638-3 Failure to Fire after many years

[3rdgeargrndrr]

Many competition guys shoot federal primers as they are pretty soft. match if they can find them.
Possibly primers left out in the elements too long? I have had a box of Winchesters that went bad ie hard to ignite, most would ignite on second or third attempt.
Originally i also thought it might have been an ammo/ primer concern. But in a self defense gun, personally I want it to ignite everything and anything put in it. Ymmv. Best wishes

 

[steelslaver]

I would try those primers in another jun and see what happens.

 

[mikerjf]

CCI's are reputed to be harder to set off. I had one take 3-4 strikes in a 60-7 without firing... first pull in a 637 and it worked. Replaced the hammer spring in the 60-7 and a whole box worked fine.

You can't always tell much by the dent in the primer. A lot of the dent comes from the case being pushed back against the pin by recoil forces, which of course doesn't happen on a misfire... so even if the strike looks light it may not have been.

If it were me I'd keep at it until it is reliable with CCI's. (Easy for me to say!

 

[WR Moore]

Four of the ten loaded with the CCI 500 failed to fire. Of those four, two fired on second strike using single action. SO, does anybody know the wall/cup thickness on CCI 500 Small Pistol primers? I'm showing .019" for the CCI and .015"-.018" on the others. Could one or two thousandths really make a difference?

There's a thread on here somewhere where someone checked primer material thickness specs for all the manufacturers. Only one difference between brands on their claimed thickness and that had to do with the thickness on one particular type of primer by one maker.

Now then, what is unknown is their ductility (how easy it is to deform the metal) specs for any of them. This can be the "harder" issue rather than thickness of the material.

Also, there's the issue of the book specifications and what thickness of the proper materials may be available when someone has to order metal sheet for primers. Are you going to shut down or use something that's almost right?

Finally, having gone through the same issues myself (with CCI SPs), the most frequent cause is that we simply don't get the primer down solid against the bottom of the primer pocket. I vaguely recall one poster noted that CCIs diameter seemed to be smidgen larger than the others which could be an issue. [If you're going to mic primers, mic new primers, not used.]

The primer pockets themselves might be an issue, especially in used brass/odd brands. There are a couple of brass brands that seem to have "skinny jeans" primer pockets. If the edges of the pocket aren't beveled, you might chamfer them, and/or consider uniforming your primer pockets.

 

[rockquarry]

With some hand priming tools, it's difficult to fully seat primers with 100% consistency. When the tools become worn, the situation worsens. I bought two RCBS Universal models several years ago; neither would fully seat primers all the time and the effort to seat was considerably more (comparatively) than should have been necessary. I returned them, but perhaps I just got a couple of bad ones.

The old original round tray Lee Auto Primes would eventually wear to the point primers would often not fully seat. I had several of these. Best to throw them away when they wear out.

CCI primers may be harder than others and maybe the cups are thicker; I don't know. However, barring isolated exceptions, the differences in comparison with other primers should not be enough to prevent the CCIs from working as designed in any good quality gun in good condition that remains unmolested. If the gun has been tampered with, who knows?

No one would buy CCI primers if they were truly unreliable and their primer business would have gone under years ago. I've used most primers over the years, but far more CCI than anything else. If you have a problem with proper primer ignition, the fault could certainly be with the primer, but I'd first look elsewhere for the cause.

 

[BanditsRoost]

Resolved??

Well,
It looks like it was either bad primers or mislabeled primers.
Opened a different case (1k) of CCI 500's and all seems well.

No more Failures. Loaded 10 more from the first "suspect" case and failure after failure again. The ones that fail in the 638, 642 and 442 will ignite in my Ruger SP101 and S&W 686.


My best guess is maybe Small Rifle or Small Pistol Magnums have been mislabeled.



In any case, I appreciate all the info and suggestions. I'll label these "suspect" and use them in the Henry or one of the two magnums.

I'm just glad to have my 638 back on board the boat and back to normal.