Poof!

by Ben Small

What if your protag or perp, in a hurry, picks up some ammo, plugs it into a gun and it goes poof?

Can this happen?

You betcha. I had it happen to me at the range a few weeks ago. There was a cloud of smoke and burning powder, some of which burned my cheek, and then the gun locked up. Yes, the bullet made it out of the barrel and there appeared to be no damage done, but I would not have been able to fire a second shot without clearing the cartridge and risking damage to the gun.

Not all guns and cartridges play well together.

So what went wrong?

Well, it could have been a hand-loaded cartridge, perhaps using the wrong powder or too much of it. Or it could have been a reloaded cartridge, and maybe the case failed. Bullets may look simple, but they are anything but. The standard cartridge is the product of precise development engineering and testing, where various corrosive or non-corrosive primers must be matched with cases matched to specific cylinders, each with dimensions proven through years of experimentation in controlled environments. But that’s just part of a bullet’s development. There’s also choice of powders, some fast burning, some slower. And on top of that, you add a bullet, which requires weight, composition and construction choices. Each manufacturer’s bullet is different, and there are many standard production bullet manufacturers.

And then there are the wildcatters and reloaders, those who make their own bullets. Believe it or not, there are millions of these people, and the market for bullets, cases, primers, powders and loading equipment is enormous. Take a look at Gun Digest, the leading gun magazine, considered by many as the place to look for gun ads. You will find pages of advertising for each of these items.

But that’s just the bullet side of it. You gotta consider the gun, too. Guns can be finicky about the ammo they’ll eat.

What prompted this article was my experience at the range. I was firing a high end pistol, a Sig Sauer X-5 9mm pistol, perhaps the most accurate production pistol currently made. It’s a match grade pistol, which means the fittings are tight. And I was firing Winchester Ranger ammo, again, a high grade of ammo.

Poof.

Now, it could have been a bullet manufacturing error, but if so, I would have expected to have the problem recur. And it did. But only in this gun. My much cheaper Beretta and Glock had no trouble with this box of ammo at all or with Winchester Ranger ammo in general.

A defective gun? Believe it or not, this match grade pistol ate the much cheaper aluminum cased Blazer ammo with nary a hiccup. And it ate all the other non-Winchester Ranger I fed it.

No, the answer in this case – pardon the pun ― was in the mating of the gun and ammo. Ask any gun expert about what ammo works best in any particular gun, and he’ll tell you he can’t know without experimentation. Usually this answer means accuracy will vary depending upon the individual characteristics of the gun, the barrel, its condition, the weather, lubrication, the weight of the bullet and how all these conditions work together.

But sometimes they don’t work at all. And sometimes the mating of ammo to gun can be dangerous. Guns do explode; people can be hurt. Usually, the problem is careless handloading, maybe a defective case, an improperly seated bullet or poor choice of powder…or too much of it. Or maybe the gun was poorly maintained, over lubricated or under lubricated. Maybe there was a bulge in the barrel. The Gun Zone - Springfield M1A
The Gun Zone - Glock



This stuff does happen. Kabooms aren’t common, but they occur. Jams are much more common, especially with semi-automatic firearms. That’s why some people prefer revolvers.

A gun owner who shoots his gun frequently will know what ammo it likes. But someone who picks up a gun or ammo may not have a clue. And some guns are more finicky about ammo than others. For instance, Glocks and Berettas feed on just about any form of standard production ammo. Springfield XDs and XDms seem to like heavier weight bullets. A Sig Sauer .22 LR Mosquito is notorious for having ammo preferences. Shoot modern .30-06 ammo in an M-1 Garand, and you may get a nasty surprise. The military version of .30-06 ammo, the bullets for which this gun was designed, use a slower burning, lower pressure powder.

What to do when the gun jams… A seasoned shooter will know; an amateur probably will not.

