Who has ever experienced a true "hang fire"?

Yes I've had a true "hangfire". Centerfire pistol cartridge that went click so I waited, gun pointed downrange, and started counting ONE-onethousand, TWO-onethous...BANG!

Honestly it startled the bejesus out of me because the "wait and count" was always just a "best practice" formality for me before that.
 
Never had one personally, but several months ago while instructing a new shooter with his gun and ammo, we had just finished a discussion about procedures for hangfires or squibs and he had one. Great teaching/learning experience. Only time I have ever seen one for real. Turned out to be a squib.
 
I've personally have experienced two squibs, many duds, but never a true hang-fire. The responsed to my question have been quite informative - I've enjoyed reading them. There does seem to be some correlation between old poorly stored ammo and hang-fires. Not quite sure what the exact cause is, though.
 
Only duds in rimfires, and only one hangfire that I can recall. It was a .243 winchester loaded with 4350; after the striker dropped, there was just a heartbeat space before it fired. I wasn't sure it happened, but the group had a flier of about 3/4 inch.
 
Hmmm.

Most harrowing post: booker_t

Funniest post: Dr. Strangelove. I can picture my own dear grandmother hollering at me!

I had a whole bunch of them with some surplus .303 British ammo in a No. 4 Mk. I Lee Enfield. These, however, didn't give much delay between the striker falling and going off, about like firing a flintlock.
Click to expand...

Precisely my experience. Pakistani .303 British, to be precise. Every 12th round or so, CLICK . . . BANG!

No duds I can recall, thus far.
 
When I was younger I found a box of .22 ammo in my basement. It was old (no UPC code) and I don't remember the brand, and when fired would consistently take 3-4 seconds to fire after pulling the trigger. My thought then was "Cool, this'll help me practice keeping the rifle steady, how's that for a surprise break"

Of course, now I know that in addition to being dangerous (I was damn lucky none of the complete duds went off after the 30-count) and that the antique ammo probably had some collector value. Live, learn and remember to teach the hypothetical descendents your mistakes.
 
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I had a whole bunch of them with some surplus .303 British ammo in a No. 4 Mk. I Lee Enfield. These, however, didn't give much delay between the striker falling and going off, about like firing a flintlock.

Precisely my experience. Pakistani .303 British, to be precise. Every 12th round or so, CLICK . . . BANG!
Click to expand...

I didn't know where the ammo came from, but it was probably the same Pakistani stuff. I distinctly remember it coming in very light greenish color 32-round boxes.
 
I have experienced quite a few with surplus 8mm and .303 ammo. They ranged from hearing the "click" of the pin striking the primer followed VERY closely by the boom of the round going off but you COULD hear the delay between the click and the boom. Other rounds hung for several seconds. The longest I have personally experienced was around 5 seconds delayed.
 
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I have experienced several misfires from rimfire ammo (.22). Re-strike usually solved the problem.

But one day, not long ago, with a friend at the range, we were shooting our .308 rifles. We usually watch each other during strings of shots, to provide some feedback.

Ammo was Santa Barbara (General Dynamics) current military ammo, 42 grains of powder and 142 grain FMJ bullet.

He operated the trigger and nothing happened. We looked at each other. I told him to wait at least one minute, as he was saying that he was going to wait for a while. He stood up from prone (the rifle was on the bipod, pointed downrange), and then BLAM!, it went off.

We stopped shooting that day.

Greetings.
 
I was firing my AMT Govt. model with UZI ammo, as Israel Military Industries made the stoutest 230 gr ball, and it was suggested I use some hot stuff to "break the gun in.":rolleyes: As if that was going to work. I had fired 2 rounds from a mag and the third went click. I kept holding it pointed downrange and was actually about to eject the round when it went off. Scared the crap out of me. I estimate about 5 seconds. I learned that day why I had always been told to wait 10. Strange, but I had forgotten about that for a lot of years, but it's probably because I had wanted to forget everything about that firearm, as much as possible.
 
I adjusted the trigger on my .45s to see how heavy I could make the pull. I fired a round and got a light primer strike that resulted in a delayed detonation of about half a second. Do not recall the ammo.
 
Yep, old military ammo.

A few with some VERY old US commercial ammo made, I estimate, between 1870 and 1900 or thereabouts, .56-56 Spencer carbine.
 
Had a cold run (igniter that I improperly installed didnt actuate) on a Mark 14 practice torpedo once, does that count? Had lots of egg on my face after that.
 
I have had it happen to me. I just started reloading back in 1992 and I went and tried something that I more then likely should not have. I loaded up (Can't remember it all) a 110g FMJ in 30.06 and I am not sure how much powder I used it was H414 but when I pulled the trigger it took about 2 seconds for the round to go off. My dumb self went and shot another one and the same thing happened! I pulled the rest of the loads I made. :o
 
Once, with some Hungarian 7.62x54r...pulled the trigger and there was a peculiar *TING* from the bolt. I had enough time to mutter, "Ah, crud..." thinking that the firing spring or pin broke, and then it went off. It did NOT sound like the firing pin had hit ANYTHING.
 
Years ago there was some silver tip russian 7.62 x 54 out of factory 188 (I believe) that was infamous for hangfires. There were enough click...........booms in the can that I took down all of the ammo except for about 25 rounds and kept the bullets, threw the powder on the grass and WD40'd the cases before tossing them.

That was the only surplus ammo I have ever had a problem with.

bob
 
I bought a case of "loose" 8mm from Cheaper Than Dirt that looked like it had been shoveled out of a ships bilge! :barf: It was FILTHY and rusty/corroded beyond belief! We tumbled a batch of it to see if we could salvage any after CTD told us to "get bent" when we demanded a refund. Of the ones that we were brave enough to actually chamber, about ½ went off... eventually. :eek: The rest were duds. Threw better than half away. Mixed in there were several other odd calibers that ya had to look out for as well! :mad:
 
I had one round of 7.62x39 hang out of an SAR-1 I used to have. <CLICK>.....bang. Freaked me out. It was old crappy ammo I got from a friend. I didn't shoot any more of it after that.
 
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