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This weekend I had head seperation on a reloaded .45 round. Mag follower blown all the way down. One remaing round in mag compressed and one grip broken.

After everthing calmed down a bit and it was time to evaluate what happened I opened the action with no trouble and ejected partially ejected exploded round. I had the most trouble with removing the mag well which i would not describe as difficult. It was in a bind and needed a firm constant pull.

Here is the question that falls into the- Don't be dumb area
I have never had this happen to me so i look to some old heads to tell me how much damage this can do to a weapon. I have contacted Kimber and naturall they are willing to look at it. The gun has 2000 rounds fired and it is not going to be in factory tolerances. If I was in Kimbers spot and someone sent me a gun for a safety inspection I probably would toss every part except the frame if it wasn't cracked.

My point is if you were in my position -what is the next logical step. I will rethink the reloading process until I figure what happened.

Your input appreciated

Chickenman wrote:I will rethink the reloading process until I figure what happened.

That would be my first thought.

I'm no reloading expert; heck, I haven't even bought my own reloading equipment yet. That being said, it sounds like the cartridge was the problem, not the pistol. And if you reloaded that cartridge yourself, then the "blame" (for lack of a better word) falls squarely in your lap. It would seem to me that the three obvious possible culprits are either too much powder, an improperly seated bullet, or a previously weakened/damaged case head which somehow passed your inspection. I can't think of any way to determine, in hindsight, if it was the first two possibilities, but you might want to give all of your remaining unfired reloads as well as your unused brass a thorough inspection, including re-measuring the reloads for overall length. In fact, I would be tempted to pull all the bullets, dump the powder, and re-reload them just to be sure.

It is one of the "flaws," if you will, of the 1911 design that the case head is unsupported on the underside when in battery, and a flawed case or improperly loaded cartridge can fail at that point. Sorry about the damage to your pistol.

I've never had a case failure with .45 ACP in 40 years of reloading. (I've had split cases on the ground, but that's not what we're dealing with here.) Sure it can happen, but the pressures are so low with this cartridge that it is rare.

Check the barrel and look for a noticeable ring. If you see it, then you almost certainly had a squib stuck in the barrel. This could cause what you experienced.

Is there any chance this round fired "out of battery?" This means it fired before the slide was fully closed. This too is very rare with 1911s, but it can happen. How long between the last shot successfully fired and the exciting one? I'm asking this only to gauge the likelihood of an out-of-battery ignition.

If the round didn't fire out-of-battery, then I would lean toward an over-charge in the case, but that's purely an educated guess. The type of powder has a big impact on the likelihood of an over-charge causing a case failure. If it wasn't an overcharge or an out-of-battery ignition, then the case may have failed with a normal charge. Again, I've never seen this happen with .45 ACP and I've used brass until all the stamping on the case head is gone!

If Kimber is going to do the inspection under warranty, then I'd probably send it back to the factory. As soon as they hear you were using reloads, I suspect they will decide you need to pick up the tab. Another alternative is to take it to a pistolsmith you trust and have him check it out. Since the action opened easy, my guess is that there is no damage, but I'm a lawyer, not a pistolsmith so don't dare believe me!

Chas.

With only very little data to go on, my guess is either a squib or a double charge. I would be interested to know the bullet and powder charge you were using. The 45acp operates at such low pressures bullet setback does not normally create pressure spike problems.

Unless you are willing to pay a potential large price to Kimber I would not send it back to them. They are probably going to take the position that it was an ammo issue and not a Kimber problem. I would have a well known 1911 smith in your area look at it and give you an opinion on what it would take to get the pistol back to safely operate. Once you have that information then the economics will help you decide if it should be scrapped or repaired. (my bet is there is very little overall damage but this is just an off the wall guess).

Chickenman wrote:One remaing round in mag compressed and one grip broken.

I realize this thread is about pistol damage and that reasons for failure are being addressed in the other thread.

However, this statement indicates to me that you are thinking that the blast somehow compressed the bullet deeper into the remaining round.

I think you will find, since the amount of crimp was in question, that what was happening was that each time the gun fired, the recoil drove the bullets deeper, increasing pressure until something gave.