Ammo issue and contributing factor

[Texas-Mark]

I will try to give the short version. I have shot several thousand rounds through my R51 without issue. The other day I had a round fail to go into battery by about 1/3" and it jammed up the slide. I could not pull the slide back no matter how hard I tried. I had no choice but to force the slide the rest of the way forward into battery (after I ensured there was not a squib hanging things up), and I was able to fire the round. That was not my ideal solution, but I really had no choice.

After I got the case out, it looked like this. Obviously it had been folded over which caused the failure to go into battery and caused it to get wedged in the chamber. And I'm sure that forcing it the rest of the way just made it worse. I normally do my own reloading, but I was shooting some left over Freedom Munitions ammo that I had. I have shot thousands of rounds of it without issue. But they are reloads, so you never know.

I am not totally sure how this had happened, but speculation was that the case mouth somehow got hung up on the barrel chamber and caused it to start to fold over and my forcing it the rest of the way made it worse. Note how the spot with the arrow looks like it got hung up on something.






At first I did not think that the barrel was the cause as the barrel chamber is beveled. Until I looked a little closer and saw that where the bevel and the feed ramp meet, there is a pretty sharp "point" where the arrow is in this picture (on both sided of the chamber). It is possible that the case mouth may have been a little too flared to begin with, and caught on one of those sharp edges.

I rounded those sharp points just a little bit, and polished it up (bottom part of the picture), and that should prevent this from happening again. It's barely noticeable in the picture, but it no longer has a sharp pointy spot. This was mostly an ammo issue, but the barrel probably contributed to it. So, while this is probably an isolated incident, you may want to take a look at your barrel and see if it has that sharp point where the bevel and feed ramp meet. it does not take much to round it just a bit.

[DanOh]

I think the Gen 1 barrel is a better barrel than the new version.  I like the "wings" on the ramp and Remington must have too to put them on at first. Look in your manual for the R51 and on the last two pages where it tells you how to get service and parts, there is a phone number for those who are wanting "barrels", now ain't that odd?  I'm going to use the Gen 1 barrel as my primary no matter what Remington ships back with the gun after repairs are made to my ungroovy barrel.

[lklawson]

I think the Gen 1 barrel is a better barrel than the new version.  I like the "wings" on the ramp and Remington must have too to put them on at first. Look in your manual for the R51 and on the last two pages where it tells you how to get service and parts, there is a phone number for those who are wanting "barrels", now ain't that odd?  I'm going to use the Gen 1 barrel as my primary no matter what Remington ships back with the gun after repairs are made to my ungroovy barrel.

Two words of caution.

First, the modifications to the barrel design were most likely made to either improve reliability or safety (I'm betting "reliability").

Second, there were many reports of over-pressure signs in fired ammunition for the Gen 1.  Some users performed a plunk test and determined that their examples of the Gen 1 barrel lacked sufficient Leade (or perhaps had no Leade at all).  This means that, for them, the bullet was prematurely engaging the rifling, causing dangerous pressure spikes.

While I did not plunk my Gen 1 barrel, I can say with 100% authority that my spent cases did, in fact, exhibit over-pressure signs; specifically the "pimple with a dimple" raised crater consistent with primer-flow due to over-pressure.  While there can be several reasons for this, one of them would be insufficient chamber Leade.





Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

[DanOh]

Having put over a thousand rounds through my R51 shooting through a barrel with a bore size of .347,  I don't think I'll be too worried about the bullet touching the lands.  Too, it depends of the COL of the bullet they are using, right?

[Texas-Mark]

Two words of caution.

First, the modifications to the barrel design were most likely made to either improve reliability or safety (I'm betting "reliability").

Second, there were many reports of over-pressure signs in fired ammunition for the Gen 1.  Some users performed a plunk test and determined that their examples of the Gen 1 barrel lacked sufficient Leade (or perhaps had no Leade at all).  This means that, for them, the bullet was prematurely engaging the rifling, causing dangerous pressure spikes.

While I did not plunk my Gen 1 barrel, I can say with 100% authority that my spent cases did, in fact, exhibit over-pressure signs; specifically the "pimple with a dimple" raised crater consistent with primer-flow due to over-pressure.  While there can be several reasons for this, one of them would be insufficient chamber Leade.

FWIW, I checked my e-bay gen 1 barrel and the chamber dimensions are identical to my gen 2. I also just checked all of the brass that I shot with the gen 1 barrel and it looks identical to what I have shot with the gen 2 barrel. No signs of over pressure or anything else out of the ordinary.

Note: The original topic of this thread happened with the gen 2 barrel.

[DanOh]

I did the "smoke test" on the Gen 1 barrel after reading iklawson's post about the round touching the lands of the barrel.  Using a dummy round made to a COL of 1.169, I placed the round in the chamber and closed the slide with the slide release lever.  I ejected the round and there was no evidence that the bullet touched the lands.  So I can't see how a pluck test would say any different or be as good as the smoke test would indicate. Using a telescopic gauge I measured the bore diameter at three points of the chamber and found the chamber to be of adequate diameter.  At the point closest to the lands (rifling) the diameter was measured to be .380.  I also did a pluck test with the same dummy round and it seated fully into the chamber and fell out when I inverted the barrel.  The Gen 1 barrel is safe to use and meets parameters found to be acceptable in 9mm chambers.  If anyone knows of any evidence of problems with these barrels, I'd like to read about it.  Was there anything posted anywhere about this problem?

[1911SHOOTER]

I did the "smoke test" on the Gen 1 barrel after reading iklawson's post about the round touching the lands of the barrel.  Using a dummy round made to a COL of 1.169, I placed the round in the chamber and closed the slide with the slide release lever.  I ejected the round and there was no evidence that the bullet touched the lands.  So I can't see how a pluck test would say any different or be as good as the smoke test would indicate. Using a telescopic gauge I measured the bore diameter at three points of the chamber and found the chamber to be of adequate diameter.  At the point closest to the lands (rifling) the diameter was measured to be .380.  I also did a pluck test with the same dummy round and it seated fully into the chamber and fell out when I inverted the barrel.  The Gen 1 barrel is safe to use and meets parameters found to be acceptable in 9mm chambers.  If anyone knows of any evidence of problems with these barrels, I'd like to read about it.  Was there anything posted anywhere about this problem?

DanOh,
     I think that Texas-Mark and Kirk just addressed this problem above.  Unless I am wrong.
Blackie

[DanOh]

Yeah, I saw TM's post and checked the brass from my last range visit when I shot the R51 with the Gen 1 barrel.  All looked good with no overpressure indication. However, you can't tell by looking at the spent primers to determine if the bullet is touching the lands.