1911's I have seen the same type of occurance most generally with a round that has been cleared and re-chambered a number of times. Like mentioned above, I keep the same round in the chamber and every once in a whileI shoot the first round and replace it with a fresh one.


Steve

Bowers said:

My Sig 229 is a .40, and I've put close to 1000 rounds through it. Never had a single fail to feed, fire, eject, or anything. Or whatever this problem you're discussing is. Which I can't quite picture.

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When the round moves forward out of the magazine, the nose of the bullet hits the feed ramp. Sometimes this will result in shortening the overall lenght of the round (ie bullet set back). Basically the bullet is shoved deeper into the case.

The OP is not describing FTF, FTE or what not.

Steve

.45acp said:

Hello Zack,

How many times has the round been chambered when you start to notice the set back?

In my carry 1911's I have seen the same type of occurance most generally with a round that has been cleared and re-chambered a number of times. Like mentioned above, I keep the same round in the chamber and every once in a whileI shoot the first round and replace it with a fresh one.


Steve

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One of the rounds was used a few times when I noticed it. The second round was used just once when I noticed it, could the rounds just not have a lot of case tension

I remember reading an article last year about this problem among some of the "security personnel at some facility in Livermore Calif. Because of requirements that rounds be cleared at the end of each shift and the habit of reloading the magazine with the ejected round, setback came to be such a problem that several cases of explosive destruction of the firearm were documented before the problem was traced to the setback problem. I don't remember the details on the organization or firearm involved but it was passed along as a precaution to owner/users of semiauto hand guns in a number of forums.

.45acp said:

When the round moves forward out of the magazine, the nose of the bullet hits the feed ramp. Sometimes this will result in shortening the overall lenght of the round (ie bullet set back). Basically the bullet is shoved deeper into the case.

The OP is not describing FTF, FTE or what not.

Steve

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Ah makes more sense now. Nope, never had that happen, and the same 2 rounds rotate through my gun time and again, probably close to 100 times, if not more. None of my rounds have had any of this problem, although I'll start watching out for it.

Bowers said:

Ah makes more sense now. Nope, never had that happen, and the same 2 rounds rotate through my gun time and again, probably close to 100 times, if not more. None of my rounds have had any of this problem, although I'll start watching out for it.

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I never had an issue with this with my wifes 9mm XD and from what I have read this is more of an issue for 40 S&W's 45acp than most other calibers.

zack991 said:

I never had an issue with this with my wifes 9mm XD and from what I have read this is more of an issue for 40 S&W's 45acp than most other calibers.

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The Sig P220 .45 isn't an issue

AFPVet said:

The Sig P220 .45 isn't an issue

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Excuse me, but it is an issue with mass-produced hardball! Every Sig 220 does it.

buzzsaw said:

I remember reading an article last year about this problem among some of the "security personnel at some facility in Livermore Calif. Because of requirements that rounds be cleared at the end of each shift and the habit of reloading the magazine with the ejected round, setback came to be such a problem that several cases of explosive destruction of the firearm were documented before the problem was traced to the setback problem. I don't remember the details on the organization or firearm involved but it was passed along as a precaution to owner/users of semiauto hand guns in a number of forums.

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I had an experience with a reload (my own) that I suspect that was caused by setback. I was shooting several strings across my chrono out of a 4 inch Wilson. I ran a couple of 5 round strings of 230 gr. cast round nose. The 3rd round of last string went BANG! with a fair bit more muzzle flip than normal. I glanced down at the chrono and it read 1300 fps for a 230 gr. cast bullet! Smokin to say the least.
I first thought was that I had double charged the case, but I don't see it (doesn't mean it did not happen) but I am careful when reloading. I got to checking the loaded ammo from the same batch and found 6 or 7 rounds that the bullet set almost flush with the case mouth when a round was chambered out of a magazine via release of the slide stop. The cases were mixed so I could not track it back to a specific case manufacture or lot.
The correction was to set the taper crimp die ¾ turn down. Problem has not resurrected itself, but I sure as hell am a bunch more particular about case neck tension now.
I took the gun completely down and inspected with a magnifying headset and then had it mag particle checked for hairline cracks (I was a bit paranoid), spent an evening with the manual, precision mikes, calipers and Starrett machine straight edge and found no deviation to tolerances. Reassembled the gun and have had no problems since.

Steve

zack991 said:

One of the rounds was used a few times when I noticed it. The second round was used just once when I noticed it, could the rounds just not have a lot of case tension

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Anything is possible, but quality factory ammo is is amazingly consistant.

If you have a set of calipers handy take COL and chamber a round several times. See what the overall change is.

Steve

George Mann said:

Excuse me, but it is an issue with mass-produced hardball! Every Sig 220 does it.

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Yup.

The only way to avoid this with .45 ACP is to buy fancy rounds with crenulated cases, in my experience. The only gun which might avoid the issue might be a blowback gun where the barrel didn't tilt and the rounds could be fed straight in. I am unfamiliar with an .45s built in this fashion.

George Mann said:

Excuse me, but it is an issue with mass-produced hardball! Every Sig 220 does it.

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In the several years that I owned a P220, I HAVE NEVER, EVER had a significant setback issue PERIOD.

Took a crappy photo of said round. Left round is brand new right out of the box,the one on the right is the round in question.

AFPVet said:

In the several years that I owned a P220, I HAVE NEVER, EVER had a significant setback issue PERIOD.

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Here's a couple of links of posts by P220 owners who have experienced significant setback:

http://www.m4carbine.net/showpost.php?p=740504&postcount=17

http://ingunowners.com/forums/745833-post12.html





Incidentally, everybody, I just wanted to point out that it occurred to me that the advice I gave was particularly terrible for any caliber other than .45, and also that it is dependent upon the first round being loaded by slowing running the slide home by hand, so as to minimize setback on each loading.

My advice: try to only let it happen to one or two rounds, as it seems to me that the shorter OAL of deeply setback rounds can cause feeding issues. After awhile, shoot the top round (or throw it out if you're worried) and move on to another.

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This works for me with .45 because the top round only gets setback to a certain point when riding the slide home slowly by hand, and past that point racking the slide home slowly by hand doesn't setback the round any further; also I've determined that the rounds aren't going to blow my gun up from this amount of setback.

However, if you shoot .40 S&W, or if you load rounds by dropping the slide from lock, DO NOT follow my advice. DO rotate your top rounds, and DO throw away any rounds which are visibly set-back.

My advice works if you pay attention, use .45, and rack the slide slowly by hand, but probably not any other time.

I agree with Marshaul.

I'm a 1911 fanboy, and have experienced bullet set-back quite often. On a normal round (.45 ACP), a small amount of bullet set-back has never really affected the shot other than a little more "snap" and muzzle flip that could only be described as similar to a +P. 1) If the set-back is far enough to start seeing a gap between case rim, and bullet, I wouldn't fire it. 2) I'd be a little cautious of a set-back on a +P rated round as it is already loaded to a higher pressure. 3) I'm only speaking for .45 ACP as most other calibers are loaded to higher pressures.

All in all, if there is ANY concern, I wouldn't fire it. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. How much does a bullet cost? Around .50 cents, give or take, if you toss it. From $500 if it blows up your gun, to priceless if it blows up your eye. Those are some pretty big IF's. .50 cents vs. blind. Hmmmm.

If you really are worried about that round and want to use it, but are deeply concerned about safety, I'd reccommend a lite tap or two using one of these:

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=215517

and then measuring the OAL with one of these:

http://www.midwayusa.com/Search/#caliper____-_1-2-4_8-16-32

until the bullet reaches its normal OAL.