RA9T Primer failure

[XAVMECH]

I have to say that my experiences with manufactured ammo has been quite good over the past 66 years of shooting. I’ve only experienced one squib load - detected in time - in a Model 15 years ago, and this incident the other day at the range with a Winchester RA9T 147gr jacketed HP.
I was running two 9mm pistols, with various ammo, in comparison. I was part way through a magazine of the RA9T when I heard a “thunk” when the hammer fell, instead of the customary bang and recoil. The pistol was still in battery and I dropped the mag and racked the slide, ejecting the unfired bullet. The primer had been struck nicely by the firing pin and had basically exploded, but did not ignite the powder charge. I inspected my pistol (A Kimber Pro Carry) and continued with my shooting.
I brought the bullet home and carefully disassembled it in the shop. The powder was in good condition and while I didn’t remove the primer from the casing, a flashlight revealed that the ignition port was properly formed and clear. I’ve never run into this type of failure on any of the centerfire ammo I’ve used and wonder what your experiences with this type of failure have been.

 

[ContinentalOp]

Several years ago I was shooting some cheap commercially-reloaded ammo through my 642ND. One round didn't ignite. It had a good dent in the primer. I didn't disassemble it, though.

The only other ammo issue I've had was some Remington ammo I ran through my 642-1. The rounds fired, but some of the cases wouldn't extract. I had to use pliers to pull them out. The fired cases had splits down the sides. Fortunately, there didn't appear to be any damage to the chamber walls. I notified Remington. They asked me to send them the remaining ammo for inspection and they gave me a full refund on the ammo. I posted a thread about it in this forum.

 

[Speedo2]

A "thunk" rather than a "click" when the hammer was dropped. Also, if I'm understanding this correctly, you didn't punch the primer yet the primer flash hole is/was clear based on inspection? Your photo suggests that the face of the primer is partially blown back. If so, then a defective primer would seem to be the most likely cause. However, if seems strange that the powder wasn't at least deflagrated even with a partially damaged primer, if the primer was ignited (which if it's truly blown back, it would have been). Strange.

I would suggest that you verify that the casing flash hole is/was cleared. IIRC, there was a discussion in the reloading section a couple of years ago with a somewhat similar situation; blown-out primer caused by a brass manufacturing defect. Please let us know what you find. -S2

 

[stykshooter]

Looking at the photo, it looks like the primer was put into the pocket sideways. Not that uncommon. In all my years working the range it was fairly common to have factory ammo from the box with primers in sideways or in upside down. Well, I guess being common is subjective. I'm talking about a class of students shooting 70-75 thousand rounds a week and having one show up once every week or two. Its loaded on automatic presses and things slip by.

The biggest problem was a batch of .45 ACP we got in one time that a bunch of the rounds didn't have the primer hole drilled. The striker would detonate the primer and then lock the Glocks up tight. We were getting 2-3 rounds per thousand that were defective in that manner.

 

[XAVMECH]

RA9T Primer failure, followup -

I kept the casing and primer intact, thinking I would return it to WInchester for their evaluation. After reading your posts, I thought I’d revisit that one and removed the primer this morning to reveal that the ignition hole in the casing was correctly formed.

The primer was still intact on the side adjacent to the ignition hole in the casing, but had failed on its sidewall. This picture doesn’t really show the detail very well, but it appears that the primer exploded the sidewall roughly 60-90 degrees around its circumference without doing more than slightly contouring its “skin” to match the ignition hole in the case.

Interesting failure, demonstrating the need for top quality components in all areas of SD ammo construction.