A rifle question

[River rat]

I know, I know, this is a fishing board but no doubt a couple of you hunt also. My son hunts with a lever action 32 special where you have to shove the shell in the magazine rather than loading them into a clip, after loading and unloading the shells a few times we have noticed that the lead gets pushed back into the shell, I don't know how far but you can no longer see the little knurl marks. Can we kep using these shells or are they dangerous?

[FROGMAN]

Normally the major ammo manufacturer's use a special crimping die to ensure the case mouth is rolled into the cannelure (the knurled portion you refer to) with sufficient force to hold the bullet for use in a tube fed lever action rifle. Personally, unless the bullet is seated so far back as to show a lot of movement, and at this point it would probably recede all the way into the casing, I would not become too concerned. However, you do run the risk of the bullet comming out, and spilling powder all throughout your rifle magazine, and action. Inherent accuracy will be worse with loose bullets, but thats a whole different ballgame, etc. It boils down to, if in doubt, throw em out! Tight Lines

FROGMAN

[Obvious Point of Safety]

Contact a local ammo/shooters shop and see how to dispose of these shells. The garbage can is as bad as tossing them into a fire. Get in touch with the local rifle range and see if there is a gunsmith or a reloder specialist you can talk with. There may be nothing wrong with the shells, or there may be something wrong with the gun. And if you think someone sounds hokey, get a second opinion. Maybe even contact the NRA?

[Ruffnek]

Your question raises a couple of more points: first, this condition (setback) normally occurs when repeated firing of the rifle causes the bullets to be forced deeper in the case mouth due to the fact that the loaded rounds are "stacked" nose to case head in the tubular magazine. The bullets will continue backward a bit with every recoil, until the base of the bullet encounters the powder charge, and then will stop. In some cases, this " compressed" charge can create a dangerous condition. As I would never want to put your son in jeopardy, I would have to inspect the rounds personally before I would advise you to fire them. A quick and easy fix for a competent handloader would be to pull the bullets, and then to reseat them with a well adjusted crimp. This procedure would require a bullet puller and a set of dies for this particular calibre...the later of which may not be particularily common in your area. In the future, try not to fire the rifle repeatadly, as when sighting in, with the magazine full. In most hunting situations, where only a round or two is fired, you should not encounter this setback problem. In short, if you are only talking about a handfull of rounds here, I would most likely dispose of them...the easiest way being to give them to a handloader to dismantle. If you are talking about quite a few rounds, you might consider having the bullets reset. Talk to the guy at the gun counter at your local sporting goods dealer, they usually know who can do the job for you. Good Luck.