Acquiring a Used Sig...

by Ben Small



Your protag or perp may need a gun...fast. Chances are that gun will be used. For those of you who know something about pistols, the name Sig Sauer will hold a special place in your heart and mind. Sig Sauers are legendary: The Sig P210, no longer in production, is widely regarded as the most accurate production pistol ever produced; the Sig P220 is regarded as one of the finest .45 acp pistols all time; same with the P226 in .40 or 9mm, essentially a similar design, and the Sig P228 and P229 are carried by the Secret Service, the FBI and the National Park Service. The Sig X-5 and Sig X-6, match versions of the P226 and the P220 Match series are regarded as the new standards in match pistols, on a par with the legendary P210.

But Sigs aren't cheap. Glock carries a much larger market share because they're cheaper, much cheaper; they're polymer based. But even with plastic pistols, the Sig Pro line and the brand new and revolutionary P250 are not only competitive in price with the Glocks, but also in reliability and in the all important "feel." The P250 is special; one pistol convertible to different calibers, size and grip. Amazing. Nobody else's pistols can brag of that. Sig has opened a new door in pistol design, one to which nobody else is even close.

I've got eight Sigs, and here's why: feel, reliability and accuracy; what shooting is all about.

So your protag or perp needs a pistol, and he needs one quickly. What does he look for? How can he tell if his pistol will fire or if it's only good as a hammer?

Flork (real name Scott Folk), whose article on buying a used pistol I'm quoting below, is a gunsmith with Gray Guns http://www.grayguns.com, perhaps the most respected master Sig gunsmithing operation in the world. Flork is a member of SigForum, as is Bruce Gray, owner of Gray Guns. (You may have seen Bruce on various shooting television programs.) You should check out SigForum; it's perhaps the finest gun forum (not limited to Sigs) on the web. http://Sigforum.com SigForum is ruled by folks who don't tolerate jerks, and many law enforcement, military and gunsmiths are active members. You have a legitimate question? Ask SigForum. There are over forty-five thousand members. You'll get an answer quickly. But don't be snide, and be careful about sarcasm. Sarcasm is tolerated where deserved, but newbies best be careful. I lurked before I posted, and that was wise, lest my involvement and comments be viewed as trolling or unwelcome. Legitimacy is what SigForum is all about, and it's okay to ask stupid questions. Trust me: I do it all the time.

Anyway, I was all set to post about a recent range experience I had and what I learned from it that might be of use to writers, but then tonight I saw Flork's post about what to look for in a used Sig, and I thought Flork's comments the more useful to you.

So with all credit due to Flork and Gray Guns, here is what Flork says you should look for in buying a used Sig. (http://sigforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/430601935/m/3951014551) I thought Scott Folk's (Flork's) comments were spot on.


The first thing to look at is the Frame rails. These will tell you everything that you need to know about how well the gun has been taken care of. The Following is how the colors of the under side of the frame rails will change as your gun wears.

1) Dull Black - No Wear, perfect finish.

2) Shiny Black - Slight wearing in of the pigment in the Anodizing, this is normal after around 200 rounds.

3) Dark Gold/Orange - The Pigment in the Anodizing is starting to wear, this is perfectly normal and not a problem, the metal is still protected and your frame is still perfectly viable. Most guns reach this phase between 2000 and 4000 rounds.

4) Bright Gold - The pigment in the anodizing is wearing in. Your frame is still protected and your gun is still perfectly viable. Most guns reach this phase and remain static from here on out as long as proper lubrication is used.

5)Light Gold - The pigment in your anodizing is wearing through, your frame is still protected, but you should keep an eye on it.

6) Shiny Silver - This is where you need to start to worry. The pigment in the Anodizing is worn through, your frame is still protected, but you need to monitor your frame rails very closely and make sure they remain greased thoroughly for the rest of your gun's life.

7) Dull Silver - You're screwed. Your Anodizing has worn completely through in the areas you see dull anodizing. From here on your frame is unprotected and it's time to buy a new gun. It may still shoot and function perfectly, but your frame rails will continue to wear at a much accelerated rate.

