Ok so I bought 2 preban glock 22 used 15rd magazines for $75 a piece before the ban ended. I also bought new springs for them. This is my chamber load night stand self defence weapon, and I unload and load a round in it every now and then.
I pulled out the magazine the other day and ejected the chambered round and I had to look at it close. It has some pretty scary looking scratchs on it. I think it’s coming from the magazine metal lips on the glock mags.
Should I be worried about these scratches? I almost thought they were cracks in the case
I’m thinking about trying to smooth those lips with a file or something.
Anyone else have this problem? Am I too paronide? I can post pics later today.
As demi said, it’s nothing to worry about. All sorts of things can cause your cases to get scratched and at this point you don’t have any information suggesting it’s being caused by something bad. It’s even possible the case was scratched before you put the round in the gun and you simply hadn’t noticed.
Something to thing about also. If you continuously load/ unload the same round in the weapon you will start to observe wear on the rim of the cartridge. It is highly recommended that you rotate the rounds around otherwise you can expect a failure to extract as the rim will be worn and the extractor will not grab it.
I also have a G22 in addition to others and it happens. No big deal. Whatever you do, do not start filing the lips on your magazines.
And bullet setback. The G22 isn’t nearly as bad as a 1911. But with a high pressure round like the 40 smith, a little bullet setback from repeated chambering of the same round can be dangerous.
Some people never chamber a round more than once. I’ll give a round two or three chamberings before I rotate it out.
This has happened to me in the past. Like demigod said it is normal and shouldn’t compromise the case strengh. But for piece of mind I always dehorn my mags, feedlips (I dont reload yet but I save all my brass), aswell as the outside of the mags, as Ihave been cut several times. I use a finger nail buffing block that has 4 sides to it. My wife gets them from the dollar store. They are somewhere around 1200 grit. They work awesome for polishing feed ramps too. :eek:
ETA: I use them because a file is far to harsh and you can remove too much material.
Although the .40 isn’t really a “high pressure” round (SAAMI specs for the .40 and a standard, non-+P 9mm are both 35,000 CUP), I agree that bullet setback is a concern in any caliber.
Major ammo manufacturers recommend not chambering a round more than three times due to bullet setback and much higher chamber pressures as a result.
Since you really shouldn’t chamber a round more than three times, I wouldn’t worry about the scratches.
You have to understand that it has to do with ammunition accountability. All ammo is issued out on a hand receipt. Ammo is then tracked by Lot#s and quantity. If you told Sgt. Schmuckatelli that you ditched a round because it had been chambered xxx amount of times he would look at you like you are crazy. Especially if he was an admin/ bean counter.
I know for a fact in the Preventative Maintenance comic book that is put out specifically mentioned the loading/ unloading of weapons and the whole round thing. Here is a question and answer that was posted;
Is it normal for the round’s primer to be dented when the round is chambered?
The dent is about .007 inch deep, which isn’t deep enough to set off the round.
You can charge and chamber a round five times before you risk a deadened round that won’t fire.
It is a good idea when you’re in a combat situation like Iraq to rotate a chambered round to the bottom of the magazine when you clean your weapon and the magazine each day.
I’ve been accused of being a perfectionist and very anal. But, I wouldn’t worry about the scractches or the feed lips. I don’t know if this has been mentioned but, the scratches are generally worse if it is the top round in a mag that has been loaded to capacity or close to it. The mag spring and feed lips put more pressure on these rounds.
Bullet setback is a very real problem. As others have said, you should be especially careful with 40 cal rounds. Note that a lot of defensive and miltary rounds have sealer around the case/bullet area. Even if you rechamber some of these rounds 10 or 20 times, it won’t set the bullet back. But on some other rounds, you might get bullet setback if you just chamber it one time.
My suggestion is to chamber a few (or more) rounds 5 or 10 times each, and then measure the overall length. This will give you an idea about bullet setback with that ammo in that gun.
If you ever need to mark a round that you want to rotate, you might find it helpful to simply use a magic marker on the base/primer.
For what it’s worth, I (almost) never rechamber a round more than one time. It just makes my life easier because I don’t have to worry about counting higher than 1.
Like demigod said, bullet set back can occur from repeatedly loading and unloading that 1 bullet. I won’t worry about scratches on the shell casing but bear in mind a number of glocks have blown up due to increased pressure from bullet setback.
This is what I do. Worst case scenario- it won’t make any difference. I try to empty and clean each magazine as often as possible and function check them.
Just remember-
What’s the first step in cleaning your gun?
That’s right . . . make sure another gun is loaded.
