reload problem : failure to fire

[Hektor]

When on my trip to the range I loaded about 30 rounds of ammo, mostly with Remington 9 1/2 primers. The brass was all primed with a hand primer and to the best of my
knowledge they were seated uniformly. Most went off without a hitch but three rounds did not. They had the appearance of no powder in the case but when I returned
home and pulled the bullet they all indeed had powder in the case. I never had 3 Remington primers fail before. Is there something I might have done to cause this?
Thanks, John

[musketjon]

Broken firing pin, weak hammer spring. Are the bolt internals clean? Is the bolt going into battery fully? Got 'er lubed properly? Did the primers have a firing pin dimple in them? Sometimes there will be a bad primer but certainly not 3 in the same lot. Have you checked the head space to make sure it's not excessive?
Jon

[melloman]

What did the strike from the firing pin look like? Did the rounds misfire randomly or in sequence? The primers might be seated too deeply. You may have sized the case so it is too short for the chamber. Do you have a case gauge? I would pull the loads apart and try to fire the empty primed cases outside again.

[buzzy]

If you have a cartridge head space gage, check to see if the cases were head spaced to short when you sized them.
I recently found some Lake City cases that were as much as a -.008".
This combined with a long head space on the rifle could allow the round to seat too deeply in the chamber, causing your problem.

[Hektor]

The bolt was thoroughly gone over Saturday and the riflesmith put in a new pin and he checked it carefully. The primers were struck deep enough to ignite and they looked like primers hit with no powder in the case, but there was plenty. This barrel was replaced Saturday and it was totally checked for headspace.I don't believe there was any rifle malfunction.

[buzzy]

There are many things that can cause a primer to fail. Dirt, moisture, oil are three. This is why I am very careful to keep my reloading bench as clean as possible. Is it possible that you may have contaminated the primers or got the rounds wet?

[Hektor]

Hi Buzzy,
That is certainly possible. I too, keep a clean bench, but these primers have been a primer drawer for a while and like I say (and you suggest) anything is possible. The firing pin certainly struck the cases hard enough. I have plenty of other primers to try. I just ordered bullets from Primer Valley so I will have to wait, anyway. I have several neglected rifles to shoot while I wait. ;=)

[buzzy]

Good Luck,
I have been loading for about 15 years and believe it or not, I had one primer do exactly the same thing about 3 weeks ago!
First in 15 years.:(

[Hektor]

This is what it looks like:
331

[musketjon]

Looks like a good strike to me. I'd say bad primers.
Jon

[Hektor]

What is holding the case is NOT lizard skin!

[canes7]

I agree with Jon... there is enough indent in the primer to show the rifle is doing its part.

[Hektor]

I also have to reinforce that the riflesmith has been doing this for a long, long time and he used all the gauges to set this rifle up. When I shot it for zero, with no wind, the aperture was set in the middle and I was a click off. He did replace the firing pin and spring.

[Dave]

Your primers are contaminated. I'd dump the lot and get fresh ones. I have about 5K winchester WLR primers that I'm going to deactivate. Got them for free from a guy I used to work with. He and his brother used to shoot highpower comp with M1's years ago and are no longer into it. When he retired he gave me all his ammo, brass, primers, powder etc. I'm a little concerned about some of the powder as the cans have been used, some partially full etc. No way to know what conditions its been stored in, or if the powder is really whats in the can or maybe accidently mixed with another.... so I plan to dump that too.
I used 100 of the primers last summer, used them in my 500 S&W loads. I had about 1/3 of them that did'nt go boom. Talk about some scary shit. When your holding that much horsepower and it does'nt go off, what do you do? I just held on and waited, gave it about a minute then opened the cylinder and pulled it out. All had heavy hits. I ended up putting them back in the gun, single load one round only, and most went off on the second hit, depsite the first heavy hit not working. I figure those primers have been contaminated, probably from mositure as he stored all his stuff in his basment. It sucks to dump em but I like my guns in one piece, and my body parts too. Primers can and do go bad, mainly due to improper storage. They pack them in cardboard and cardboard holds moisture.

[Hektor]

Dave, thanks for the solid advise. Yes, this half tray was exposed to the air. Maybe too close to the radio on the bench when a bunch of hot air came through (just joshing)
Seriously, I was probably a little too careless with those. There weren't many, fortunately. Speaking of primers what is the best choice here for Garand loads with a 147 - 150 grain?

[melloman]

I like CCI primers.

[musketjon]

[Speaking of primers what is the best choice here for Garand loads with a 147 - 150 grain?]

ANY STANDARD large rifle primer will work. Make is not important.
Jon

[GarandGrabber]

Man it's kinda hard to kill primers. I have some over 30 years old that have lived in many different enviroments. Try a different batch before tossing all you have. It may be a different issue. JMHO

[Hektor]

Since I posted that, I have been to the range and fired several rounds with no malfunctions.

[melloman]

FYI - http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot39.htm

[GarandGrabber]

FYI - http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot39.htm

Cool test and as I suspected...Thanks

[tljames]

The other possible option is, do you tumble your brass before loading? If so could you have overlooked any media that may have lodged in the flash hole? I've used Lyman Corn cob media before and it's so coarse that some pieces will lodge in the flash hole and completely block the opening. When using this media I'd say 20% of all cases tumbled had media stuck in the flash hole. I've since switched to Cabelas Corn cob media and may have 1 in a 100 with blockage. I've never had a round I handloaded fail to fire, but it could easily happen if a guy overlooked a case or two while priming. Just a thought.
Good Luck and Good Shooting All! The Hoser

[Hektor]

That might be a possibilty because I used brass that someone gave to me that he a resized and cleaned but did not use.
Thanks for the heads up
John

[Hamour]

I would punch out the primers and see if they ignighted, if they did, then you should look to see if your cleaning medium plugged the flash hole or if it bridged in some way inside the case.

I once had a load act like this and when I investigated I found some of my walnut medium packed in the bottom like concrete. The depriming pin had punched a hole in the material but it had probably collapsed back into the flash hole. The cases had been shot on a rainy day before I reloaded them, I suspect the medium got wet from water in the case and it packed in there good when I resized it.

Also ran into a simular problem from cases that I prepared a head of time (Couple of months) and when I primed and powdered them, I noticed a high powder charge, inspected the case and found spider silk at the base of the case. So it happens that your primers can be good but some form of obstruction can cause a problem.

If you left the primers out and the pulled primers did not fire, then I would suspect some form of environmental contamination. Moisture, spray oil from cleaning equipment etc, some how the primers became exposed to something that killed them.

Of course we will not even talk about what resising oil will do to a primer, because we all know to clean our fingers before picking up our primers right?:rolleyes: My Dad never ever let me forget that reloading faux pas, forever asking if them "Booger hooks" was clean when I was putting primers in the tray! I swear it only happened once!

Good luck