What is the influence of overal length?

[alterfritz]

Hello all,

I would like to ask what is the influence of the overall length of a 9mm cartridge on it's mechanical reliability? Is there a consensus about the "right" length?

The reason I'm asking is that I tried reloaded ammunition purchased at my local range today (I know, I know I should not have done this but I guess I'm the kind of guy who needs to make his own mistakes ). Anyway, compared to my Winchester white box ammunition, the bullets where a bit short, by my guessing about 1 mm, the case were of same size.

While I had no trouble with this combination of magazine and Winchester ammunition, this reloaded one gave me a bad malfunction during the last few rounds. Somehow an unfired round was chambered and the toggle stayed open, could not be closed and it appeared that the next round was in a position that held the toggle open. I wasn't able to pull the magazine out, but somebody else with more pistol experience helped me and got it out, probably simply by using more force than I did. I fired a magazine of Winchester after this with no problems.

So my first question is, are these kinds of malfunctions typical with shorter bullets? And my second one is, can anybody explain to me what went wrong mechanically? I would like to understand what caused this jam.

Sorry if these questions sound noob, I know I should not have tried the reloaded ammunition in the first place, but since it happened, I would like to understand what exactly happened