For the people who just like to say "squib"

[Bongo Lewi]

View: https://x.com/GunloverClub1/status/1869534544946500066

The timing was f-ed up and the cylinder was not aligned. The comments are comical. Lots of keyboard commandos whose gun experience is World of Warcraft weighing in.

Never before have so many people who have never seen a squib decide that one has occurred. I liken this to the tendency of many to watch a YouTube vid about carpentry, then run out and buy a tool belt and start using the term 'plumb' like they know wtf that means.

Odds are the cylinder wasnt 'plumb' You can see bullet fragments flying to the left from what was the gap between the cylinder and the barrel. They dont have guns in Canada so it's easy to understand why this dumb ass doesn't know how a revolver works or if there's something wrong with it.

Good thing there was no one in the lane to his left. They would have shrapnel in their head.

 

[Racer88]

I admire his follow-through! Dude didn't do what many do.... drop / throw the gun. Not this guy! He held his grip and sight picture (what was left of it)!

 

[Bongo Lewi]

True. He should be grateful his left hand still has fingers!

It’s 2009. I was at the gate in LaGuardia. The guy sitting next to me asks what my business in Frankfurt is. I tell him it’s just a connection. I’m headed to Tunisia. One question led to another. Then he asks me if I have been “in the shit”. I told him no but I have been close enough to smell it. I think he watched a lot of war movies and thought the lingo made him seem cool. It has the opposite effect.

He probably wondered if I ever had a squib while in the sandbox.

 

[bkbrno]

I don't recognize the brand pistol in the video. My first hunch was Colt but not sure.

A couple of things stand out. First a little history. I have a Colt Trooper .22LR. For the longest time, it was dead nuts accurate. All of the sudden, it is spewing bullets all over the target. Something is wrong with it. On examination, the cylinder is not locking up reliably. With the hammer back, I was able to rotate the cylinder a 1/16" until it locked. I put the revolver away and added the repair to my to-do list.

That was a good 15 years ago. Racer88 comes along with his Python adventures which was the poke I needed to get on the Trooper. It's not a Python but any Colt port in a storm will do. I research the shit out things. Some things I came across. Colts don't like to be operated slowly or gingerly. D/A, pull that trigger like you mean it. S/A, cock that hammer same way. As it is designed, the cylinder needs some inertia to finish the rotation and lock into place. There is a small gap in the works, at the end of the rotation, where nothing is touching the cylinder to positively complete the rotation. Inertia is the key ingredient for full rotation. Second, any drag on the cylinder will kill the inertia and it won't lock. The Trooper is a simpler system than the Python family so I don't know if this applies to the fancy pants Colts.

In this video, it appears that the guy pulled the hammer back slowly. While looking away, his left hand seemed to interfere with the cylinder rotation. It is entirely possible for the cylinder to be out of alignment. Squib load or firing another round on top of a stuck bullet seems to happen a lot in Cowboy Action shooting if you believe the internet. There are a lot of shooters that reload. For whatever reason, they often load to the absolute minimum to get the bullet out of the barrel and no more. Sometimes it doesn't work out. The point is, don't dismiss a squib as a possibility. I've only had to knock one bullet out in my whole life but it happened.

Back to the Trooper. I do remember operating this revolver gently and with care. When I got to it recently, armed with the knowledge that these need to be operated with purpose, it seemed to lock up just fine. I stripped the whole thing down and found no broken or worn parts. While apart, it got a good cleaning and fresh lubrication. It is as slick as ever now. Sidebar, it was shocking clean inside, I'm used to 22LR guns being filthy from end to end. I can induce a "no lockup" by pulling the hammer back slowly or by putting slight drag on the cylinder during rotation.

You don't have to be abusive for proper Colt operation. Work it with purpose, don't baby it.

 

[Bongo Lewi]

@bkbrno That's a plausible explanation of what went wrong.

I don't deny the existence of the squib. It just that the number of gun owners who have actually seen one is equal to the percentage of the population who have a pet octopus. The rest have only heard about it and repeat what they hear. My broader observation is warfighter lingo has also crept into the lexicon thru FPS (first person shooter) games and weekend combat playacting in airsoft and paintball.

Some of these wacky guns exploding videos and the self-appointed forensics experts who comment on them would make a funny South Park episode.

 

[bkbrno]

.22LR and squib are two peas in a pod. When a caliber is manufactured and consumed in the billions, statistically it is going to happen. I was on the hunt for a Savage/Stevens/Sprinfield .22. First gun I ever shot. Several I found had a ring in the barrel that was evidence of firing a round after a stuck bullet. It happens more than you think.

My squib round was a reload. I used Lee data, Lee scoop, lead bullet. Lee data was on the conservative side to begin with, powder I had was a slow. Just not enough oomph to clear the barrel. Better data, more suitable powder, better measuring method and no more problems.

I can fly a plane all day at one knot above stall but I can guarantee something is going to go wrong and quickly. Or, I can fly at 1.3x the stall speed and (almost)never have an issue. It might have been Charles Lindbergh or some other aviation pioneer but the advice was to always stay in the middle. Never too high or low. Never too fast or slow. Never too much fuel or too little. And so on. Same with reloads or ammo in general. Life at the extremes is too exciting for me.

Without a high speed video, we will never know what happened to the above revolver. It is my opinion that the gun done blowed up. There is not enough evidence to cite one problem or the other. I'm not a scientist but I failed enough chemistry and math classes to know that you can't use declare a measurement more accurately than the device you are measuring with. If you beaker is graduated in 10ml increments, the stated amount can only be 10-20-30 etc ml. 10.2ml is not valid. Without forensic evidence it is not valid to declare one failure mode over the other. Thus, I declare definitively it done blowed up.

 

[Bongo Lewi]

Life at the extremes is too exciting for me.

I don't find excitement nearly as intoxicating as I once did.

Agree that one should always go wherever the evidence takes you. However, in the absence of data you can always rely on negligence being the cause of a failure. What specific negligence caused something to happen is simply more interesting to the observer. It doesn't change anything because the careless tend to be repeat offenders.

 

[Bobster]

Instead of HUMBUG cards, I may send this

Speaking of squibs, I found the bigger bullet on the ground at the range last time I was there. You can see the dimple from the push rod and faint rifling on it. I didn't weigh it on a scale but it "feels" like 230gr .45ACP ball... Ruler is in 1/20".
The other one IS 9mm, 115gr that I wiggled out by hand from a Federal Alum. case round. My buddy was having problems with them in his new Ruger SP101 with moon clips.