I bought some new .38 special ammo for my concealed carry piece.

When I tried it out in my 642-2 seven of 15 rounds would not fire, even with multiple hits.

I shot about 50 rounds of other .38 special and all but one fired fine.

It did make me think; what maintenance should I perfom on the 642? I wipe it down, but haven't taken taken it appart to work on the internals.

I emailed the ammo maker but haven't heard back from them. I'll let you know what they say.

You should learn to properly clean your 642, but what's the ammo your having trouble with?

Sent from my Ally using Tapatalk 2

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Support your Police, & NRA

I bought Monarch for 9.95 a box. 38spl. Had several FTC. It was junk and now I know why it was so cheap. I don't know what the poster bought, but I'm willing to bet it was not a high quality name brand, and was probably ,ade in Eastern Europe or china

Actually it was top of the line US made ammo. After I hear back from the maker I'll let you know what they say.

The Federal classic 125 JHP, Atlanta Arms HBWC, and Federal 130 FMJ all worked fine.

I don't shoot Eastern European/Chinese ammo after I had a bunch of squibs in .455 Webley.

YouTube is my friend. The 642 gets a detail clean tomorrow.

How many rounds through the gun total? Any modifications?

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Centennial Every Day

The gun has to be dripping with filth if that is the problem (7 FFs)...


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Depending on how new the revolver is, this might be a result of the shortened firing pin used to address drop tests. I have found that for myself, cutting corners on guns, ammo and other related gear is a bad idea. I have seen to many people have trouble in classes and in essense waste their money because of using lower grade rifles, ammo, slings, etc.

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NHI, 10-8.

This statement right here makes me think the problem is with your gun. Your firing pin may not be compatible with your mystery load having seven failures to fire, but you state that another brand also had a failure to fire. Hard to chalk that up to coincidence.

Im thinking the mainspring tension screw backed out on you more than anything.
as we go down the caliber food chain, testing of a different intent does become important. there are some loads I wouldn't want to have in a gunfight. as the caliber shrinks, so too does the power available making ammo testing that much more important.

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it just needs more voltage

He has a J frame...

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Centennial Every Day

Did you buy the gun new? Trigger job? If so, cout be a cut down mainspring, or a too-weak one. I'd put a new one in thats at factory strength, just because.

Added: But the ammo test is an extremely valid point. I was blasting away at the range happily with FMJ. Switched to JHP street loads (all commercial, no reloads) and my brand new gun decided not to feed the JHP stuff from slide lock using the release lever. Now I know it needs to be manually released the old-fashioned way. (After further testing post-feed ramp polishing). Some pocket guns just need some help at the edge of the envelope.

Let me float a guess... Hornady Critical Defense?

I agree, sounds more like a problem with the 642, not the ammo.

Having failure to fires with two different brands of ammo.

Yep. Switching to Speer 124gr Gold Dot eliminated the issue. The Speer ogive shape feeds better, IMO.

You are correct, it was Hornady Critical Defense. I wanted to test it again before I said which brand.

Yesterday I took the 642 apart it was spotless. I lubed and put it back together. I bought it just before I deployed to Afghanistan so it's three years old. No modifications with about 200 rounds down the pipe.

Today, I took it back to the range. Two of 10 rounds Critical Defense did not fire. I shot 35 rounds of Winchester and 15 rounds of Federal with zero failures. The Hornady primers look hard. The firing pin dimple is much smaller than the Winchester or Federal. I think the earlier non-Hornady misfire was related to old ammo.

I called Hornady and they are sending a call tag to pick up the remaining ammo.

I'm a Hornady fan, but I'll use other ammo for concealed carry in the 642.

This is interesting. I've shot about 75 rounds of CD so far in various Airweights with no problems and excellent accuracy. Just bought another 75 rounds. Will report back if I experience any problems with this ammo.

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Centennial Every Day

I run Hornady CD in my 9mm, 642, and .380. I have never had a problem with any of their ammo. Now you have me concerned. I will run more of the ammo through my guns to be sure.
Frank.

With the rubber tip, I would be reluctant to use FTX in a semi-automatic.

I shot another 25 or so rounds today in a 442 with no problems. Very accurate ammo.

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Centennial Every Day

My fnx9 eats the FTX bullets no problem. I was concerned when I opened the box and dumped out a hand full and had all those little red rubber tips looking up at me.

Shot some 38 special +p with the ftx bullet and had one shell casing crack down the side, stopped shooting those after that happened.

David, will you please post the lot number of your box right away before you send it off. I also use .38 Hornady CD 110g and my box is older too (has the velocity listed as 1175 fps before Hornady came to their senses and re-listed velocity as 1010fps--and that from a 4", not a snubby). Please give us the lot number.

This is the ammo I had trouble with: Critical Defense 38 SPCL (+P) for self defense. #90311 - lot number 3100689.

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

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Centennial Every Day

I was shooting lot number 3100479 yesterday. No problems.

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Centennial Every Day

Ammo rarely has issues. And you have problems with several different ammo rounds so I really think your gun needs a check-up.

3 years is nothing in ammo years. That's pretty fresh stuff yet.

Look for a weak spring or something blocking the firing pin (dirt, debris) or maybe a chipped firing pin. Then take those rounds that didn't fire and put them in a different gun and see if they fire.

I just don't think it's the ammo. If your firing pin hits that primer hard enough, the round should go off.

Good luck!

Update:

I talked to the Hornady technician today. He said the ammo in question was with in specification, but the rims were towards the minimum spec. They are sending me two boxes of ammo as a replacement. One to test and one for use.

If the ammo is minimum spec and the revolver is max spec it may lead to the misfires.

When the ammo arrives and I try it out I'll post another update.

Firing pin primer indentation of fired brass has nothing to do with the indentation of primer indention of rounds that did not fire. Don't let comparison fool you.

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the world is round everywhere

Update to my post. Thanks for all of the input and suggestions. Work has been busy so I haven't been able to post an update.

Hornady has been great to work with. They sent me two boxes of .38s as replacements. I have shot 250 rounds of other ammo through my 642 with no issues. Of the 40 rounds of Critical Defense I had another three misfires.

I like Hornady products but they are not compatible with this pistol. I load it with Winchester 125 +P personal protection ammo from Walmart and it goes bang every time.

Back to the point of my original post: test your ammo and pistol before you put it to work.

Dave

Is it possible you can measure the rim thickness of the good and bad rounds and post the results? As I interpret this some of the rims are too thin? Even so, the depth of the primer pocket would be another important variable.

Dave Sinko