^You're most welcome. You did call it, btw.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
*ouch*

I made that mistake once. Luckily, for me, the only damage was to my ego.

I'd been shooting .40 S&W. My buddy let me try whatever 9mm he was shooting. I used my own 9mm ammo.

Both were WWB.

I went back to my pistol, loaded a mag, chambered, aimed, pulled trigger, it felt a little soft and I completely missed the target. "Eh?"

Went to pull the trigger again. Wouldn't budge. "Eh?"

Slide wasn't in battery. "Eh?"

I'd mistakenly loaded my .40 S&W pistol with 9mm.

Since then there's never been two different caliber rounds on my shooting bench at the same time. Not even center-fire and rim-fire or pistol and rifle.

I still have that bulged 9mm case somewhere around here as a reminder.

Used to happen all the time at our police quals.

We had both 9mm and 40S&W duty handguns. They would dump boxes of ammo to load the magazines

A 9mm would fine it's way into a 40. no big deal.

When we had a lot of FANS in the informal league we run here a 357 Sig would get into a 40. Again not a big deal.

But we did here two Judges blow up at one of my clubs....the "victim" left several pieces there with some blood and left. We guessed a 44 found its way into the chamber?

Right after we installed cameras.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
*ouch*

I made that mistake once. Luckily, for me, the only damage was to my ego.

I'd been shooting .40 S&W. My buddy let me try whatever 9mm he was shooting. I used my own 9mm ammo.

Both were WWB.

I went back to my pistol, loaded a mag, chambered, aimed, pulled trigger, it felt a little soft and I completely missed the target. "Eh?"

Went to pull the trigger again. Wouldn't budge. "Eh?"

Slide wasn't in battery. "Eh?"

I'd mistakenly loaded my .40 S&W pistol with 9mm.

Since then there's never been two different caliber rounds on my shooting bench at the same time. Not even center-fire and rim-fire or pistol and rifle.

I still have that bulged 9mm case somewhere around here as a reminder.

I did something similar. Loaded a .380 in a 9mm. It ignited and put the bullet down range but with far less energy. I knew something was wrong. That combo of a lessor round doesn't usually cause any issues, but it is a wake up.

A friend ran a .44mag through a third gun peacemaker. (My peacemaker)! No damage, I think there was enough room around the .429 slug to prevent a nasty incident. Thank God.

OZ

Today I spoke to the guy who administered first aid and opened the gate for the ambulance. He teaches 4H shooters and speaks of being first aid trained to his boys/girls students, and he was glad he had the training as he used it to help the shooter.

He said it was a rifle chambered in 25-06 and the shooter chambered a 308 in the rifle.

Shooter lost his trigger finger and part of the middle finger and had some scratches to his face. Most of the blast went out the right side of the receiver.

He also said there were four different calibers of ammo on the bench and there were several rifles in the rack next to the bench.

He didn’t know how the shooter was coming along since the incident.

Thanks for the update. It’s always good to learn the details of incidents like this rather than relying on “coulda been” speculation. It’s a good reminder about one of the many firearms safety rules that we should observe: Don’t mix ammunition types where the wrong kind could be chambered by mistake.

quote:

He said it was a rifle chambered in 25-06 and the shooter chambered a 308 in the rifle

Wow, never knew this was possible.

I guess there's a reason I'm never seen in the Rifle Room. I better stick to .223 as my only center-fire rifle, and leave it at that.

Just for my own education, are there other dangerous ammo combos other then the .40/9mm listed in this thread? Is there a list of such?

Firing a 9mm or 357 SIG cartridge in a 40 S&W chamber, or a 40 in a 45 ACP is seldom actually dangerous except to one’s ego. I have heard many such incidents with nothing more than sometimes its being difficult to cycle the slide afterwards. Not recommended, but usually no bad physical results.

A classic that was long warned about was dropping a 20 gauge shell into a 12 gauge chamber, and then attempting to fire a 12 gauge round behind it: spectacular effects. Other ones I’ve heard of are 30-06 Springfield in 270 Winchester, and 300 Blackout in 223/5.56 barrel. Some combinations would require setting the bullet back into the case when chambering a round, but could be managed with enough determination by the shooter.

I know you don't shoot a 12 gauge shotgun round from a plastic flaregun. Very bad.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:

Just for my own education, are there other dangerous ammo combos other then the .40/9mm listed in this thread? Is there a list of such?

300BO will chamber in .223/5.56=kaboom
20ga will chamber and enter the barrel of a 12ga far enough to chamber a real shell = kaboom

https://youtu.be/3t9KJM5_qDk

I’m sure there are more…but those two I’ve seen in real life.

Saw a Chief shoot 7.62 in a M1Garand (30-06) it went downrange but the brass was straight walled after that.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
Just for my own education, are there other dangerous ammo combos other then the .40/9mm listed in this thread?

20 gauge/12 gauge is a notoriously bad mix-up, as mentioned above by sigfreund. Many a 12 gauge shotgun have been blown up over the years by mistakenly dropping a 20 gauge shell into the chamber (and through into the bore), and then when it doesn't fire, racking in a 12 gauge shell from the magazine tube and firing it, detonating both shells at the same time and blowing up the gun.


Note that .40/9mm isn't necessarily dangerous.

A .40 round won't chamber in a 9mm barrel, nor will it feed from a 9mm magazine. So you don't have to worry about issues in that direction if you get them mixed up.

9mm will feed from a .40 magazine, and chamber and fire in a .40 barrel, but doing so will expand the neck of the brass up to .40 diameter, and the firearm won't fully cycle due to the lower pressure.

So it'll cause a malfunction, and your accuracy will be terrible since the .356 projectile isn't wide enough to engage the .40 rifling, but it won't create a dangerous situation like the rifle kaboom in the OP.

Still, it's not something that I'd purposely go out and try, since weird stuff can happen when you start monkeying with high pressures, explosive powders, and out-of-spec tolerances.

And you can avoid even the harmless nuisance malfunctions like that - along with the more dangerous/deadly combos - by simply taking the time to double-check your ammo and match the right caliber to the right gun.