Posted: 12/21/2010 4:31:37 AM EDT
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We always get questions on this board, so here is the problem, and the solution, for one situation that happened to me. I was shooting the Pearlington match sunday, slow as blue mud, but having fun, when my XD jammed solid in the middle of a stage. A live round was almost, but not quite, fully chambered. The striker went "click", the slide was frozen in place, and there I was with a dead gun and a live round. We beat on it and cussed it, and eventually got it open. I broke it down, and the gun was filthy, but that gun is always filthy, so I just lubed it up and went to the next stage - and of course, it locked up again!. I got home, scrubbed the hell out of it, grabbed some rounds and went to Gun-Ho (great range!). shot about 50 rounds, no sweat, then - "click"! Dangit....
long story short, about 2.5% of my rounds had not been resized properly. The easy way to check your rounds is this; strip your gun down, hold the barrel chamber up (JUST the barrel), and drop a round into the chamber. If it fits OK and slides back out with no problem, the round is good. If it sticks, doesn't go in all the way, and won't fall out when you turn the barrel over, it isn't resized properly. If you shove it into the chamber, and you can't pull it out with one thumbnail, that round will probably jam your gear and ruin your match. It may sound tedious, but I checked 600 rounds during one episode of Burn Notice, and found 15 bad rounds and one which might have cycled, or maybe not. I'll be checking all my rounds like this from here out. If nothing else, I will strip my gun down more often, so I might actually clean the dang thing on occasion... 
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Do yourself a favor and buy one:
http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=27424/Product/4_CALIBER_CARTRIDGE_CHECKER 
Lyman make a really nice one for rifles and pistols: http://www.lymanproducts.com/lyman/case-prep/rifle-headspace-gauges.php 
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