The next thing to look at is the disconnector tab on your trigger bar. That's the part of the trigger bar that sits up highest in the frame. A factory new trigger bar will have a nice radius across the top, a heavily used one will have a flat worn into it. The best way to check and make sure it's still functioning correctly is to pull the slide back by 1/4 of an inch and pull the trigger, if the hammer doesn't try to fall you're ok.

The Next place to look at is the barrel. You will notice the "smileys" on the barrel on the muzzle end. If you run your finger down the barrel and feel a dip, you may want to have the gun looked at by a professional, the slide should not be abrading the barrel enough to remove any metal at all. The presence of a dip in the metal would indicate that your slide has a burr in it.

If you look at the front of the chamber section at the top of the barrel you will see a ledge that steps down just before the tube part of the barrel starts. The ledge there should be at a clear 90 degree angle, any rolling of that sharp corner would indicate a soft barrel or one which hasn't been lubricated properly.

The slide should also be inspected. The slide lock lever detent on the slide should be looked at for burrs or any rounding on the rear or the notch. A burr sticking out can abrade your thumbs if you shoot a thumbs forward grip. A burr on the slide could indicate a slightly soft slide or that the previous shooter kept their thumb on the slide lock lever. A rounded off notch at the back would indicate an improper heat treat of the slide.


And so says Flork, someone whose opinion I can always count on...

Bang

by Ben Small


Many mystery and thriller writers use guns in their stories. Guns are perceived as simple, deadly and hard to track, assuming the murder weapon is not found.

But that’s not always true, just as it’s not always true that ballistics can match the gun to the bullet. And in some cases, DNA might be a bigger threat to the perp than ballistics.

Many writers don’t use the research tools available to provide realism to their character’s gun use. Ignorance or error may cause the writer to overlook what might be a fascinating plot turn, or worse yet, there's an error that turns off the reader. Trial judges usually give juries a form of the following instruction, “If you find that a witness has been untruthful in one part of his or her testimony, you may disregard the testimony in whole or in part.”

Many readers apply the same rule to the books they’re reading.

So let’s discuss some interesting aspects of gun use, some mis-conceptions, and I’ll toss in some research resources where you can learn other tidbits useful in your writing.

First, DNA may be as large a hazard to the gun-toting perp as ballistics. Probably the most famous and best American gun designer to date was John Moses Browning. The famed 1911 pistol was a Browning design, as are most non-striker-fired semi-automatic pistols. A recent enhancement, most notably developed by Ed Brown, a high-end custom gun manufacturer, is the beavertail, a looping attachment at the butt end of a gun that looks like an extended thumb. (See image on right.)
The purpose of the beavertail is to protect the shooter's hand from slide-bite, caused by a meaty hand or a high grip on many semi-automatic pistols. As the trigger is pulled, hot gases from the discharge rocket the slide backward. Anything caught in this movement, like the webbing of the hand between the thumb and first finger, will be torn, leaving the shooter’s DNA on the slide and the perp wearing a bandage. Slide-bite can occur on any most any semi-automatic pistol lacking a beavertail, even on a Glock or Sig Sauer, but it’s most prevalent with guns that follow Browning’s designs more closely, guns like the Browning Hi-Power, still with a high market share, and the famous Sig Sauer P-210, perhaps the most accurate production pistol ever made.

These babies can take some skin.

For this reason, many shooters use shooting gloves, usually possessing nylon webbing where slide-bite may occur and thinner material for the trigger finger, so the shooting finger will still fit within the trigger guard.

But slide-bite isn’t the only DNA risk. If you’ve loaded many semi-auto mags, you no doubt know how sore your loading thumb gets. If you’re not wearing gloves, you’ll not only leave prints on the cartridge casing, you may leave some skin, too. Saavy shooters use auto-loaders for their semi-auto pistols, little plastic devices that fit over the magazine. A bullet is inserted and you push down; the bullet slides into place. Easy on thumbs, but no protection against prints.

