Most of the incidents described are ammo goofs (overcharges, & squibs) and not gun faults. The closest I ever came to that was when I had a dud reload (not a squib) shooting a Smith 25-5. Fired the gun, didn't see a bullet strike or feel recoil. Opened cylinder, held up gun. A nearly full load of yellow colored Unique poured out the barrel, & sure enough, there was a stuck bullet. Never did figure that one out, primer went bang OK, but the powder didn't ignite. After getting the bullet out of the barrel, I shot the rest of that batch of ammo w/o any problems.
The most dangerous glitch I've ever had came with a Springfield Defender I purchased new in '87. About 5 years ago, I fired a shot and the slide stayed locked back after the first shot. I automatically went for the tap/rack/bang drill, but the instant my hand touched the gun, the
entire top end fell off! Seems the bottom retaining lug on the SA 2 piece barrel had sheared off. The link and lug were sitting neatly in the gun on the slide release pin, and the barrel had a bottom as smooth as a baby's butt.
I had a spare barrel, and was able to get the gun up and running the next day...or so I thought. I loaded up a 10 rd mag, inserted, chambered, and then depressed the trigger once...and three bullets fired out!!!! Needless to say, that puppy went immediately to the 'smith for a good working over. Came back just fine.
In fairness to SA, this particular gun had had about 30K rds of IPSC 180 power factor loads put throught it when this happened. Still, I would think that failures of this sort shouldn't happen that soon. Maybe somewhere past 50K, but not at 30. And no, I had never done any 'smithing work on it myself, just routine stripping and cleaning.
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Shoot straight regards, Richard
The Shottist's Center
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