Weird thing during 38 reloading yesterday

[CapeFearElvis]

I just got back into reloading after some 30-35 years of NOT reloading, and I had a very strange thing happen yesterday. Background: I'm reloading once-fired nickel brass from Remington, brass that I have from recently shooting the old 38s that were in these boxes (see photos). I noticed NO ISSUES when firing this box, but what I found during reloading was very concerning. Oh, and my press is a progressive Dillon RL-550 with Dillon dies; powder/primer/bullet is not relevant to the story.

About 30 rounds into this 50-round run, I place an empty piece of brass at Station1 to deprime/prime the case, but my press is blocked from making a full stroke. I look to see if a case has gotten off-center, but they're all in line. So, I start pulling all of them out, starting with the depriming station. What I see makes no sense to me: In the case that I had just tried to de-prime, it looks like the inside of the case has separated from the shoulder since I can see metal filling the case with a hole in the center (priming hole?) about 1/2" down - kinda looks like the bottom of an empty shell but it's sitting up about halfway from the bottom. I can't pull it out without tools to get into what looks like the primer hole, so I get my inertia puller to dislodge it. Looking at it from the mouth, it looks like the priming hole from the base of the cartridge, but there is nothing visually obvious from the headstamp side of the case that tells me it separated in some way. After about 10 brutal whacks, what falls out of the puller is clearly a lead bullet. Huh?????

Now, remember that I had fired this box of 38s (an old box with old cartridges) a few weeks back. I didn't recall any misfires or squibs. Nothing was out of the ordinary when shooting this box (that I remember), but what I have just discovered was a bullet lodged below the case mouth. I believe that it was likely double seated under another bullet at the Remington factory. Even more bizarre is that the bullet looks like it has rifling grooves on it if you look closely. Even MORE bizarre is that I put this round in a 357mag and fired it with other shots that came AFTER it!!!

At first, the hole in the top of the bullet confused me because the loads were 158g RN lead; so, where did the hole come from? Oh yes, the depriming pin! When I tried to cycle the press, the depriming pin must have punched a hole in the top of this lead bullet (were they hollow??). Yeah, I tried to pull the handle a second time once the first failed, but didn't force it much - never do.

Have any of you ever seen something like this? What are your thoughts? Thanks!

 

[Pogue]

That pretty wild. I whacked a live 22 round pretty hard with a depriming pin (it was stuck upside down in a 5.56 case) but have yet to shoot a bullet in a bullet. 🤣

 

[CapeFearElvis]

That pretty wild. I whacked a live 22 round pretty hard that was stuck upside down in a 5.56 case but have yet to shoot a bullet in a bullet. 🤣

Another possibility is that there was no powder charge (or a light powder charge) in the case but the primer (or light charge) was enough to force the upper projectile out of the barrel??? I don't think that's super-likely with a 6" barrel, but I suppose it's possible..........

 

[keepcalmandcarryon]

Was it a full box of ammo when you fired it? If not I would suspect someone fired some of those rounds, saw a bullet laying on the backstop (it clearly has rifling marks) thought “that’s cool“ stuck it on a fired case then put it back in the box.

 

[CapeFearElvis]

Was it a full box of ammo when you fired it? If not I would suspect someone fired some of those rounds, saw a bullet laying on the backstop (it clearly has rifling marks) thought “that’s cool“ stuck it on a fired case then put it back in the box.

No, it was a full box as were the others I recently fired, and I don't shoot partial boxes - it's all or nothing, even in my boxes of reloads. All of the cartridge heads were of equal height in the styrofoam tray too. These boxes have been in my ammo collection for some time, but I had saved the brass for reloading. For what it's worth, I obtained these boxes from my late father-in-law who never reloaded any pistol or rifle ammo.
Further, when I was at the range with these old boxes, I saved the brass in the old trays to segregate them from newer R-P brass I have. There has been no mixing of old and new brass because of the age differential, and I don't pick up old lead of any sort.
I agree that there are clearly rifling marks on the 158gr slug - this is just VERY WEIRD. It's also weird because it's not easy to get ANY new (or fired) bullet to push back down in a case, even after the case has been fired. I'm just baffled by this find and thankful I didn't bulge a Python barrel, which was the gun I fired these 38s from :-|

 

[NKD]

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Well... we can start with the obvious, which is that there WAS, in fact, a lead bullet inside the case and that it had rifling marks on it.

Therefore it WAS put there by somebody, whether as a factory load or a reload. And that round WAS in the ammo box with other rounds, either from the factory or from someone else who put it there afterwards.


Now...what about your range time, right? I mean, the round apparently fired.

Ever make or use a pop-gun? They work on air compression. Dad made me one when I was a wee lad. It was a brass tube, about 8 inches long, with one end flared. A wooden handled dowel just long enough to run the full length of the tube.

It works by using the dowel rod to firmly pack a wad of wet paper (toilet paper, paper towels, newspaper, spit-wads, etc) down the tube to the non-flared end. Then you pack another wad of wet paper into the flared end, get it started with the dowel rod...then point and slam that dowel rod into the tube.

There'd be a loud "POP" and the air compressed between the two wads would blow the one on the end across the yard.

In my case, at my sister.


I suspect this is what happened here. The round probably had only the primer in it and two bullets with an air gap between them.

When the primer went off, it slammed the bottom bullet outwards, rapidly compressing the air between it and the top bullet.

The top bullet then flew out while the bottom bullet remained in the cartridge. Perhaps with just enough leak-by past the rifled grooves to allow primer gases to equalize on both sides of the bottom bullet and prevent it from leaving the cartridge case.


