Discard barrel after squibb load

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I alway find it puzzling that these thread so often turn into personal attacks.

All I asked was a simple question about whether people thought if the instructors statement was right or wrong.
But I guess people always need to extend it to he wrong and he's a jerk for being wrong.

Is there anyone who wrote that the instructor was wrong and should not be teaching ever make an error in their statements or knowledge also? Then should we never believe any words here on this forum that you ever say again.

Calm down people.
I don't have a dog in this fight, I just asked people's opinion on whether this theory was true. The consensus is that is is not.

And that is enough without having to go into the attacks on the class or instructor.

I don't know this instructor and have no feelings about it one way or the other. Since I took the class and have no ill feelings about the time I spent in the class, why should anyone here be so upset about it?

I learned some things and took others with a grain of salt.
So what!
Jeez!
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Welcome to the internet. You seem way more defensive about this than people seem "upset" about it, at least from where I'm standing. What the instructor said was very wrong and demonstrates a lack of understanding of basic physics. In an industry where misinformation gets passed around daily a lot of people take it seriously to correct misinformation. I would expect no less reaction towards myself had I posted that as instructor I thought the same as your instructor. I've been wrong plenty of times and unless I get called out on it I wouldn't know otherwise. The instructor isn't here to correct so people are correcting the information he gave you, which you asked them to do in the first place. I really don't see this as a personal attack on anyone, or if so it is no more of a personal attack than calling a man a dummy for saying the Earth is the center of the solar system.
 
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Its so funny how a simple yes or no question always turns into a legthy discussion of scientific theories and statistics on the internet.

A squib won't harm your barrel. Push it out, and then continue shooting. Does anybody REALLY make dummy loads to shoot out squibs?

Not everybody who thinks they know everything actually does. Unless you really think you can convince this instructor that he does not know everything, just roll your eyes and let it go. The guy who couldn't qualify may have a dilemma, but yor getting involved won't help other than advising him privately to get a 2nd opinion on his barel before throwing it away.
 
AB,
I was being polite in saying "at the very least", without getting into "oughta be shot & hung" rhetoric. :)


The most coherent Brandon Lee story I've seen over the years was that photos or footage were required of the gun showing close-ups of cartridges with unfired primers.

They were needed quickly, so incomplete (primer & bullet, no powder) cartridges were assembled, without taking time to de-activate the primers.

At some point, through poor tracking & accountability, one of the squibs was fired in error.
The bullet lodged in the bore.

Through further mishandling & inept tracking, a blank was subsequently fired through the gun on camera, without first clearing the lodged bullet.

The story goes that apparently a full-powered blank (there are full, half, and quarter-charge blanks in some calibers) had enough power to propel the bullet out of the bore & into the actor.
Dunno if those are the facts, but the source (which I can't recall now) seemed credible at the time. :)

HVR,
"Attacks" aside, you got your answer, in expanded form.

Not true, and several explained why.

The indignation over an instructor being so ignorant of the mechanics involved is quite natural, and it can't help but cast doubt on his competence in general. :)
Denis
 
A note on blanks. A bullet is NOT needed for a blank to be lethal. At contact or even at very close range, the powder gas itself is enough to cause a lethal wound. It has been reported that the KGB carried out executions indoors by shooting the victim in the back of the head with a blank. No bullet to ricochet; death was caused by the blast and by the bone fragments driven into the brain.

There is a true story of a PA National Guard soldier training at Indiantown Gap some years ago. He pocketed a .30 caliber (.30-'06) blank and that night in the barracks decided to fire it. He rested the muzzle of his M1 rifle on his foot, saying that the tough GI boot would stop the blast. The result was a hole through the boot, his foot, and the barracks floor.

DO NOT PLAY WITH BLANKS! They can be just as dangerous as live ammo!

Jim
 
Just to derail further :) , this one time at Band Camp (USAF SP Tech School) a couple bus-loads of us were hauled out to a delightful resort area outside old San Antone, where we were divided into two "warring factions", issued M-16s & lots of blanks, and positioned such that my group was the dug-in defenders while the other group was the over-the-ridge attackers.

On the instructors' GO!, they crawled over the ridge & shot at us while we shot back at them.
Good time had by all.

Except for two guys in my defending group who were actually real-life warring factions of their own.
Couldn't stand each other.

During the highly-organized (not) melee, one managed to sneak up behind the other and empty a full 20-round mag of blanks into his back & neck at close range.

This was back in the days of the older M-16 blank adaptors, which were screw-on tubes that replaced the flash hider, not the current clamp-ons.
The older style allowed gasses to pass through a constriction and out the front.

