Failed Primer Strike - Bullet and primer removal?

[cdoc42]

I don't intend to start an opinion war, but here is another opinion I found on "Ruger Forum.net" when I looked for an answer to a dirty primer pocket causing primer ignition failure:

"Dirty primer pockets are often the cause of a miss fire due to the primer legs not seating on the bottom of the pocket because of crud. A Lee primer pocket cleaner that does large and small pockets cost me $2.99 and is money well spent for relyable ignition. A large percentage of miss fires can be fired if cycled again because the first hammer fall seated the primer."

I don't know what 0.002-0.003" of carbon deposit looks like inside a primer pocket, but isn't it reasonable to assume that might be enough to prevent a proper seating depth of the same size on the rare occasion (in my experience) that a primer fails to fire the first time it is struck?

 

[cdoc42]

PS: I've just contacted CCI and posed the question for their opinion. I'll post it when I get a response.

 

[NHSHOOTER]

There is also the possibility it was a squib, and it just did not un-seat the bullet. I had that happen once years back with a 30-06. No powder in it. I revised my powder checking process after that.

Same thing happened to me not to long ago, had 2 squibs in the same batch, rechecking powder level in cases before seating bullets is a big plus!!!!

 

[USAF Ret]

PS: I've just contacted CCI and posed the question for their opinion. I'll post it when I get a response.

Very much appreciated.

It looks like a dud to me. The primer is dented heavily and never made a noise. So there was no ignition. I know there is powder in the case as I triple checked before seating the bullets.

 

[Unclenick]

Plus, unless it is a compressed load, you can usually hear or feel powder in the case when you shake it. Also, a load without powder will be lighter than the rest by the size of the powder charge. Both are easy checks.

It does sound like a dud. It is unusual for primer pocket residue to cause this unless a lot of it has built up over multiple reloadings. Dillon did a lot of testing of it at one point since progressive loading that starts with sizing, and decapping does not have a primer pocket cleaning stage. However, duds do happen spontaneously every once in a long while. Usually, a drop of perspiration falling into the primer or some other thing has killed it. Seating, you want to be sure the feet of the brass anvil in the primer have at least touched the bottom of the primer pocket, and seating about 0.003" deeper than that, slightly compressing the primer mix with the anvil is recommended by manufacturers. Where you can't measure, this is generally produced simply by seating pretty hard.

 

[cdoc42]

Here's a surprising pre-holiday response from CCI!!!

"The #1 issue that we see with primers that causes misfires is not seating the primer deep enough. Primers should be set .005-.008 below flush. If they aren’t set deep enough this can cause a delayed fire, misfire or as you stated a misfire followed by the next strike the round going off. Now what this is caused by can be attributed to many things including dirty pockets, tight tolerances, lack of leverage to seat, ridges made by a uniforming tool, etc.

I hope this helps answer some of your questions.

Thanks,
Cody B./Technical Service Rep.
CCI/Speer/Alliant
2299 Snake River Ave.
Lewiston, ID 83501
(866)286-7436

 

[USAF Ret]

Here's a surprising pre-holiday response from CCI!!!

"The #1 issue that we see with primers that causes misfires is not seating the primer deep enough. Primers should be set .005-.008 below flush. If they aren’t set deep enough this can cause a delayed fire, misfire or as you stated a misfire followed by the next strike the round going off. Now what this is caused by can be attributed to many things including dirty pockets, tight tolerances, lack of leverage to seat, ridges made by a uniforming tool, etc.

I hope this helps answer some of your questions.

Thanks,
Cody B./Technical Service Rep.
CCI/Speer/Alliant
2299 Snake River Ave.
Lewiston, ID 83501
(866)286-7436

It does. I did a batch and missed the primer pocket cleaning step. Just hope I don;t have a bunch more do the same.

 

[markr6754]

I came home from the range with a factory WWB 9mm round that didn't fire. Numerous and multiple attempts in both striker and hammer fired pistols. I'm interested in tearing it down just to 1. save the brass, 2. check out the powder. I know it happens in factory ammo, so it no longer wipes me out when it happens in one of my loads. Thankfully that's a lot rarer occurrence than it was a few years ago.

 

[Unclenick]

We had a fellow on another forum who had done contract ammunition testing for government agencies. He said that by the time you've fired many tens of thousands of commercial loads, you've found examples of every kind of error handloaders make, plus a few they don't make. He'd seen high-pressure rounds, zero powder rounds, backward bullets, backward seated primers and primers crushed sideways, cases without flash holes, seated hollow bullet jackets with no core, brass that was missing its extractor groove, brass crushed by tilted bullets, etc., etc.

The main trick in handloading is to do all you can to avoid truly dangerous errors, and, after that, expect a few of the less dramatic kind will work their way in. Handloaders have the advantage that we can choose to do visual inspections at more points in the process than a high-speed, high-volume commercial loader can afford the time or manpower to do.

 

[Sevens]

I make it no secret that I believe Freedom Munitions is shoddy junk. Some folks report good experiences with it but plenty have also reported problems.

I've been a long time, high volume buyer and consumer of Xtreme plated handgun bullets, so I was watching and paying attention in the very first days of the debut of Freedom Munitions ammo, which is the same company as Xtreme, using Xtreme bullets.

In the first week of the product, they splashed gleaming gorgeous hi-res photos of piles of loaded ammo on their site and Facebook page and I found it HILARIOUS, as did others, as perfectly captured in a photo was a round of 9mm ammo with a backwards primer. And someone on Facebook commented and called them out on it and they replied "well this was simply for a photo shoot, mid-process and before final QC, the product will be better..." or something equally silly.

One of the earlier complaints of their ammo was, in my opinion, MORE egregious... guy posted a picture of a 50-round box of 9mm and one round was the 115gr plated RN next to all the others, stuffed in to a piece of .380 brass.

These days I always screen shot and keep these pictures for the classic skeptics who don't believe it's real. I wish I had taken pics of these back then.

 

[Unclenick]

That is hilarious. The kind of shoot-yourself-in-the-foot publicity you can never take back. I hope they get their act together. Either way, it's a lesson in what they probably thought would be an easy add-on business turning out not to be so easy after all.