Something For Our Law Enforcement Officers.

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Ammunition and Primer Warning

Here is an investigation and warning about frequently cycling ammunition in and out of a pistol.

Subject: Officer Safety, duty ammo in/out of firearm .

THE FOLLOWING TRAINING ADVISORY WAS FORWARDED FROM GWINETT COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT LAWRENCEVILLE , GA
In September of this year a GCPD officer was involved in a situation which quickly became a use of deadly force incident. When the officer made the decision to use deadly force, the chambered round in his duty pistol did not fire. Fortunately, the officer used good tactics, remembered his training and cleared the malfunction, successfully ending the encounter.

The misfired round, which had a full firing pin strike, was collected and was later sent to the manufacturer for analysis. Their analysis showed the following: ...the cause of the misfire was determined to be from the primer mix being knocked out of the primer when the round was cycled through the firearm multiple times. We also sent an additional 2,000 rounds of the Winchester 9mm duty ammunition to the manufacturer. All 2,000 rounds were successfully fired.

In discussions with the officer, we discovered that since he has small children at home, he unloads his duty weapon daily. His routine is to eject the chambered round to store the weapon. Prior to returning to duty he chambers the top round in his primary magazine, then takes the previously ejected round and puts in back in the magazine. Those two rounds were repeatedly cycled and had been since duty ammunition was issued in February or March of 2011, resulting in as many as 100 chambering and extracting cycles. This caused an internal failure of the primer, not discernible by external inspection.

This advisory is to inform all sworn personnel that repeated cycling of duty rounds is to be avoided. As a reminder, when loading the weapon, load from the magazine and do not drop the round directly into the chamber. If an officers only method of safe home storage is to unload the weapon, the Firearms Training Unit suggests that you unload an entire magazine and rotate those rounds. In addition, you should also rotate through all 3 duty magazines, so that all 52 duty rounds are cycled, not just a few rounds. A more practical method of home storage is probably to use a trigger lock or a locked storage box.

FURTHER GUIDANCE FROM ATF FIREARMS TECHNOLOGY BRANCH:
The primer compound separation is a risk of repeatedly chambering the same round. The more common issue is bullet setback, which increases the chamber pressures often resulting in more negative effects.

SOD RECOMMENDATION:
In addition to following the guidance provided above of constantly rotating duty ammunition that is removed during the unloading/reloading of the weapon, training ammunition utilized during firearm sustainment and weapon manipulation drills, should also be discarded if it has been inserted into the chamber more than twice. This practice lessens the likelihood of a failure to fire or more catastrophic results



Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum

[MouthCaller]

Thats good to know for all of us I dont unchamber and chamer a round as much as he did but I do not keep  round in the chamber in my home defense .45.

[Deputy 14]

Good post. Have to print this off and hang it up on our memo board. Thanks

[runngun]

That is good information right there. Thanks I will pass along!!!

[afoshie]

sounds weird but makes sense

[Fullfan]

Wow being a trooper for 20 years I am glad to know that the officer was able to go home at the end of his shift.

[Timber Chicken]

Thank You for the info. I will definetly pass this along.

[coyotetrpr]

That is a good post, but I feel that there is some mis information there. i have had several remington rounds fail to fire with direct primer hits. I am no one special so it does not matter, but this sounds like an ammunition company covering their backsides when an on duty officer has an issue. i am glad his training and or instincts helped him to a good ending.

[bow junkie]

Thanks for the informative post. I will infrom my fellow officers. Thanks again

[BOFF]

Hey Billie,

Can I have a link from where the info was taken?

God Bless,
David B.

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PM me your e mail and I will forward the e mail to you. For some reason everytime I do a copy paste it comes back as Forbidden ? I had to remove the original senders info to even post it here.

[WildSpur]

Hey Billie,

Can I have a link from where the info was taken?

God Bless,
David B.

X2.

First I have heard of this.  Good to hear the officer is ok.

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk

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