Burned the bejabbers out of anything not covered by the victim's helmet.
The "shooter" did not enjoy a long & prosperous Air Force career. :)
Denis
 
I alway find it puzzling that these thread so often turn into personal attacks.
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Arguably because many participants here (the vast majority of whom are male) confuse their choice of handguns with their penises -- and feel that any disagreement with their comments with regard to their weapon or what they think they KNOW about weapons is an attack on their manhood.
 
I alway find it puzzling that these thread so often turn into personal attacks.

All I asked was a simple question about whether people thought if the instructors statement was right or wrong.
But I guess people always need to extend it to he wrong and he's a jerk for being wrong.
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Well, you make a post and it takes on a life of its own. I'm afraid that's just the nature of things.

I sure don't think you should, at all, feel in any way shape or form responsible for what others do to your thread.

As to people reading one thing and getting it wrong or driving off at a tangent that wasn't even brought up at all I must say I sure don't appreciate the way you are questioning my math and science background and understanding!!! :D

I've enjoyed your posts in the past and enjoyed this one too. Please continue to post.

-confuse their handguns with their penises
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I disagree. No confusion at all here, my handguns all still work.
 
I find it quite curious that StopLyin knows that a squib is actually what killed Bruce Lee's son, actor Brandon Lee. He is quite right, actually. But the common belief is that he was killed by a blank fired too closely while aimed at his head. The alternative theory (also wrong) was that Brandon was killed by a wadcutter.

The prop men, in preparing for the scene in which Brandon was to use a .44 Magnum, took real ammo and removed the primer from the cartridges and loaded the gun. This was for a close up so that when filmed the gun's cylinder would reveal actual bullets. The gun was tested and one of the rounds went off but with a depleted charge. Thus, a squib. Blanks were then put into the gun with the squib remaining in the barrel. Pow! The force of the blank, a .44 Magnum load, was enough to propel the squib firing it from the barrel and striking Brandon Lee.
 
DaleA said:
I disagree. No confusion at all here, my handguns all still work.
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LOL.

I suspect that only some of the older shooters here will fully appreciate that comment.

(From someone who understands that Erector Sets are toys from our childhood and NOT small blue pills.)
 
But the common belief is that he was killed by a blank fired too closely while aimed at his head.
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There was a young actor, Jon-Erik Hexum, bored and goofing off during a lull in filming, who shot himself in the head with a gun loaded with blanks. He was simulating Russian Roulette. He had done it to liven things up. He had no idea that blanks could be deadly when used as he used them -- and the prop folks clearly had not done appropriate safety training.

In the case of Brandon Lee, Wikipedia says it was a bit more complicated: Not truly a squib -- but the functional equivalent. For whatever reason, the prop crew used LIVE rounds with the bullets pulled, powder dumped, and bullets reinserted -- so that the gun would appear to be loaded in some of the camera shots. These rounds weren't intended to be used as blanks or even to be fired on set. One of those primer-only rounds was apparently fired off set, and that round's "real" bullet lodged in the barrel.

The prop crew, not noticing that there was a bullet in the barrel, later loaded a blank round (with paper or plastic wadding) in the revolver for the later action shot. When the gun was fired during the take, the "squib" round had enough force behind it to wound Brandon Lee. Lee died hours later after 6+ hours of surgery. It was nothing that Brandon Lee did -- he was truly the victim.
 
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Thank you my good Sir, that is exactly how I would like to be treated.

I just know down the line I will end up mentioning weapons I have used in movies and people asking me who I am so figured I would put it in the open, something in which I thought long and hard about.

Thanks for being professional!
 
A bullet was stuck in my new Sig 232's bore about six months ago.
The remanufactured .380 ammo was the source of this weak round. This company is near Memphis.

The very seasoned gun smith, who works in mid-town pushed the bullet out of the bore and said that my Sig 232 was fine.
 
I have stuck two bullets in my career, one damaged factory load (That stuff is not as waterproof as you might think.) and one reload with too much airspace between primer and powder. Both took a good deal of pounding on a brass rod to remove. So have the others I have knocked out for other shooters.
I would not dream of trying to drive a bullet out with a wooden dowel.

On the other hand, I know one guy who was shooting PPC and stuck a soft .38 wadcutter. He grabbed his squib rod out of the brass bucket at his feet, drove out the slug, reloaded, and finished the string on time. Which might say more about the leisurely time limits of that event which used to be the national standard of LE marksmanship.

I am aware of the use of a half charge to blow out a stuck bullet or other obstruction. Close reading of Hatcher will tell you when to do it and when not.
 
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