Bullet stuck in barrel? wtf?

My stepfather recently bought a .38 revolver, I don’t recall offhand the make and model, but I can find out if needed.

He said he was out shooting a couple of days ago, and the gun made kind of a whistling sound when he fired it, and then he fired it again, and again, instead of a loud report, a whistling/whirring sound that decreased in frequency as the gasses escaped. Apparently there is at least one bullet stuck in the barrel, and he plans to return the gun where he bought it.

Now, this sounds very dangerous to me. I got my first rifle at 8 years old, and I’ve shot just about every kind of gun, but I’ve never had this happen to me or anyone else I know.

General Questions:

  1. How common is this? Is it more common with revolvers? Cheap ammo?

  2. How dangerous was it to shoot the gun a second time with the obstructed barrel? I mean, what are the odds of an explosion in this scenario? Would it be more dangerous if this were not a revolver?

  1. This is extremely rare, and should be very upsetting to all concerned. Factory ammunition should never produce this result, and only the very most sloppily-manufactured weapon would cause this. If he was firing factory ammunition, he’s got a real gripe with the manufacturer. I certainly hope he wasn’t using reloads, though a sloppy reload is the most common cause of this problem. While I trust my own reloads implicitly, I never use anyone else’s reloads. Period. When I reload, I know precisely what quality I’ve got, while with anyone else’s, I’m never quite sure. When reliability is an issue, I stick with factory loads (though many, many people are quite happy in relying on their own reloads for all uses).

  2. Firing a second round with a bullet (or any foreign object, for that matter) lodged in the barrel is dangerous as all hell, and should NEVER be done. A revolver is slightly less likely to come apart in a dangerously energetic manner in this scenario, but is in no way immune from a violent rupture if fired with a bullet lodged in the barrel. That said, most likely, you won’t suffer a blow-out, but those are poor odds on which to risk your health and safety.

Tranquilis is correct.

A common cause of this problem is a round that has little or no powder (the primer alone can drive the bullet into the barrel). Your stepfather needs to assume that all ammunition in the batch he bought is unusable. He should certainly take this up with whoever sold it to him. (They owe him a cleaned and checked pistol and a generous supply of quality ammunition.)

He should probably also resolve to thoroughly investigate the cause of any strange sounds or sensations after pulling a trigger. It’s asking for big trouble to discharge any gun when the barrel is blocked.

Upon further thought, I have a notion that there may be three bullets in that barrel. The first whistling sound may have come when the second of these was discharged and trapped air between itself and the first. The second “whistling/whirring” episode came from the third bullet.

It would be interesting to hear what your stepfather learns when he returns the pistol.

Thanks for the replies. That’s pretty much what I thought regarding the danger involved.

These weren’t reloads, and were either purchased at the same place where he bought the pistol (new), or WalMart, within the last month. He certainly didn’t think the barrel was obstructed or wouldn’t have fired again, but yes I’m sure he’ll resolve to be more careful after this. I’ll print this thread for him, too.

Interesting, Xema. There may indeed be three bullets in there. I’ll report back when we/if we find out.

Another personal anecode. My dad had a…umm… black 9mm pistol (sorry, I’m not a gun person). It had a bullet lodged on two separate occasions.

The first was a factory load, with dad’s friend using it. He realised that the bullet didn’t come out of the barrel, but couldn’t stop his friend in time. The barrel was split, but thankfully only a tiny bit and the housing for all of the force.

The second time was when he forgot to put powder in the shells during reloading. He pegged on when the first few bullets flew about 20 feet and fell on the ground. He decided to shoot off the rest of the ammo, and one jammed. Stripped and unjammed it, and fired the rest of the rounds.

It’s almost impossible that the problem is with the revolver, so why would your stepfather be planning to return it where he bought it? If it were I who sold it to him I wouldn’t be planning on giving him a refund. On the ammo if defective, sure, but not on the revolver.

I’ll guess four bullets lodged in the barrel. He said he was out shooting a couple of days ago, and the gun made kind of a whistling sound when he fired it, and then he fired it again, and again, instead of a loud report, a whistling/whirring sound that decreased in frequency as the gasses escaped.

