Took the new micro 9 mm semi-auto to the range for the first time yesterday.

After about 50 rounds got a fail to fire
Waited 15 seconds
Ejected
Saw the strike dimple on the primer
Rechambered
Another failure to fire
Range master called it a "hard primer"
How often does a "hard primer" happen?

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Not very often with revolvers with factory springs. More often than I like with any of the smaller semi autos. I had a Kimber Micro 9 with laser grips. I had 5 or 6 FTFire with it... 3 took three trips before they fired. I sold it as it was supposed to be my warmer weather carry gun. I bought a Sig 365 and have had no problems with it. My wife has a Kahr 9mm and after the first 50 rounds it has been perfect. The Sig has had about 250 rounds through it with no problems. I did have some shotshell primers that were very hard(Federals)and had a factory 44 mag(Win) that had no anvil. Surprisingly there are very few problems with primers when you think of all the billions made. So usually if a primer doesn't fire...it is most likely a firearm failure in my opinion. BTW I've never had a 1911 fail to fire

Save the round and try it in another gun. Good data point...

It's generally said that CCI primers are a little harder, so I often use those for testing. Sell&Bell ammo has that reputation too. (Just repeating gossip here...

If the primer had a normal "dimple" ... and was tried twice , it may not be correctly correct to call it a "Hard" primer ...
Rarely on the assemble line not enough priming compound gets put into the cup ...or none at all ... If a good hit is observed it should be a "Bad" primer ... not so much hard .
If the primer shows little evidence of a dimple and was struck twice and still no sign of a depression , and the other 49 fired just fine , then the primer cup may have been harder than the others .
Problems with primers used to be almost non existant ... but since production has been increased and a lot of new workers are on the lines ... Bad & Hard primer problems are starting to show up more and more . I'm starting to believe that maybe 1 primer in 50 / K might be defective ... depending on the maker . My pick is CCI ...over the last 50 years handloading I don't remember a bad CCI ... the worst were Alcan Primers ... 1 in 50 was about right .
Gary

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Got to agree with gwpercle, what happened sounds more like a bad/dead primer than a hard one.

Had my new Shield Plus out for the first time last weekend firing CCI Blazer aluminum case 115grn and had 2 light strikes out of 50, both of which fired the second time through. It fired 50 test rounds with CCI #500's fine, although the lighter loads did have cycling issues.

Was tempted to pull the striker and take a look at it, but decided to get a few more rounds through it and leave things alone for now.

Dead primers are rare in quality centerfire ammo but a few do leak out of the factories. Unless your semi-auto has a lightened action I would say a dead primer is more likely than a hard one.