Sir William
New member
I have had great faith in Federal 147 gr Hydra-Shoks in 9MM for about as long as I can remember. Today I had that faith broken. A friend and I were drilling and practicing on the range. I drew from concealment and ran a 21 round string from my BHP MKIII. My 20 round magazines work well. I dropped the magazine, pulled my first spare and clicked it in. I dropped the slide and pulled the trigger, CLICK!! My stomach flipped. I checked and the round had fed. I attempted to cock the hammer and try again, CLICK!!. OK. Rerack to eject and continue. Nothing. I checked again, round had been fed. Repeat rerack and eject to continue. The next 19 rounds fired. I had ten rounds in a factory Browning magazine. I clicked it in and there were 3 rounds that failed to ignite. 3 out of 10!?! There were basically 5 total failures out of 50 rounds attempted. The magazines were eliminated as being the issue. The pistol was eliminated as the issue. The rounds were heavily indented on the primers, they simply would not ignite, period. Newly purchased ammunition. There were no indications of anything in the way of oil or crud that might have deactivated the primers. I was sickened. I am now trying Speer Gold Dot 9MM+P in 124 gr GDHP form. It functioned fine at the range.