Apparently I had let a round get away with much less than a full charge, or none at all. I noticed it when my AR failed to fire. The usual clearing drills had no effect. Eventually I noticed that the bolt was locked up. I field stripped the rifle but could not budge the bolt carrier group. When I eventually forced it open (unknowingly leaving the bullet stuck in the lands) it ejected the brass who-knows-where. At this point it time, I probably should have called it a day and trouble-shot the rifle at home. What I did do is reassemble it and get back to shooting. I tried two or three times and eventually realized that it was not going into battery (bolt not fully closing on the next round.) All of a sudden, it hit me as to how close I had come to a life-changing event. The underpowered previous round (powered by either the primer alone, or primer plus insufficient powder) had wedged the bullet in the lands. Hence, I had manually pulled the brass off of the bullet. In a moment of Divine intervention, God saved me from myself by not allowing the subsequent round to go into battery. If the previous round had gone just a little bit further down the barrel (less than an inch), and the current round had seated, I would have experienced a catastrophic failure known informally as a kaboom. At the least, the chamber would have instantaneously and violently come apart, and at the worst, it might have taken me with it.
I have decided that from now on, a mandatory quality control check for my handloads will include weighing the completed round. Any that are obviously underweight will be pulled apart for inspection.