In any case, consider yourself lucky no harm resulted other than a headache trying to figure this out!

 

[CapeFearElvis]

Well... we can start with the obvious, which is that there WAS, in fact, a lead bullet inside the case and that it had rifling marks on it.

Therefore it WAS put there by somebody, whether as a factory load or a reload. And that round WAS in the ammo box with other rounds, either from the factory or from someone else who put it there afterwards.


Now...what about your range time, right? I mean, the round apparently fired.

Ever make or use a pop-gun? They work on air compression. Dad made me one when I was a wee lad. It was a brass tube, about 8 inches long, with one end flared. A wooden handled dowel just long enough to run the full length of the tube.

It works by using the dowel rod to firmly pack a wad of wet paper (toilet paper, paper towels, newspaper, spit-wads, etc) down the tube to the non-flared end. Then you pack another wad of wet paper into the flared end, get it started with the dowel rod...then point and slam that dowel rod into the tube.

There'd be a loud "POP" and the air compressed between the two wads would blow the one on the end across the yard.

In my case, at my sister.


I suspect this is what happened here. The round probably had only the primer in it and two bullets with an air gap between them.

When the primer went off, it slammed the bottom bullet outwards, rapidly compressing the air between it and the top bullet.

The top bullet then flew out while the bottom bullet remained in the cartridge. Perhaps with just enough leak-by past the rifled grooves to allow primer gases to equalize on both sides of the bottom bullet and prevent it from leaving the cartridge case.


In any case, consider yourself lucky no harm resulted other than a headache trying to figure this out!

Yes, the round did fire. In fact, nothing seemed out of the ordinary as far as power of the load, recoil, muzzle-flash, etc. Ejection of the spent cases was not an issue either. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

I don't think these were reloads; I think they were new (but old) 38 factory loads - I had four or five boxes of them; this was the last box. Yes, that rifling on the slug is the puzzling part: I can't see how that could have gotten into a factory load with rifling on it - it's more plausible that an extra slug seated below the first would NOT have any rifling...

I wish I had taken a photo down the mouth of case before I removed the bullet because the pointed end was at least 3/8" below the mouth edge - WAY down in the case and it really looked, initially, like the primer pocket and inside of the head had sort of peeled away or separated from the bottom of the inside of the case and moved forward. Not until I realized I was dealing with a bullet did I have to get the inertia puller involved.

I've considered some scenarios where the primer might have been able to force the "forward" bullet out due to there being so little space inside the brass, but getting that bullet through the forcing cone and 6" of barrel doesn't seem physically possible to me; maybe it is.

Believe me when I say I consider myself VERY lucky to have escaped this with no damage to me nor to the gun! I doubt I'll figure it out, but it's easily one of the strangest things I've ever run across in nearly 50 years of shooting.

 

[Average Joe]

When you were shooting, did you dump the empty cases in your hands and set them in a container or did you drop them on the ground and pick up after your range season? Wondering if it’s possible you picked up someone else’s case mistaking it for yours.

 

[CapeFearElvis]

When you were shooting, did you dump the empty cases in your hands and set them in a container or did you drop them on the ground and pick up after your range season? Wondering if it’s possible you picked up someone else’s case mistaking it for yours.

I dump them on my towel on the range shelf where I shoot. The shelf at each station/lane is huge too: about 3' deep and some 5' wide. The range lanes are super-wide, too, where I was shooting that day: about 6'-7' between shooters as we're looking downrange if we're standing at the center of the lane.

Once the box was empty, I picked up the spent casings from the towel and loaded them back into the tray that came out of the box, the same tray you can see in the photos above. This is also the ONLY nickel brass I have in 38spl. All of my other 38spl brass is traditional brass - not too many nickel 38 casings out there these days that I've seen.

357 is a different story: I have some 800-1000 357 nickel brass that I use for downloading 357 cartridges to what is effectively a hot 38 load for everyday shooting. I was really just after the nickel brass for future 38 loading with copper-plated bullets for plinking. That's another thing: I don't reload lead bullets. Everything I load for gets a FMJ or copper-plated bullet.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Don't over think this.

That round was loaded by SOMEBODY.

That SOMEBODY used an expended bullet. That SOMEBODY didn't put powder in the casing. That SOMEBODY put another bullet on top of it. That SOMEBODY put that round in that box.

Who did it, where they did it, and why doesn't matter. It got done and you ended up with the puzzle afterwards.

I'm not seeing how this was much of an accident, either...whether at the factory or a private reloader. Too many things obviously wrong.

Just be thankful you have all ten fingers and both eyes to deal with the puzzle.

 

[CapeFearElvis]

Don't over think this.

That round was loaded by SOMEBODY.

That SOMEBODY used an expended bullet. That SOMEBODY didn't put powder in the casing. That SOMEBODY put another bullet on top of it. That SOMEBODY put that round in that box.

Who did it, where they did it, and why doesn't matter. It got done and you ended up with the puzzle afterwards.

I'm not seeing how this was much of an accident, either...whether at the factory or a private reloader. Too many things obviously wrong.

Just be thankful you have all ten fingers and both eyes to deal with the puzzle.

INDEED! I am VERY THANKFUL that this didn't turn out differently!

For what it's worth, for a brief moment, I considered that it could have been a disgruntled employ at Remington, but who knows?

You're right, too many things done WAY wrong for this to be an accident. It really makes me want to reload all of my own ammo moving forward...

 

[georgel]

Getting old is a bitch. 😄