The shooter may wear gloves as he’s loading the cartridges, but will he wear them when he’s removing the cartridges from the box? Not doing so will leave at least partial prints and maybe some loose skin tissue on the bottom of the cartridge. Wearing gloves will make cartridge removal awkward, unless the shooter just dumps the box out, in which case a cartridge or two may roll away, perhaps rolling under a couch or chair.

Another hazard exists in racking a semi-auto’s slide. While slide grooves or serrations usually exist front and back, to provide traction with a somewhat difficult slide, racking the slide using the front grooves exposes the meat of the hand to hangfire risk. A hangfire is an accidental discharge caused by something striking the bullet primer hard enough to fire the round. Note, the trigger has not been pulled. Until recently, when Hornaday developed the LeverEvolution bullet, lever guns with tube feed used rounded, soft lead bullets. The guns were loaded in a horizontal position. All this because of hangfire danger, risk that the tip of one bullet might bump the primer of the bullet on top of it. Well, hangfire can occur in semi-automatic pistols, too, which is why experts caution people to only rack the slide using the rear serrations. Needless to say, a semi-automatic pistol hangfire can do serious damage to a hand exposed to an open slide via the front serration pull. The problem is that some guns, especially 1911s, custom guns, and new guns are tight, the slides don’t move easily. Many women and men with small hands have difficulty racking these slides. So they use the front serrations.

That can be an oops the shooter will remember.

Another oops can arise from shooting a revolver the same way one usually shoots a semi-auto. Many semi-auto instructors teach one to use the support hand to point at the target and support the firing hand in anticipating recoil. This positions at least one finger in front of the trigger guard. Do this with a revolver, and you may be missing some fingers, or you’ll at least suffer a bad burn. Why? Because there’s a gap between the cylinder and the barrel, and hot gases explode out of the revolver’s cylinder and leak around the barrel. The preferred support hand positioning for a revolver is below the firing hand, not in front of it. Screw up this rule and your perp will be in a bad way.

And what about ballistics? It’s not foolproof, you know.

First, one must find the bullet. If the perp used a FMJ (full metal jacket) bullet, the traditional ball ammo, the bullet probably passed through the victim and may never be found. If a JHP (jacketed hollow point) bullet was used, it may be a mostly flat blob of metal inside the victim’s body. Some barrel marks may be visible under magnification, but maybe not. If a .223 round was used, the bullet will likely fragment, break up into little pieces. These bullets don’t often pass through windshields or body armor, one of the reasons the M-4 and M-16 rifles aren’t popular with troops.

Did you know replacement barrels are available? Barsto is one company that makes replacement barrels for almost any semi-auto pistol. And gun manufacturers sell replacement barrels, too. Some of these barrels may have to be fitted by a gunsmith, but others are drop-in. It would be easy for a perp to switch gun barrels, kill someone, then replace his old barrel and dispose of the new one. Ballistics might be able to match a strange firing pin profile on the primer, but they’d never match the barrels. Replacement barrels can be ordered by anybody, and some gun shops have them on hand. Nothing to sign, no background check required. Throw that into your ballistics stew and chew on it.

Another company, Otis Technology, has come out with a ceramic barrel liner. Just coat a bunch of bullets, fire them, and whamo, you’ve got new life in an old barrel. And new life in the old barrel probably means a new ballistics pattern, although there may be some carryover. Can ballistics determine if this ceramic coated barrel is from the same gun before the ceramic treatment? Stay tuned. This stuff is too new for anyone to say with certainty. http://www.otisgun.com/cgistore/store.cgi?page=/new/fcatalog.html&setup=1

It’s widely believed that hollow point bullets are rare, that usage of them demonstrates intent to kill. This is just false. In fact, hollow points are considered the standard defense round and the round cops carry in their guns. Why? Because they’re safer to bystanders than ball ammo; they tend to keep the damage limited to the target.

Many people don’t believe the 9mm bullet to be a man-stopper. While proponents complain it’s all about aim, and protest that a 9mm bullet aimed correctly will do the job, most people believe the 9mm bullet is not the preferred man-stopper. In fact, the FBI developed the .40 cal S&W cartridge after a fatal Miami bad guy encounter. The bad guys were pumped full of 9mm bullets, but still managed to keep firing and killing FBI agents.

