When I first became interested in handguns, revolvers were in their twilight, but they were still very much the norm. The old guys who mentored me were suspicious of automatics in general, and plastic guns in particular. The root of their skepticism lay in the inherent reliability of revolvers, and the undependability of the auto loaders. As late as the mid-nineties, this fear was not without justification. Manufacturing tolerances tended to be sloppy, both for firearms and ammunition, not to mention the problem of magazines. Moreover, a great many auto loaders of those days (particularly the 1911s), were never designed to cycle anything but ball ammunition, to the extent that it was once common practice to load a single hollow point in the chamber, and ball ammunition in the magazine.
The old rule of thumb (and I don’t remember which old timer passed it on to me), was not to depend on any ammunition as a defensive load, until I had run one hundred rounds through my pistol without a single stoppage. Any time I got new ammunition, I was advised to test it in combination with the gun I planned to carry, even if it was only a different lot number of the same brand.
Times have changed for the better. Modern manufacturing practices and techniques have made high quality, reliable autoloaders affordable. More importantly, ammunition has become far more consistent and reliable. I still test my carry ammunition, more as a rule of old habit than out of expectation of finding a problem.
I try to change out my carry ammunition once a year, even though it will keep much longer. This is an expensive proposition, as I thus need to buy enough quality, hollow point ammunition to run one hundred rounds each through the three handguns I regularly carry, and have enough left over to charge three magazines for each, plus a few rounds to replace the top round of each magazine periodically.* I have, on occasion, been tempted to shortcut the testing phase. In the years I have been doing this, I have never run into an ammunition that would not feed and function reliably… until now.
This year, I decided to go to a 147 +P gr Federal HST. This is a premium ammunition, which performs well in all the ballistic tests I have been able to find. I bought a case and began feeding it to my two Glocks and my Smith and Wesson Shield. The Glocks devoured it with no problems, but the Shield simply does not like this ammo. I experience a failure to feed, such that the shell gets stuck partway up the feed ramp, or it chambers but will not go into battery. This happens about every fifteen to twenty rounds. I gave a box each to two friends of mine, who also run the Shield. Neither experienced a single problem with their guns. I called S&W customer service, and was informed that the Shield is not made to cycle anything heavier that the 124 gr. I thought this was odd, as I did not remember reading anything about this in the manual, so I dug it out, and sure enough, no mention was made of recommended ammunition weight. I called them again, and the second service rep I spoke to explained that they only test with 124 gr., but any SAAMI spec ammunition should work fine. Moreover, he told me he runs the exact Federal 147 gr HST in his personal Shield, and it works fine. He then asked how many rounds I had run through the pistol. At the time I had about two hundred. He recommend a three- to five- hundred round break- in period, followed trying again. Four hundred rounds of ball later, and still the HST does not feed.
This gun feeds ball ammo flawlessly, and did fine with 124 gr Hornady XTP Hollow points.
The moral of the story is this: Some combinations of handgun and ammo simply do not work, even when both are of good quality, with a history of working well together. If you are depending on ammunition to defend yourself and those you love in an emergency, make sure you test it. It turns out those old times are still right about that.
*If a round is chambered and ejected repeatedly, as happens with the top round in the magazine of a carry gun, the bullet will eventually become seated deeper and deeper in the case, which can result in dangerously high pressures when the round is finally fired. It is advisable to replace the top round periodically with a fresh one.
american fyrd 