Grex granules and jammed magazines

[Snowman366]

We're all familiar with the little white powder-like plastic granules that are loaded into a lot of shotgun ammo. Not sure what the proper name for it is, but I've always heard it referred to as "grex". I'm sure that you've picked up a shotgun shell now and then and noticed the grex was sifting or leaking out of the crimp at the mouth of the shotshell. I just wanted to alert you that you might want to be careful about grex-leaking shotshells, and avoid loading them into the tubular magazine of your shotgun.

I was talking with my department's armorer and he told me that leaking grex can sift into the shell stop-release mechanism at the "mouth" of the shotgun's tubular magazine and, over time, build up a sufficient amount to jam the feeding of the weapon. This requires disassembling the shotgun and toothbrushing and air-hosing the debris out of the mechanism.

All shotguns need routine maintenance, of course, but grex sifting into the stop-release mechanism of the magazine is the most frequent problem encountered in the otherwise trouble-free pump-guns we have, and I expect we have close to a thousand of the beasties in service. It's a good idea to visually inspect the ammo we use, and I'm sure nearly all of us do. I just wasn't aware that those grex granules could ever be a problem.

 

[nitesite]

Another awesome thread Keith. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

 

[MikeD]

Good info. I was unaware of such problems.

 

[3skulls]

Do you have a photo of what it looks like? Or will I know it when I see it?
Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Snowman366]

Do you have a photo of what it looks like? Or will I know it when I see it?

You'll know it when it happens. The mechanism ejects the spent shotshell, but doesn't pick up the next fresh round from the magazine...because the feed-stop is jammed, and won't allow any rounds to pop out of the magazine into the shell lifter.

The flurry of trouble we had with leaking grex was when we were using Remington buckshot. We're back to using Federal buckshot now, plus a memo was sent out to all personnel that stressed visual inspection of every round.

 

[LTB45]

I do not shoot a lot of Buckshot and have never seen any Grex or Desiccant, as we call it in the aerospace industry mixed in with ammo. I shoot mostly my reloads at targets but my hunting loads are store bought.
Thanks for the info, I will keep my eyes open for it.

 

[Snowman366]

I gotta confess that I don't know if they use the grex type material in hunting loads. (?) The ammo we were dealing with was 00-buckshot.

 

[nitesite]

Remington and Federal are well-known for putting buffer material (granulated plastic or "grex") into most (if not all) their high brass field and waterfowl loads that contain lead shot. I believe that it is in all the Remington Express and Federal Premium buckshot. I have never seen buffer granules in a low-brass shell. Winchester also uses it in a lot of their high-brass ammo.

I don't think I've ever seen buffer material is a single foreign made buckshot load and very, very few hunting loads. It seems to be a mostly present only in premium American manufactured shotgun ammo for hunting and self-defense.