Many people feel the primary risk associated with a .45 acp round is over-penetration, the likelihood that a round will penetrate walls and strike people even at distance. But tests with ballistic gelatin show that .45 acp bullets, because of their mass, travel at slower speeds than 9mm bullets and penetrate less. Make that bullet a hollow point, and there will likely be no .45 acp over-penetration at all.

I’ve often heard the statement made by experts that mystery writers who claim a gun can be identified by a bullet alone are wrong. And in most cases, that’s a correct statement. But as with most things, this isn’t the full story. In fact, in some cases, the crime investigators and CSI folks can come mighty close.

For instance, short barreled pistols are popular for concealed carry, for obvious reasons. But hollow point bullets shot out of a Baby Glock (G26, G27, G28, G29, G30, G33 and G36) for instance, may not open up. Hollow points need to reach a certain velocity to open upon impact, and the extremely short barrel of some guns prevents the velocity from reaching terminal energy limits of the round. These hollow point bullets may perform like ball ammo. An investigator who sees an unopened hollow point will likely determine it was shot out of a short-barreled gun.

That narrows the field somewhat, but let’s carry this scenario further. What if someone is shooting a .357 round? The .357 round was designed for a revolver; the semi-auto version is the .357 Sig. They’re different bullets. There are very few short barreled revolvers shooting a .357 round; fewer still semi-auto models shooting the .357 Sig round. (A side note is necessary here. If you’re an investigator investigating a .357 indoor shooting, look for someone who’s deaf. Most crimes are spontaneous, and even if not, how many mysteries or thrillers have someone wearing hearing protection? The deafening affect was recently used very successfully as a plot point in Jeff Deaver's latest book The Bodies Left Behind.)

What if the bullet was lead? Well, if you’re thinking Glock, which has the largest gun market share, lead bullets should not be used. Most guns have lands and grooves inside the barrel. These are used to start the bullet spinning, which like a spiral pass in football, makes the bullet more accurate. But Glocks use a proprietary system, different from the typical lands and grooves found in pistols. Read your Glock manual; it says not to use lead bullets. Lead bullets in a Glock, even just one firing, will foul a Glock barrel, affecting accuracy and velocity. Only someone who doesn’t know much about Glocks would fire a lead bullet in one.

Issues like these abound in shooting investigations. If you’re looking for ways to trip up your perp and make your protag more brilliant, knowledge of some of these facts or issues may be of help. In future columns, I may add some more interesting factoids that make your book a little more special.

But you can also research these things yourself. I got interested in guns when my editor excoriated me for a gun safety error I'd made in an early draft of Alibi On Ice. So I researched guns, bought some and found I'd caught the addiction. No, I haven’t shot anybody, and I don’t intend to. But the gun is America’s weapon of choice, and I decided if I was going to write about them, I should learn something about them. And I’ve found some really good resources.

I subscribe to many gun magazines. The three best, I believe, are Combat Handguns, Guns and Ammo, and The American Rifleman, the magazine of the NRA. Additionally, Personal Defense, Guns and Ammo, and The American Rifleman are television programs broadcast weekly. Another good television program is Tactical Impact, where not only are stalking skills taught but also comparative analysis of the positives and negatives associated with various weapons assigned various missions. Interesting and useful stuff.

But by far the best resource I’ve found is the internet. My favorite site is Http://SigForum.com. You’ll find over forty-five thousand members talking guns, not limited to Sig Sauers, and most of the members are military or law enforcement. Ask a question, you’ll get an answer. Or use the search function. This site is extremely well run and is focused on being helpful. Jerks are not tolerated.

Other useful sites are Http://GlockTalk.com, Http://The HighRoad.com, Http://WarRifles.com, Http://AR15.com, and Http://ArizonaShooting.com to name a few.

Bottom line: If your perp used a gun, make sure you know what you’re writing about.