A US Army Major described one to me. He saw the tip of the projectile just past flush the end of the muzzle. The tube was disconnected and carried by chopper out to sea. This was in Viet Nam. May have been a 105mm howitzer. At school we were warned about this, and told of restrictions on using certain lowest increment charges. Cant recall any other details. Occasionally we'd have bad propellant burn and the round would fall way short. The one case I actually witnessed the swab water had no anti freeze in it. The air temps was just little above zero so apparently the water congealed in the chamber rather than evaporating. A few grams may have been enough to drop 3000 meters from the range. I'd imagine if the burn had been bad enough the round might have stopped in the tube. ; O In another incident I discovered the fabric on the powder bags was rotten & breaking. In theory enough grains could have been spilled from a single first increment charge to cause a sticker. I have seen many photos of 'inbore' explosions. Thats a lot more spectacular. Anyway I'll check the fragments of the safety reg. I have here & see if there is anything else of interest on this.

I was almost beginning to think it was an "Artillery Myth" as none of the guys I work with have ever had one!!!! Yet we occasionally go to great lengths to induce one just to check the procedures for dealing with one should it happen.

Ok, how does one go about inducing such a thing?

Easy ;) Cut down the charge and use a custom projectile with slightly oversized driving band. N-LOS C and its predecessor Crusader did not have a the capability to vent the chamber however as the nice folks from the Modular Charge Program have "Promised" that a sticker when firing Zone 1 is "impossible" and as such the requirement to deal with is not required.

"Promised" that a sticker when firing Zone 1 is "impossible" Moisture in the propellant, damaged propellant. Did I mention improper ram of projectile, leading to gas venting past the band...? My fragmented library has nothing on this. There will be literature on it somewhere at Ft Sill. I'd expect the US Navy has documents on the problem too.

Hey, am I getting paid for this? Or is it just return on all that training Uncle Sugar paid for in the previous century? ; ) A cup of coffe would be nice.

AR 385-63 has nothing on "stickers", with reference to misfire and other issues. The weapon TM seems the place to go. Can't imagine how it's handled as I've never seen it. Primer malfunctions/misfires, yeah. AE, what do you guys do after inducing one of these? Has set-back/spin armed the fuze? Call EOD and take a smoke break (fifty feet to the rear of all live ammo, mind you)? How is the weapon safely vented and the round removed?

"How is the weapon safely vented and the round removed?" I very vaguely recall from the basic course that the gun mechanics had a way to vent the tube, involving the firing lock. Note that Maj Myers story from 1971 concluded with dropping the tube in the South China sea. On ships that was less of a optio. A three inch calber tube might be doable at sea, but a six or eight inch .... Cannon engineering back in 1910 was not what it is now. The occurance of stickers is much more likely pre 1954

Carl, Sorry cant provide payment for your consultancy ;) Might be able to get you a M777 Coffee Mug and posters though. It would appear that even though the only instance of a sticker you can recall is a story from vietnam you do believe the potential will always exist, and as such the ability to safely deal with is required. S-2, Thankfully when doing a test of this sort we use Inert projectiles. To relieve the pressure on the M777 1 crewman, (Usually the Section Chief) will operate the Primer Feed Mechanism which simply drops the firing mech down from behind the primer and ejects the spent primer, this vents the chamber pressure. The round is then mechanically jacked back into the chamber and removed. The only other option is to allow the weapon to sit for 24 hours and then open the breech.

That was remarkably stupid of me to suggest a real fuze while trying to induce a "sticker". Twenty lashes for me and banishment to a corner of the room far from my keyboard-for five minutes.(;-)