A polymer ammo failure

I've been trying out some polymer ammo in Kahrs.

I ran 20 rounds of Inceptor ARX ammo through my CT380. Fed and fired as it should and seemed to be accurate to point of aim at six yards. My CT380 cycles Lehigh Xtreme Defense fine so that will remain my carry ammo but I did like the ARX.

Next I bought some Novx ARX 65 grain standard pressure high velocity 9mm. I ran 75 rounds through my CM9 and P9. Very clean, very little felt recoil, and very accurate to point of aim. This ammo seems great except that I had one malfunction with the P9. The slide did not return fully to battery and it looked to me like a round was jammed trying to eject. I dropped the mag and locked the slide back and out of the gun fell an un-fired round with a bullet that somehow broke in half while being chambered. There is no primer strike on the casing and I didn't find the piece of the bullet that broke off. This has absolutely shaken my confidence in polymer ammo. I tried contacting Novx twice via their website but never received a reply.

https://i.imgur.com/gugwlMf.jpg

That doesn’t look good for the reputation of the ammo.

I have avoided that stuff.

If it was only 1 round that did that I would not have a worry. I’ve used a bunch of different ammo’s over the years and all have had 1 here and there that would fail in one way or another. If you run more and that happens again I would definitely hang up that ammo. But you might run 1k more with no issues. Just my opinion. Also, I have not ran any of that stuff, so I really have no experience with that particular ammo, making my opinion even less valuable than usual!
BTW, Sometime’s it’s the gun, not the ammo! I forget which gun, but I had a bad mag once that did not want to hold the rounds (too wide at the feed lips), so when the slide went back it would try to eject rounds, causing unspent rounds to eject or get jammed between the breech face and the barrel hood. It may actually have been one of my earlier Kahrs.

The separation of the bullet probably happened when you were loading the magazine, not while being chambered. I was loading some 9mm CCI shot shells, into my magazine by hand and the plastic shot cup broke off the shell when I pushed the shell down. I was able to retrieve the shot cup and all the shot by turning the mag over and shaking it. The powder and the bottom of the plastic cup remained in the brass shell case. It then looked just like your picture. Now I only load these shot shells with a Magula loader which prevents breakage. The missing part of your bullet is likely to be on the ground or floor where you loaded that round into your magazine..

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Originally Posted by Ikeo74

The separation of the bullet probably happened when you were loading the magazine, not while being chambered. I was loading some 9mm CCI shot shells, into my magazine by hand and the plastic shot cup broke off the shell when I pushed the shell down. I was able to retrieve the shot cup and all the shot by turning the mag over and shaking it. The powder and the bottom of the plastic cup remained in the brass shell case. It then looked just like your picture. Now I only load these shot shells with a Magula loader which prevents breakage. The missing part of your bullet is likely to be on the ground or floor where you loaded that round into your magazine..

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Could be - that makes more sense than chambering.

I sure didn’t notice it while I was loading the magazine. Maybe it cracked and I didn’t see it and recoil from rounds fired before it caused the complete separation.

That is also a possibility if it was cracked, it might have been ejected out when the round before it was being ejected it went out at the same time leaving the bottom part of the shell ready to load without the front of the bullet on it. In that case the missing part would be close to where your empties landed. In either case a mechanical loader will prevent it from happening again.

All I can say is I’ve cycled literally thousands of Ruger ARX rounds through my Kahr CW 380s. I get them in bulk from Ventura. It’s my carry and range ammo. And I’ve never seen anything like that. It’s not good.

Just to follow up:

I fired another 50 rounds that I had previously bought with no issues.

I was able to get in contact with Novx and they were very surprised by the photo I sent them. They sent me 100 rounds to help regain my confidence.