How to inspect your duty ammunition

When you get issued a new box of duty ammunition at the completion of training, take the time to inspect the cartridges before you put them in your magazines and weapon.

Remove the tray from the box, and look at the base of the cartridges from a couple of different angles to see if you detect any anomalies, like a high, missing or backwards primer. These major flaws are easier to pick up when you’re comparing all of them to each other at the same time.  

Once you’re done, put the tray back in the box, flip the box upside down, place the box on a table and carefully slide the tray back out of the box.

Gently lift the tray off the cartridges, to leave them standing in formation on the table. Now, you can perform the same inspection on the other end, looking for things like a creased case rim, a bullet that’s not seated properly, or a damaged or missing hollow point cavity. Once again, these defects should be more noticeable as your eyes scan the entire group.  

As you pick up each individual round, give it another look and let your fingers feel for defects, like a rough edge on a case rim or a dent in a case. Give the cartridge a shake to ensure you’ve got a dry powder charge in there (if you’re really motivated, you can weigh each round to check for consistency, to ensure the powder charge is appropriate).

Lastly, remove your barrel from your pistol, and test to ensure that each individual round will properly fit in the chamber.

Dump the round out into your hand and set it aside for loading in the magazine.

It sounds like a lot to do, but the process only takes a few minutes, and it’s cheap insurance. As good as the ammo companies are at making quality products, there are still defective cartridges that sneak through, and you don’t want to discover one the hard way when it counts.