Ammunition Advisory

Got this in an email and thought I'd share:

*THE FOLLOWING TRAINING ADVISORY WAS FORWARDED FROM GWINETT COUNTY
> POLICE DEPARTMENT - LAWRENCEVILLE, GA* In September of this year a
> GCPD officer was involved in a situation which quickly became a use of
> deadly force incident. When the officer made the decision to use
> deadly force, the chambered round in his duty pistol did not fire.
> Fortunately, the officer used good tactics, remembered his training
> and cleared the malfunction, successfully ending the encounter.
> The misfired round, which had a full firing pin strike, was collected
> and was later sent to the manufacturer for analysis. Their analysis
> showed the
> following: ".the cause of the misfire was determined to be from the
> primer mix being knocked out of the primer when the round was cycled
> through the firearm multiple times". We also sent an additional 2,000
> rounds of the Winchester 9mm duty ammunition to the manufacturer. All
> 2,000 rounds were successfully fired.
> In discussions with the officer, we discovered that since he has small
> children at home, he unloads his duty weapon daily. His routine is to
> eject the chambered round to store the weapon. Prior to returning to
> duty he chambers the top round in his primary magazine, then takes the
> previously ejected round and puts in back in the magazine. Those two
> rounds were repeatedly cycled and had been since duty ammunition was
> issued in February or March of 2011, resulting in as many as 100
> chambering and extracting cycles. This caused an internal failure of
> the primer, not discernible by external inspection.
> This advisory is to inform all sworn personnel that repeated cycling
> of duty rounds is to be avoided. As a reminder, when loading the
> weapon, load from the magazine and do not drop the round directly into
> the chamber. If an officer's only method of safe home storage is to
> unload the weapon, the Firearms Training Unit suggests that you unload
> an entire magazine and rotate those rounds. In addition, you should
> also rotate through all 3 duty magazines, so that all 52 duty rounds
> are cycled, not just a few rounds. A more practical method of home
> storage is probably to use a trigger lock or a locked storage box.
> *FURTHER GUIDANCE:*
> *The primer compound separation is a risk of repeatedly chambering the
> same round. The more common issue is bullet setback, which increases
> the chamber pressures often resulting in more negative effects.*
> *RECOMMENDATION:*
> *In addition to following the guidance provided above of constantly
> rotating duty ammunition that is removed during the
> unloading/reloading of the weapon, training ammunition utilized during
> firearm sustainment and weapon manipulation drills, should also be
> discarded if it has been inserted into the chamber more than twice.
> This practice lessens the likelihood of a failure to fire or more
> catastrophic results.*