Loads misfire

N

ninosdemente

New member
I loaded two different batches (25 each) of .223 and used them yesterday.

http://www.mentegraphics.com/pictures/67.jpg
http://www.mentegraphics.com/pictures/68.jpg

As you can see the first batch, 4 did not fire. The primer did get struck but nothing. The second batch all fired no problem.

Is this something than can happen? May I have done something to cause this, but if so than the others should not have fired as well. Not saying its a normal but rather situations such as this can happen?

I had factory ammo 30-06 Remington misfire as well. A total of three. Two people next to me had 1 factory ammo misfire as well (ar15). Don't know brand or caliber.
 
You might have a weak hammer spring. Or possibly a short firing pin.

I've never seen a short pin on an AR-15, but I had two of them on Ruger Minis.
 
did you put powder in? Pull the bullets and deprime them seperatly to make sure to check those 4 primers fired. Only misfires I ever had was due to me not putting powder in and one instance where a stainless pin from cleaning stuck in a Palma small style flash hole. I have never had a primer fail to fire but it could just be bad primers. If it continues have a gunsmith check the gun out for protrusion and spring tension
 
I think that Ben Dover might have nailed it. Either it's the light reflection, or camera angle, but I can see a difference in the firing pin strike on the lower right rounds. The other primers appear to have less depth to them. Just my opinion.
 
Ninety percent of FTF with new reloaders is improperly seated primers. For primers to fire 100%, all must be seated all the way to the bottom of the pocket. I have had less than a half dozen "bad" primers in 30+ years of reloading, it's amazing how many billions are made and how many bad ones get to the public.

I can't tell from the pics how deep the firing pin indents are so there may be a problem there...
 
I apologize in advanced... its for a Savage 12FV 223. Was referencing the other two people as they fired factory ammo that at least had 1 misfire for them. Plus I had 3 misfires on Savage Model 111 30-06.

Well I am positive I put powder... but will pull them today to see if they have powder in them. Could "contamination" from possibly not cleaning well be a culprit also? Tumbled with crushed walnut.
 
Re mikld
Many misfires are due to primers not completely seated in primer pockets. Did you try to fire them a second or even a third time? If they fired then, that would be an indication of primers not completely seated.
 
The next time out try firing the misfires again and, if they fire, will likely indicate improper seating. The initial firing pin strike seats the primer but is cushioned and does not fire. The next strike can then fire the primer.
 
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Even if there wasn't any powder I would think that he would have heard the primer go off .
Also with no powder and even with only a primer going off, wouldn't the primer alone send the bullet partially down the chamber. Also, I a pistol guy, not a rifle shooter.
 
Well? You made it easy on me; the 4 fail to fire are in the box with the bullets up. The busy end of the case is the end with the primer. I have rifle with killer firing pins; my rifles with killer firing pins have crushed primers that have been struck 7 times with 4 different rifles.

With my killer firing pins I do not have punched primers.

F. Guffey
 
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Kinda hard to see but some of your primers look high in your pictures but after firing hard to tell.Do you have any unfired pictures?
 
Maybe I should not remove the bullets of three of those 4... and just remove 1 of them to see if powder is in there.

Then take those 3 back to range and see if it fires again. Just as you guys mentioned, to verify if primers weren't seated properly.

I do have some brass with primers in them. Will also take a picture of those.

I used RCBS hand priming tool.

Reason for bullets upward was because the bullets downward were wobbling too much.
 
Even if there wasn't any powder I would think that he would have heard the primer go off .
Also with no powder and even with only a primer going off, wouldn't the primer alone send the bullet partially down the chamber. Also, I a pistol guy, not a rifle shooter.
Click to expand...

from my experience no. I missed a couple of powders when I used a progressive to load AR fodder. Bullet did not budge from the case and all I heard was click. Just the way I do things though is that upon returning from the range I pulled the bullets, found no powder, deprimed and saw that the primers had fired. Lesson learned, buy a powder cop die and use it.

When I had the pin blocking I had powder, could not deprime because I could see a cleaning pin was lodged in the flash hole so I tossed the case. Lesson learned, always check the flash hole before priming especially if you are using cases with under sized flash holes

I seriously doubt a piece of corn cob could survive the heat from a primer and if the primers on his did not detonate then get a Wolf replacement spring for 12 bucks or so and find a video on how to replace it.

I replace the stock springs with Wolfs on all my Savages as a matter of course and after 1000 firings replace them again. A weak firing pin spring can play hell with your velocity SD's, cause cratering of the primers, and cause misfires

firing pin protrusion is easy to check using a standard set of calipers. Youtube will show you the way
 
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When I first began loading .223 I had a similar issue a couple different times. For me it was always I forgot to drop powder in those particular cases. If I were you, I'd disassemble those four cartridges and check for powder. Even if there's powder in there, you might discover that the powder's been contaminated in some way.

If there's no powder, you can verify that the primer fired by checking for scorching on the base of the projectile. I never had a projectile enter the barrel with one of those powder-free bullets; they did move forward a few millimeters, but that was it.

The solve for me was to modify my loading procedure to be able to multiply verify the case was charged during the reloading process.
 
The most common cause of a primer not igniting is the primer has not been seated completely , bottomed out , in the primer pocket.
Seat the primers until they hit the bottom of the pocket, all the way down .
This will eliminate a lot of misfires.
Gary
 
When primers aren’t fully seated, sometimes the firing pin will finish seating them and also ignite them. Other times the firing pin will seat them but not ignite them. Depends on how far a particular primer is from being properly seated when the firing pin strikes it. If it’s the latter case, the firing pin strike is usually a light dimple when compared to a primer that was properly seated before the firing pin struck it. Some of your primer strikes look light in the photos. That could also be from a weak firing pin spring. Or gunk in the firing pin channel. In any case, especially since you didn’t restrike them, the lightly dimpled ones MAY still be live, so treat them accordingly until you verify it one way or the other. I’d leave them as is and try them on the next range trip to see if a restrike ignites them.

BTW, did you inspect your reloads to see if the primers were seated flush or deeper in the primer pocket?
 
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