Gas checks and barrel bulging...

[bichettereds]

I've read other places on the net that gas checks can cause barrel bulging if they were to come off and get lodged in the barrel, and you unknowingly shoot it out with a round behind it.

Have any of you seen, heard of or experienced this yourself? Kinda has me worried.

[Outpost75]

Have never seen one left in a barrel. Gas pressure would sweep it out.

Even if you placed a gascheck loose in the barrel, compressed column of air ahead o the bullet would blow it out.

[jcren]

Since the check is applying the pressure to the base of the bullet, the bullet would actually have to outrun the check for the check to turn or get stuck. I don't see how.

[codgerville@zianet.com]

Skeeter Skelton had a 44 Special with a ring in the barrel that he said was caused by a Lyman gas check lodged in the barrel, but for the life of me I can't get my head wrapped around that. As has been stated here, the bullet would have to outrun the gas check in order for that to happen.

[Dan Cash]

Skeeter Skelton had a 44 Special with a ring in the barrel that he said was caused by a Lyman gas check lodged in the barrel, but for the life of me I can't get my head wrapped around that. As has been stated here, the bullet would have to outrun the gas check in order for that to happen.

I suspect that Skeeter's gascheck was still attached to a bullet.

[w5pv]

I think that something besides a gas check caused the bulge.Just my 02 cents

[OS OK]

I'd like to read that material you got this from. Either they know something that I 'ought to know'…or they are as 'full of spit as a Christmas Turkey'! Suspect the latter.

OS OK

[Idz]

The only way I see this happening is to seat a bullet in bottleneck cartridge so the check is below the shoulder. Then with enough bad luck the check could come loose and fall into the case. When fired the bullet exits but the check tumbles into the barrel and gets stuck. It would require lots of careless reloading and bad luck to do it.

[codgerville@zianet.com]

Skeeter wrote that in his column for Shooting Times in the late '70s or early '80s. I no longer have a copy of it.

[Outpost75]

Having met Skeeter a couple times, I expect that too much of his Jack Daniels got into the powder and caused a squibb load...

[Geezer in NH]

Skeeter did not want to seem he screwed up IMHO. He wrote great stories some without lots of real. Try NFA stuff he made rumors of.

[Lloyd Smale]

don't understand how it could happen. If that were the case shooting jacketed bullets would be a heck of a lot more risky. id bet old skeeter just didn't want to admit a loading mistake

[jimofaz]

I have not heard of any gas checks coming off in the barrel. S'pose some of the old Lyman non-crimpring checks could come off if seated below the neck of a BN rifle case, but a straight-walled revolver case? Been a looong time, but I HAVE seen first hand a pistol barrel bulge from not driving one of the old half-jacket commercial bullets fast enough to make sure the bloddy jacket did not strip off in the barrel and get left behind. Maybe 5 times more mass left in the barrel for the next shot to deal with, compared to a gas check.

[jhalcott]

Grand dad told me to NEVER use a gas check in a squib 30-06 (cat sneeze) load. He did tell me about a friend who ground a flat nose on military ammo . And blew up a rifle due to a stuck jacket.

[jimofaz]

+1 jhalcott ... Sounds like a really bad idea to have exposed lead on both ends of the condom-type boolits!

[jhalcott]

That's what cramps said. I remember a few guys in a club I was in bought a .375 mold that took a short piece of copper tubing placed in the mold BEFORE the alloy was poured in. I never heard of their efforts with that. I know one of them had a 38-55. He did say the tubing was a pain to put in.

[jimofaz]

Jhalcott ... Strangely enough I remember that Cu tubing jacket/boolit mold combo. The tubing cutter provided quite a roll-over on one end jacket and this was supposed to be placed into the mold cavity with this roll-over end pointing forward to help the jacket stay in place. Not liking that this would still have left exposed lead at both ends, just like the neutered FMJ from previous posts. I also once shortly played with a Wilk gas check mold. Had to punch the centers out of the gas checks, keep them on a 500 degree hot plate, tweezer them into the machined-out rings in the mold, all the while trying to keep everything in place whist the mold was closed for the next pour before it cooled past the point on making a decent casting. Nice idea on the whole, but it was a major PIA for my clumsy mitts to maintain. There was a fixture for punching out the centers of the gas check, but one still had to be careful to keep the center concentric with the OD. After all that, they ended up not shooting all that well on paper, compared to 'normal' cast. I met Mr. Wilk at the IHMSA National Championships at the then-Black Canyon range in Phoenix back in 1983, IIRC. Nice fella.

[flyingrhino]

Think about this for one second....if a lead bullet or a jacketed bullet being pushed down the barrel doesn't hurt it how does anyone say, with a straight face, that a little piece of copper that can be deformed by pinching with your thumb and finger is going to damage a barrel? Too many experts on the internet. Good thing the internet wasn't around 100 years ago. We'd never have the advancements in firearms and ammo that we have today.

[Lloyd Smale]

I could possible see a jacket sticking in a bore and the next bullet shot threw the stuck jacket spiking pressure. But I can see how a gas check that has such a small amount of bearing surface no matter what position its in and only weighting a few grains do anything to the pressure of the round being fired. I would guess that if it were even possible to leave one behind in the barrel the air pressure created in front of a bullet coming down the barrel would blow it out. Its possible the stuck jacket thing is what started this urban legend.