Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Don't rotate your carry ammo!

This from an AAR of GA officer when his handgun failed to fire:http://boloreport.com/officer-safety-ammunition-cycling-and-failure-to-fire
Used to be my SOP too, no longer!

Not a LEO, but the primer pin indent has always made me nervous. I've always used the dimpled round for range fodder and used a new one in the mag.

Ummmm... not getting the point or why of any of this. What happened and why? What did rotating ammo have to do with it? I put fresh stuff in my guns after I fire what is in there after I use it up at a range session. Don't prefer to carry really old stuff for too long so I shoot what is in there and refresh from a new box.

SAf..,

I'm with you. Don't get this either. Unless, what they are calling 'rotating ammo' means just switching the round in the barrel over and over with the rounds in the mag. Still hard to believe that would knock out the priming compound.

In my LE days I shot every day. My carry ammo was never over 30 days old. Cheap insurance.

O

He would admin unload the weapon every night to safely store his unloaded gun in a home with small children. Next day, admin load from the mag and use the extracted round from previous night to top off the mag. repeat this every shift for many months, and the cycling of slide eventually knocked the compound from the inside of the primer, resulting in a 'dud' when he tried to fire the weapon to defend himself.

If you read the warning it says the officer emptied his carry gun every day and did not rotate his first round. Repeated loading of the same round into the chamber caused the primer media to loosen and fall out. You need to rotate the first round so this does not happen if you unload and reload your carry gun every day.

Yep!

Rotate the first round and shoot! My carry ammo may make it a month. That would be due to bad scheduling......

George

A round can be chambered w/o slamming the slide.............just sayin.

Never heard of a case of the primer guts being knocked loose before though, but have seen setback of the bullet in the case from numerous loadings of the same round (by slamming the slide closed by just dropping the slide release).

Obviously, some need more understanding of their weapons & ammo.

MM

Glocks respond well to a gentle touch.

I just don't see this happening and bet the primer was bad from the beginning .

No argument there. I just quoted the response from the factory and their findings.

The FIRST mistake, and a biggie (surprised ya'll did not notice it and comment) was that he UNLOADED his pistol every night! I and my kids were/are around loaded and ready to rock guns of all manner and sizes from toddlerhood on. This guy was/is a LEO? What if a really bad guy had decided to get back at him and his family one evening and all he had was a piss poor black hammer thingy with Glock written on the slide to use in defense of his home and loved ones!?!? Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, IMO.

A lot of LEOs aren't "gun guys". I may not like that fact....but there it is.

I know a lot of the Agencies down south issue (don't hot-seat) cruisers. Personally, if I had a marked cruiser in my drive (I do, though it can't be seen from the road) I would damn sure have my weapon loaded.

George

It is issue ammo and there is no choice in it, you have to carry issue ammo and it only gets refreshed at qualifying time which depending on dept. budget can be from once a year to 4 times a year, we do 4 times a year here fortunately.

But, unloading your weapon each night? That was the point of my second post.

I find it hard to believe that if he fired his issue ammo out of the gun every quailfying day and did not unload the gun each night that he would have had any problem.

In the article it said he felt it necessary as a safety issue with the children in his home. My daughter has a safe and all guns are locked up in it save the home defense shotgun that is in a hidden location near the bed and no round chambered. It gets locked up in the safe when they leave the house.

Me, I keep a couple handy, my carry 9mm and the G19 by the bed, when the kids come over the G19 goes into the safe and the carry 9 stays in the holster on my belt.

I didn't carry my Glock off duty and unloaded it at the end of every shift, topping off the magazine with the round I removed from the chamber. I never knew that something like that (primer compound becoming dislodged) could happen.

We qualified twice a year but, though I never kept track, the longest any one round stayed in the chamber was probably no longer than a couple of months at the most due to things like car/deer accidents where the animal had to be dispatched.

I never noticed any bullet set-back either, though I have noticed that with the PMC aluminum cased ammo in my Gov't Model .45.

I won't keep a round in a defensive handgun that's been rechambered more than two or three times. That's been my policy for as long as I can remember. Always just seemed good sense to me.

Same here. My carry ammo gets shot each time I go to the range, and replaced with fresh.

Inertia from chambering it over and over again gradually loosened it up and worked it out.