Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Duds

Gents,
I have a dud problem that's driving me crazy and I'm hoping someone can help me out. I recently started reloading and from the get go I had some duds. I was told that I was seating the primers with too much force after which I sat them about even with the base of the brass which seemed to help. However, I just went to the range today to try some new loads for an upcoming hunt and about 70% of my reloads failed to fire! The primers were clearly struck although not as hard as some I've seen and trying to fire them again didn't help. I also tried four factory Winchesters and they all fired on the first try. The way I see it there are three possible explanations. 1. My firing pin is too short and/or the spring is too weak. If this is the case why did the factory rounds work? I plan to try them in a friend's rifle. 2. I incorrectly full length sized the brass changing the head spacing which resulted in the firing pin not making good contact. I did measure my reloads, fired brass, and a new factory round which all compared favorably to the SAMMI specs. Does anyone know how sensitive this is? I adjusted my sizing die just as the instructions stated. 3. The primers are bad. These are standard Winchester large rifle but i'm not sure on their history. How common are bad primers? Could something happen to a box to cause them to go bad? There isn't any obvious water damage any anything. Any other ideas? Thanks for your help.

shooterschmidty,

You are having a similar problem to me. My K14 Klienguenther will fire ONLY Fed 215 Mag primers. ALL other brands experience what you are discribing. Very frustrating until I just settled on using Fed 215 Mags for that rifle.

I still use the other primers in other rifles. In fact once I I settle on a load I substitute different brands to discover which the rifle "likes".

Since you are fairly new, I will post an example of what difference primers can make. It has been posted before, but will post it again on a new thread called "Primer changing groups."

What rifle is this?

I found the same thing happened to me when making brass for the 6.5-06. I have had Two miss-fires, figured I would inspect causes at a later date..
These are what I will look for.

Slightly long chamber, or some how the shoulder got bumped a thou or two.
Another possible cause, binding safety, not allowing the firing pin to do its job..

It will be a couple of days before I can inspect causes, will fallow up later, hope this helped.

Sounds like head space problem.

Back off the sizing die until the cases will chamber with a slight amount of force closing the bolt.
It sounds to me like you have adjusted the sizing die so that the case is loose enough in the chamber that it will move forward when the firing pin hits it cushioning the blow.
whelennut

Its a Weatherby Mark V rifle. I don't think its a safety issue being that the firing pin is making contact. Has anyone had issues with Lee resizing dies moving the shoulder innappropriately? I followed the instuctions screwing the die down until it made contact with the shell holder in the "up" position and then screwed it in another 1/4 turn.

So...assuming i bumped the should back to far is there any way to undo it? I'd hate to have to throw that much brass away.

Try pulling the bullets and reseating them with a lighter powder charge jammed in the lands. The rifleing will hold the case against the bolt face and should help with the ignition problem. The pressure from firing will blow the shoulder back out whee it belongs.

I second this. Size your cases to your chamber. Set your dies to have a slight resitance when you close your bolt. I like to mark my case necks & shoulder, with a felt tip marker and set resizing die where it just touches shoulder & bolt closes with a touch of resitance.

It will difficult if not impossible to seat slugs long enough in a Weatherby Mark V to bump them into the lands. Remember freebore?

Actually its really easy in mine, probably because its a .30-06 and not a weatherby caliber.

I just found on the Weatherby website that they specify a firing pin protrusion from the bolt face of 0.063 - 0.069''. Mine protrudes ~ 0.030'' so that could be my problem. I think I'll try to find a replacement firing pin and try that out before I tear apart all of the rounds I loaded.

See if the threaded part of the firing firing pin is screwed flush to the rear surface of the cocking piece. See the owners manual.

Good idea!

I think you may have traded one problem for another in regards to seating the primer.
If you only had aa few misfirses before ,you could very well have crushed the primer. Then when you seated them not as hard, you did not get them all the way to the bottom of the primer cavity.When the hammer strikes them,instead of firing,it pushes the primer forward to the botttom.

I don't think it is a head space problem as the factory ammo fired OK ,which is probably sized to minimum SAMMI spec to fit any rifle. Same with the firing pin.

I'd go back and load 5 rounds or so and set the primers deeper, but take more care in the feel of the seating process. You can usually feel it bottom out.
This simple tetst might keep you from chasing a lot of ghost that are not there.

Unless you have bad set of dies,( that does happen) you can screw the dies down until it bottoms out on the shell holder and still not be able to size the brass smaller than SAMMI specs. The test here is to borrow another sizing dies,or send it back to the factory and have them check yours.

I did check to see if the threaded part of the firing pin is flush with the top of the cocking piece which it was. I also tried screwing it in and out a couple of threads further either way to see if that would help but it didn't.

The instructions that came with my dies told me to actually bottom the die out on the shell holder then lower the shell holder and screw it in additional 1/4 - 1/3 of a turn which I did. Do you think that that would be enough? They're Lee dies if that makes a difference.

If this is new brass you don't need to FL size the cases. Do you have the tool necessary to measure to the datum line on the shoulder? If so measure one of the rounds you sized and then measure a factory unfired case. That should tell you if you created too much headspace.Rick.

This particular stuff was fired brass but i do normally FL size new brass too. Unfortunately I don't have that tool. Just eyeballing it it seems close but I know that doesn't necessarily mean anything...

The 1/3 -1/4 turn just takes up any slop,but does not actually change anything in regards ro sizing.Perhaps it would keep the linkage from camming over but still does not do anything.I typically just srcew the die down to the shell holder if I am ful length resizing.Typically if I am firing the round in the same rifle, I back off the die until I am just shy of setting the shoulder die. Some guys set the die up so it sets the shoulder back just a few thousandths.

If the die is not screwed down far enough it does not size completely, not smaller which some have said is your problem, nor does screwing the die down further cause your duds.
As stated,I suggest borrowing another die and /or resest some primers

Shooterschmidty:

Sorry, my bad. I should have asked about the chambering before responding.