Well, based largely on conversations I've had here, I disobeyed my own long standing rule about ammo in automatics. Many hundreds of thousands of years ago when I got my first semi auto pistol that I actually bought with my own money ( Russian Makarov .380 ) I made the mistake of buying a box of factory reloaded ammo, trying to save some money. First mag I got a squib and ended up back at the store very pissed off. They got the bullet out of my barrel and gave me a box of regular, non reloaded, ammo. I swore to never use it or any cheap crap in an auto. Fast forward to about a year ago when someone ( I forget who) gave me a couple boxes of this ( 9mm) Silver Bear cheap ass Russian steel crap in some weird weight. Like 145 gr, I inquired about here and was told that many people here had used it with no problem. It sat unused in an ammo can for several months. Well a couple weeks ago I managed to talk
@SimonRL out of an HK P30L that he was convinced had been possessed by satan or something. Took it to the range and though, " Eh, what the heck, let's see how this cheap Russian crap shoots". I loaded about 7 rounds in a magazine. First shot went off, second shot, CLICK. Pulled the trigger again, CLICK. Dropped the mag, tried to rack the slide, nothing doing. After about 5 panicked minutes of trying I finally get the slide off and stuck in the chamber is a steel 9mm case who's primer had been beaten by multiple hammer strikes. At that point, in my panicked state, I wasn't sure if this was a live round or an empty case. In my infinite wisdom I had left my range bag at home, as I just intended to function test this new handgun with a box or two. So I have nothing on me or in my truck to pry this god damn casing out of my chamber. Frantically I searched through the range shack with all the targets and stands and what not and found a pair of scissors. Which I used to pry the spent shell casing out of the chamber. Thankfully I did no damage and immediately I put a couple boxes of Blazer Brass 124 through it and it shot very well.
So. No more cheap, crappy ammo or reloads in any of my autos. Life is way too short to shoot BS ammo.