At the range, minding my own business. Old guy shows up and asks if I'm "There for the .45 Win. Mag.?" Excuse me? Turns out this guy bought an AMT .45 Win. Mag. pistol, was having problems with it, and was supposed to meet the guy he bought it from at the range. Now, if he bought the gun from the guy you would think he would recognize that I'm not that guy. But being helpful, I ask "whats the problem?". Guy says that the gun will fire the first round just fine but subsequent rounds do not allow the slide to completely return to battery. Automatically, I think "Ammo problem. Cases aren't sized fully/correctly. Examine case to confirm". I ask the guy if he has any of the ammo with him. Sure does...Hunting Shack ammo. (HSM in the orange box....what we diplomatically call 'blasting ammo'..it goes bang [usually] when you pull the trigger. That's about the nicest thing you can say about it.) Is this the ammo that's been giving you problems? Yes. Have you tried any other ammo? No. Do you have any other ammo? I have some Winchester ammo. Ok, I sez, I'll bet that if you try this with the Winchester ammo you'll find it functions just fine. Try it with the other ammo and if that still doesnt solve the problem then you know the problem is probably with the gun. "You wanna try it?", he asks me. Ok, sure.
I take five rounds and load the magazine. Step to the firing line. Load mag, rack slide, pull trigger, boom, eject, slide fails to close completely. I heel-tap the back of the slide into battery, fire again. Next round double feeds. I lock the slide open, pull the mag, shake out the round in the chamber and replace it in the magazine. Grab the slide, pull it back and release and *boom*. Gun goes off. Now, my finger was nowhere near the trigger when this thing went off. Bullet impacted the ground about five feet in front of me. (Because we always, always, always keep the muzzle in a safe direction NO MATTTER WHAT.) Now I'm curious.I dump the mag, lock the slide back, and examine things closely. Amazingly, the firing pin is protruding from the bolt face with the slide locked back. I poke my finger in there and push on the exposed firing pin...no travel, the thing is frozen in place. Somehow the firing pin locked in the forward position and when I dropped the slide the gun slam-fired the next round. Unbelievable. I have read of such things happening but never experienced it myself, and I've shot more guns than most people ever will. I gave the guy back his gun, pointed out the firing pin issue, and said "Do not load this gun. It *will* go off if you load it. Find the instructions and disassemble the slide and see why the firing pin is locked up in the forward position."