TheArcticWolf1911
Gunslinger
Joined: Sat Nov 4th, 2017
Posts: 426
Name: Cameron ... Occupation: Process Technician ... Interests: Firearms & Ammunition, Ford Rangers, electronics ...
Reputation Points: 426
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Well I had a little shadetree gunsmith fun. I opted to simply not use the .38 specials I had received with the revolver.
That same day I went shooting, a S&W M&P15 had a catastrophic failure a bay down from me. Nobody was hurt. Cause was unknown. The guy shooting had federal ammunition (bought new) and ammunition he got from "his army buddy". It wasn't clear which it was out of the two, as the action simply would not open, even with hammering on the charging handle. The upper was bulged, magazine puffed and blown out, ammunition in the magazine destroyed, basically everything on that rifle (save for the furniture) was FUBAR. I suspect either a doublecharge happened at the factory or a .300 blackout found it's way into that 5.56 rifle. Nobody really knew at the time, again given the action was seriously closed up tight. I suppose an out of battery detonation was possible, but I doubt it.
I'm not a believer in fate, but there have been a couple instances in my life where the coincidence was.... a little bit too coincidental, for lack of a better phrase.
Given I didn't really *know* where the ammunition came from, I decided to pull it all apart. Seeing that AR blow up like that kind of makes me feel that was perhaps a warning, which I plan on heeding.
I found that a 3/8ths drive socket (I chose a 3/4 head size) holds the rim of a .38 nicely, the drive portion that is. At first I tried straight up pulling it out. That worked once but not again. Eventually it dawned on me to use the 'slide hammer' principle. Back the teeth of the pliers (large pliers with substantial weight) up to the socket, pull fast and strong. A couple or three tugs and the projectile came out, sometimes on the first try. Dump the powder, swap cartridges and continue.
I'm going to make a handful of dummy rounds out of the best casings and projectiles, filling the void in the case with hot glue.
To fire the primers, I stuck the cases into the revolver's cylinder, placed it between two folded towels and pulled the trigger. Muffles it surprisingly well. Did this for all the cases. I saved five of the unique ones, so 98 rounds were disassembled in total.
Granted, there was some powder spillage, but it seemed like there was more powder in some cases than others, but for no rhyme or reason. It's possible a few used a slower burning powder and thus required more of it, but... Eh, still looked sketchy to me.
With the leftover powder I dumped it into a metal pan and dropped a lit match into it. Made a nice fireball. The rest of the projectiles I don't use along with the rest of the casings will be scrapped. Even if I did reload, I quite frankly don't trust any components I would have been able to scavenge from these rounds.
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1999 Ford Ranger XLT - 3.0 V6 4x4 - Loaded (Totaled) 143k. Rest in Peace, Gold Dust.
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