First time occurrence of a problematic jamming

I was at the range today shooting my SR40C, which went without incident for the first 60 or 70 rounds. And then a jam, but unlike any jam I have ever experienced. I was totally unable to move the slide in either direction; it was stuck about 1/4 inch from being fully in battery. I could actually see the side of the cartridge in the small space that was visible. No amount of pulling or pushing would move the slide. I stuck a screwdriver into the small opening, pressing down on the visible cartridge and then was able to clear the round. I fired another 60 rounds or so without a problem, and then stopped due to having used up all the 40S&W ammo that I had with me.

Pretty disconcerting. I was shooting Winchester white box ammo, which has never before given me any problem. I wonder if anyone else out there ever had this type malfunction with this pistol.

I had a round in some WWB 9mm where the case had a dent/wrinkle in it. I found it as I was loading the magazine, so I never tried to chamber it, but I'm betting it would jam up similar to how you described it.

Sounds like an ammunition problem considering that you fired another 60 rounds trouble free. Make sure that your chamber is clean. Did you by chance keep the round that caused the lock up? If so mic it and compare it to other spent cases. You may find what caused the problem even though you can't see it with your naked eyes. Keep us posted.

Good idea about examining the round. I should have thought of that when this all occurred, but when I got it out of the gun I just put it into the box for defective rounds/duds at the range. When I used the screwdriver to press the round down I may have also damaged it so I'm not sure how much I would have seen anyway. I plan to go to the range again soon and see how the gun operates after I cleaned and lubed it thoroughly. If it works okay the next range visit then it will regain my confidence in using this as a self defense weapon.

Back during WWII and up until the late '90's there existed a contractual requirement for ammunition manufacturers who sold to the military (and the same practice was and is used for commercial sales), to institute a destructive inspection system per Mil-Std-105. This std specified the number of rounds per 'lot' (sample size) that would have to be fired to establish the acceptability of the lot as a whole. Typically this called for an "AQL" (Acceptable Quality Level ) of 2.5% maximum defective (based on the sample, which would be assumed to accurately represent the lot). The sample size is quite small relative to the lot size in these types of Acceptance Sampling plans. For example a lot size of 10,000 would have a sample size of 315 and would be acceptable if 14 or fewer failed. The problem with this is that the end user risk of defective ammo could be considerably higher if the production process was not tightly controlled from beginning to end, due to the inherent error of sampling procedures. A rejected lot would often be re-sampled until a acceptable result was achieved. Called cheating.

This practice essentially continues today, although process controls have greatly improved, and is not restricted to ammunition, ISO and ANSI standards notwithstanding.

Just something to be aware of.

The risk of defective ammo, plus the inherent risk of mechanical failure is what often brings me back to reliance on a revolver rather than a semi-auto pistol. I like the idea of the higher capacity of the semi, as well as the look, feel and ease of concealment, but I doubt that any semi-auto will ever be as consistently reliable to protect my life as a quality revolver. A defective round only requires another pull of the DA trigger. Like most of us on this and other gun forums, the decisions as to what type of gun to carry, what caliber, what brand, etc, etc, continues unabated.

Went back to the range today and fired 100 rounds from my sr40c without any gun malfunction of any kind. The box of Federal was flawless, the box of Winchester (Law Enforcement) was almost flawless, with one dud round (the gun went click and apparently the primer did not firer). My faith in this Ruger is restored.