First primer misfire

[44wheelman]

So what brand (s) of .22LR don't you buy?

Remington has given me the most miss-fires of the brands I have bought.

 

[Rule3]

Had another primer failure a month ago. I normally shoot between 100 and 200 rounds per range trip, numbers depend on conditions. I usually carry a few spare rounds to keep an even count, but not this time, I'll have to start that up again.

14,400 rounds through my 92FS.

Well finally, this clears up the whole situation!

It's the guns fault!

 

[mikld]

Well, back in '92 (1892 that is) I had a primer that was a dud. It seemed I had stored the ammo too close to the horse manure pile and the ammonia fumes leaked through and killed the primer. Remington-Peters wouldn't recognise my complaint, so I just pulled the rest apart and used the powder in my old muzzle loader for my "big critter loads" along the Rio Grande during my horse trading days...

 

[ggibson511960]

It Works!

Years ago, touching primers with sizing lube on your fingers was supposed to render them inert. I've never tested this.

All my primer failures were my fault. Some guns have trouble setting off a primer that's not fully seated. I've also had problems in Marlin rifles with CCI primers, known to be hard. Switching to softer federal primers solved that problem.

I now ream all my primer pockets so the occasional high primer situation has been resolved.

I succeded in deactivating a large pistol primer in .45 ACP with a liberal dollop of RCBS case lube applied during priming on an old Rock Chucker Jr. with the old timey priming arm. Worked like a charm. The good old days before carbide dies and automatic priming tools.

 

[BUFF]

I test-fire all my primers. It's problematic.

 

[Skeet 028]

Had a few bad primers. Mostly shotshells and if I remember correctly Federal. They changed their primer designation to 209A after some manufacturing difficulties. I also had some troubles with Win pistol primers I had. Wooden trays for certain and a high humidity area(Eastern Shore of Md). But this was in the late 50s...so it may have been my fault. Having oldtimers prevents me from remembering too well. I also got some of those old style primers in a box lot at an auction here in Wyoming 4 yrs ago... All fired just fine. 60 year old primers stored in wooden trays and they still worked. I had to use them. got 40 some thousand primers for 5 bucks or so. What can I say... I'm cheap! I have some old DCM Frankfort Arsenal primers for 06 and 45 auto dated '49. Gave some to a friend. He loaded some in the appropriate cases and they still went bang. Who knows how they were stored? Surprisingly with all the many millions that are made there are very few duds. I even had primers given to me that had obviously gotten damp some years previously dried out and still fired just fine. Heck I have half a pound of L'il Gun powder that had been filled with water by a misguided widow. I dried the powder and have loaded it in 410's and some 22 K Hornets and it still shoots fine. Ain't we lucky? We have some good primers and ammo. Heck even the Russians made primers and ammo that worked... even when they couldn't make 10 working light switches in a row.

 

[Rule3]

Inspect ALL your primers to be sure the anvil has not fallen out.

I read on the Internet that it happened to someone, somewhere at some time!

 

[BUFF]

I suppose one could check their primers visibly by getting them anvil side up/cup side down and look for the anvil and any difference in color under the anvil that might be a lack of priming compound. It would only take a minute or two to inspect 50 or 100 of them. If you seat primers with a tube primer magazine, you have to have all of the primers cup up or cup down to load the tubes, anyway, so not hard to do if you were so inclined because of primer failures in your history.

I might do this if I was loading for serious carry or loading hunting ammo for a big hunt. I don't know if this would give any realistic help but at least you would feel better about your primers.

 

[Rule3]

It was "sarcasm" AKA a joke
But really did read it on another forum

 

[mikld]

I suppose one could check their primers visibly by getting them anvil side up/cup side down and look for the anvil and any difference in color under the anvil that might be a lack of priming compound. It would only take a minute or two to inspect 50 or 100 of them. If you seat primers with a tube primer magazine, you have to have all of the primers cup up or cup down to load the tubes, anyway, so not hard to do if you were so inclined because of primer failures in your history.

I might do this if I was loading for serious carry or loading hunting ammo for a big hunt. I don't know if this would give any realistic help but at least you would feel better about your primers.

Dunno about other reloaders, but I inspect all the components I use. I measure the diameter of my bullets, I check all my brass (and 45 ACP small primed cases aren't any trouble for me!). I double check powder before I dump it in the powder measure. No big deal to scan a tray of primers and I don't think it would be too much trouble to put primers in a "primer flipper" and look at them before I stuffed them in a tube...

FWIW; I use the same care for reloading my "plinking" ammo as if I were reloading world class competition ammo. Thinking of reloads a "just plinking" ammo can lead to sloppy practices and eventually squibs or an OOPS!

 

[Wise_A]

Work at any gun range for any length of time and you will have a fairly nice collection of factory ammo that didn't go bang when the trigger was pulled.

---

Usually caused by guns that give a light strike to the primer.

Almost always.

I've had many misfires, but practically zero proven faulty primers.

I wonder how many people had a magical trigger job done, fired a box of shells and declared their gun "good to go" ... and are now staking their lives on a gun that hasn't had a piddling 1,000 rounds thru it.

Absolutely not. You would be surprised how many failures of factory ammo I see. I've caught shooters loading ammunition with primers seated sideways for qualification.

Just because it's from the factory, doesn't mean it's perfect.

 

[HKB]

Well finally, this clears up the whole situation!

It's the guns fault!

Close to 16,000 rounds and never a jam, amazing really!

 

[muddocktor]

I posted last month that I was having some duds with WSP primers. Normally I just toss them in the dud bucket at the range but brought one home and pulled the bullet and dumped the powder and removed the primer. Hmm nothing in the primer but the anvil. Didn't call Winchester it wasn't worth the effort. My lazy bone acts up quite often as I get older. Don

I ran across a primer failure on some loaded Winchester ammo. My SIL was shooting some Winchester Ranger ammo in his 45 Springfield XDM and had a failure to fire. He tried it 2 or 3 times and no joy. So I brought the round home and pulled the bullet to check powder and primer. It had powder, but when I deprimed it I looked closely at the primer and in the primer cup there was hardly any priming compound in one little spot in the primer cup. Pretty much what you saw. It can't fire if there isn't any pow stuff inside.

 

[franzas]

Normally when mine don't go bang, I see a primer looking back at me

 

[HKB]

Normally when mine don't go bang, I see a primer looking back at me

When reloading I always check the primer bucket (or whatever it's called). Rarely do I see one flipped. I also check that the case has the right amount of powder before I seat a bullet. I had a squib load when I first started reloading, caught it before it got ugly and never wanted to repeat that.

 

[tomf52]

For longer than I can recall, over 45 years, I have used CCI 500 primers exclusively and have never had a bad one. Then I bought this last batch of 5000 and have had a 1% to 2% failure rate. Go figure!

 

[SMSgt]

I haven't counted how many rounds I've reloaded since 1975 but it is a lot. I had exactly two misfires in that time, both dud CCI primers from the same package. Several solid strikes from a Ruger Blackhawk didn't fire them. It happens.

You know what? I still prefer CCI primers when I have a choice. I could not care less about the "hard" primer concerns. No firearm I've ever owned had an issue with a hard primer. If I did have a gun with that issue, I'd fix that gun.