How many failures are acceptable?

[MMA10mm]

I knew an old cop once who reloaded all of his duty ammo. He nearly hand-crafted each round. There was no doubt the primers were seated properly, that the flash-holes were clear, that the powder charge was right, and the bullets seated and crimped properly.

I thought he was over-doing it, but after a couple misfires with our duty ammo, I chided the range-officer that I was going to start carrying the ball-ammo reloads that we used for practice, because they had NO misfires... I also ran across a 10mm case that was in a box of new cases that I purchased to reload, and lo-and-behold, there was NO flash-hole punched through the web of the case... If that case would have went to the factory for loading, a primer would have been seated and powder and ball loaded, and when it was issued/sold to someone and they tried to shoot it, it would have been a mis-fire.

Suddenly, it didn't sound so silly to hand-load the duty ammo...

When I load ammo that I depend on to be 100% reliable (such as hunting ammo or match ammo), I wear rubber gloves, load the primers in my Lee Auto-Prime, and hand-seat the primers. I've found the Auto-Prime's linkage has a weak enough leverage not to over-stress the primers, but still get them seated fully. Any round that doesn't feel just right on seating the primer, goes in the practice/warm-up/verifying scope pile.

 

["JJ"]

Great info guys!!
Keep it coming!!

I think I agree with most! Quality not quanity!
While I know they sometimes happen, I try to have no mistakes with anything I do.

As for the guy who experienced the failures. I have never watched him load.
I can only draw the same conclusions as you.
Thier were a couple of FTFs that could have been bad primers.
But with the quanity of rounds they were running, I would guess a primer not fully seated.

I am heading to the Dallas gun show on the 21st to pick up some components.
So hopefully I will get to use some of the knowledge you guys have passed along!

Thanks again!

 

[couleeflyfisher]

Acceptable Failures

In approx. 50 years of reloading pistol, rifle and shotgun, I can't honestly remember a failure to fire. I've always used single stage, an RCBS Jr., Rockchucker, a Lee handpress and Mec 600 Jr. In all those years there may have been a bad primer but I don't remember. I have had a couple of factory rounds that ftf that I blamed on the primer. Black powder is different, I've had a couple of misfires that took a new primer, and one Remington .36 Navy fired 2 rounds because I neglected the crisco above the ball. I can understand a ftf once in a great while on a progressive but with single stage it's carelesness, JMHO.

 

[Skip Sackett]

and one Remington .36 Navy fired 2 rounds because I neglected the crisco above the ball. I can understand a ftf once in a great while on a progressive but with single stage it's carelesness, JMHO.

Been there and done that too! Way back in the early 70's! Not much fun!

 

[ColColt]

Black powder is different, I've had a couple of misfires that took a new primer, and one Remington .36 Navy fired 2 rounds because I neglected the crisco above the ball.

There's many a testimony to that. It happened to me with a Remington .44!! That'll make your day. Guess I didn't get enough bees wax and Crisco on one or two chambers.

 

[H Richard]

I tolerate no failures in match loads. I have had failures when I am working up loads, but every failure is studied to determine why, then that problem is eliminated. As most have said, primers are usually the problem, caused by the other problem, too light a hammer fall due to shooters seeking the magic light trigger pull. Match guns are only used with loads developed specifically for them. And yes, I only use Federal primers in my 45 acp loads, but use Winchester primers in my revolver loads.

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

Two failures forty-some years ago. Changed my procedure (charge cases in a loading block, inspect for level all at once) to make them a lot less likely. I prime like MMA10mm. No problems since those first two. If I wanted ammo that didn't work, I could buy it at a gunshow. No need to go to the trouble of making it myself.

 

[SMSgt]

I started reloading back @ '75 and have had one misfire (solid strike on a bad primer) and one shotshell fizzle (water intrusion). I've had many more failures of factory loads.

Last year I bought a Glock 30 and got back into reloading after many years out of it. First time with auto-loader ammo and the G30 gave me fits. Tried 200 grn SWCs and it just wouldn't feed/eject them with either the factory barrel or the Storm Lake barrel. I've heard that the G30 doesn't take well to SWCs. 230 LRNs feed fine. The 4566 I picked up recently eats anything I've loaded in the mag. Cheers to the S&W!

I still use my single stage "Herters" press for all loading, visually inspect every case for proper powder level, seat each primer with a Lee hand primer, and load in batches of fifty, as that's what my loading block holds. Reloading is theraputic to me, so I'm not in a hurry to crank out 100s at a sitting.

I guess for those compedition shooters, having to rack out a bad shell is part of the game. It could be the ammo, it could be the gun, or both.

 

[ColColt]

Reloading is theraputic to me, so I'm not in a hurry to crank out 100s at a sitting.

If I were a drinking man, I'd drink to that. I'll never own a Dillon press. My old RCBS Jr works as good today as when I bought it.

 

[Gun Smoke]

The only misfires I have had were my fault....I loaded up a bunch of .44 mag range loads for my 629 and then after I bought a Colt SAA .45 replica I thought that painting a dab of red model paint across the base and primers of the .44 mag rounds would be a good way to be sure a red .44 mag round never got into the Peace maker by accident and prevent a Ka Boom..Seemed like a good idea and I thought the paint would if anything seal the primers but what it did was to kill about half of them so after spending a lot of time with the ole bullet puller and repriming the loads I learned not to do that again...What I do now is after I deprime the fired .44 mag brass I use a red sharpie to color the base before priming and no more problems....Live and learn...