Eleusis, Have your stepfather take the weapon to a gunsmith, and have him bring along the remaining rounds from the box of ammunition he was shooting. Have the gunsmith pull the bullets from some of the remaining rounds, and weight the charges. This should give a good idea if the rounds were correctly manufactured. It’s very, very rare for a factory round to be under-charged, but despite tremendous quality controls, it can happen.

Is it possible the wrong size ammo would fit in the chamber and fire. I’m thinking maybe 9mm would fit well enough to strike the primer at least. Never tried this though, and don’t think I will anytime soon. Anyone more familiar with bullet sizes think this could happen?

Your father is extremely lucky. Getting a squibb load means stop shooting NOW! If you ever fire a round that doesn’t sound right then stop and find out what the problem is. Had things been a little different he could have experienced a blown up gun. Squibb loads are not uncommon in some forms of action shooting where extremely light loads are used. The shooter may be going so fast that he doesn’t notice the difference in sound. On more than one occasion I’ve had to scream for a shooter to stop when I hear a squibb when working as safety officer. I’ve seen some safety officers grab the cylinder of the gun to keep the shooter from firing the next round. I’ve seen a few guns blown up so I won’t do this. I like my fingers too much.

I am going to guess two bullets. One fired causing the initially noticed whistle, and a second fired, again causing a noticible whistle. I know nothing about guns, I am just commenting on the “again, and again” thing.

You may very well be right, Iteki. Here is what I was basing my guess on: I figured that the first bullet that stuck in the barrel probably made little or no noise. It was the next bullet that made the whistling noise, I think. And then, the revolver was shot again and again. At the very least, I believe there are three bullets in there, but I was just trying to duplicate the scenario in my mind (a chancey thing, I know - first I gotta have a mind!) and compare it to actual events that I have witnessed.

BTW - to answer one of the original questions: this occurs with semi-auto pistols, too. The results can be a little more dramatic with pistols. Depending upon the type of action, the pistol can drive the slide back off the rails (by spreading the slide apart far enough that it won’t stay on the frame) or cause a catastrophic failure of the frame due to explosive gases being forced back into the area behind the chamber. An occurence that I have heard about, but never witnessed, is especially troublesome - the hot gases cause the remaining rounds in the magazine to detonate, turning the pistol into a veritable bomb.

Back to revolvers: I have in my possession a Ruger Blackhawk (a very strong revolver design) in .357 Magnum that was destroyed by a young fellow who came to the range to shoot some reloads that he had just put together. Thankfully, he was trying to develop an accurate load, so he had put the revolver in a vise and just slid the trigger finger of his right hand into the trigger guard and squeezed the trigger. At the first shot, the cylinder disintegrated, showering the top of his right hand with flame and metal bits. No other rounds in the cylinder fired, and the barrel did not split. Luckily, he was the only shooter on that section of the range, and no one else was involved. I did an assessment of the causes of this incident and finally concluded (after much questioning and assurances that he was still a good person, in spite of the fact that he made a major mistake) that the guy was using the wrong powder for the data he was following. I firmly explained to him that if you are using powder X reloading data, you cannot subsitute powder Y for your reloading. He thought (innocently, I think) that if he ran out of one powder, he could just use another kind with the same quantities! Anyway, the point of this is that the pressures caused by the wrong load could also be present when the barrel of a revolver is restricted. This is especially true when shooting lead bullets, because the lead bullet will “upset” or obturate to fill the grooves in the barrel more than would occur with a jacketed bullet.

Ah, the joys of shooting…

I think I’ve read here (www.hkpro.com) that one of the tests conducted on guns to deem them safe for use, is exactly this. They fire a round while another bullet is stuck inside the barrel. The gun in any case is a write-off, but it shouldn’t explode in the user’s face!

Well, he got the pistol back today. There was only one bullet stuck in the barrel. Apparently, he fired once and heard the whistling noise. He fired again and it shot normally, apparently forcing out the first lodged bullet. He fired a third time and another bullet got stuck.

The ammo was given to him free with the gun purchase, and was manufactured in the Check Republic. Therein lies the problem. He returned what was left of the ammo and they gave him Winchester bullets in replacement.

The gun store said they won’t carry the cheapo ammo any more after this.