I recently picked up a MRC rifle in .243 Win and I purchased a box of Hornady Whitetail ammo (100 gr) to use for break-in.

My brother had about a dozen rounds of Winchester factory ammo that he gave me and I shot those first. Then when I switched over to the Hornady ammo, the first two shells failed to fire.

Anybody else ever have any misfires with Hornady whitetail ammo? I'm assuming it's an ammo problem and not a problem with the rifle? The primers looked to have a pretty decent stike into them from the firing pin. I did get one to finally fire after trying it about a dozen more times.......the other one never would fire.

Should I complain to Hornady, or just chalk it up to one of those things. (I won't be buying Hornady Whitetail ammo ever again, but then I really only bought it for the brass anyway).

Frankly, your time is better spent cpntacting the mgf immefiately than it is posting in a net forum.

Only Hornady can fix the issue. They made the ammo.

And no- in my 35 years of using Hornady ammunition- misfires are NOT common. Never seen them in Hornady ammo.

Contact them with the lot number on the box.Most likley they will want any used round to examine ..

So, you don't think it's worthwhile to post about a misfire problem to see if other people have had issues and to warn people of a possible problem with certain ammo?

I had the opposite happen, mine fired all right, it fired so hard it cracked the brass open. I tried contacting Hornady on three different occasions, no response from them.

I guess they figure they have enough customers not to worry about the ones who have a problem.

about ten years a go i had a squib load with Hornady 7x57 ammo. i sent them an email with the lot #.

I haven't had any Hornady misfires, but the federal 22 or ammo I bought a couple years ago is the worst I've ever seen!

Light primer strikes? Hornady brass seems notoriously undersized in my experience.

2 of the guys I hunt with have had a mis-fire with Hornady.

One about 3 years ago. 7mag 139 gr Whitetail in a BAR.

The other this past January, .257 Roberts 117gr Superformance in a Ruger M-77.

Both while deer hunting. Can't say if it was ammo or rifle, but both had what looked like a good indent in the primer.

You can probably take the headspace idea out of the 7mm since it's off the belt.

Misfires are the suckiest of the suck.

The only shell I've heard of misfires with more than Hornady AW are corelokts. I'll never own a single one of either. That's the one piece that HAS to perform flawlessly.

This is somewhat off topic, but on Saturday I had (2) .22 hornet loads (Hornady loading-35 VMAX) have case head separation.

It was obvious something wrong had happened...as I could smell the burnt powder but the recoil and everything else felt fine, including bolt lift. After extracting the case, I found they were cleanly cracked about 1/4 inch above the rim, nearly 3/4 of the way around the case.

I don't have the box, so can't determine the lot number to relay to Hornady.

My point is, with the OP's experience and my own plus other's on this thread, it seems Hornady ammo has seen some quality control issues lately.

I sent back 6 rds that didn't light from first 2 boxes of 5, they sent 2 boxes that had 4 duds after cleaning bolt and installing a heavy striker spring. No prob. with RP or handloads.

My experiences with Hornady customer service has always been good. Wouldn't the failure to fire with a "decent" firing pin strike likely be a dud primer? They would probably appreciate a call. The case head separation might likely be a chamber dimension issue. But I admit to being an amateur hand loader, so what do I know? Hornady sent me a new .30-06 die at no charge when I didn't notice I was resizing a partially separated case and stuck a headless case in a die. I admitted my fault and offered to pay but the invoice had a big zero balance. Mr. Hornady will make it right is my experience.

I experienced multiple failures to fire in my 204 not long after I got it. New gun. Good solid dents in the primers. Problem quickly got worse to where the rifle wouldn't fire at all. Complete bolt disassembly revealed a smal piece of primer cup material had worked its way into the firing pin hole in the bolt face, and had been swaged onto/into one side of that hole. That material was slowing the striker enough that, although it still made normal looking dents in the primers, they would not light. The piece of primer cup correlated well with the pierced primer I found loose in the plastic the gun came in when I first got it. :-)

My point here is merely to suggest _also_ having a close look at the gun. Sometimes it is the problem, or at least a contributor.

If you don't share the lot number, it doesn't matter much as a warning.

I shoot a lot of Hornady and no problems yet.

Prior to an African hunt last year, a friend of mine was checking his double 470 NE for point of aim. Had two misfires.

Hornady took care of him.

But could of you imagined having misfires on a charging Water Buffalo.

I think it could be warning if a bunch of people post about them having similar issues.

Anyway, if want the lot #, here it is: 3163655

I contacted Hornady just now. I'll let you guys know what their response is on the matter.

I had about 1/2 of 2 boxes of whitetail 7-08 FTF about a year ago. It was purchased at Academy and I contacted Hornady and they paid to have me ship it back and sent 2 new boxes. Have not shot it since but customer service was excellent. 3 boxes of federal premium shot without one issue.

I also had a box of Hornady Custom 270 Win (Frontier head stamp) from about 15 years ago that I shot last fall that was so hot it blew the primer out and eroded the bolt face a little. I had to whack pretty good on the bolt handle to get it yo open. Never called them as it was so old and about 90 deg out. I figured it was temp sensitive at that point.

At this point I'm not a fan of their loaded ammunition.

Mike

Primer contamination is often a cause of misfires. Never had but one myself on BG rifles - and that was a rough-shanked striker/ spring/ bolt problem. Smoothing the striker shank and installing an over strength (probably not needed) spring fixed that rijght up. And yes, I was getting a "normal" indent. Apparently just not fast/hard enough.

Whitetail is the most accurate ammo thru my .243, with Corelokts a very close second. I'm using Hornady Superperformance in the '06 with excellent results.

I do have a dozen boxes of WW 22 Mag that have about 50% misfires. I shoot those for chits. Laying out in weather for up to 12 months after the remote cabin cache collapse ( have no idea when it went) obviously has nothing to do with it.....

On a slow day, google bad Hornady ammo and bullets. Page after page of bad ammo and bullets. As a past lifetime Hornady user, I don't see how the guys stay in business. Personally confronted Steve Hornady at DSC. He could have cared less when I showed him the exploded brass and gmx bullet in their premium load. Good luck!

Probably kinda sorta maybe a good reason for a non handloader to give a pass to Creednation.


For me anyway..

Agree and 243 is one of the worst.

No response from Hornady on the misfires. I suppose that means they don't care.

I contacted Ruger when I had problems with one of their rifles. The Customer service told me don't use that ammo. Don't use this ammo. Use only Gorilla ammo and never use reloads.

Now I'm thinking it may have been the rifle that caused the misfires. I shot 20 rounds of reloads I loaded yesterday and one of them did not fire on the first strike but a second try made it go bang.

I took apart the bolt assembly and didn't notice it being dirty or anything obviously wrong. Maybe the spring is too weak?

Too bad Hornady never got back to me. I will feel bad about complaining about their ammo if it turns out to be a problem with my new MRC.

How did you contact Hornady? I always get faster results when I call.

Have not used Hornady ammo since I started reloading. However, when I did, I never had anything less than good results.

If you have a dial caliper, your firing pin should protrude around .050" from the bolt face.

Quit whinning!

I sent an email to Hornady. I would think they would have responded at least to acknowledge receiving it.

I will send an email to MRC now.

It protrudes about 0.060".

Ok, I'm done whining.

.060" is good.

I have sent emails to manufacturers before. They have all answered, usually within two weeks. It has proved to be the slowest way to get a response in my experiance.

However, I usually get an immediate resolution via phone. You just have to get the right department.

Hornady is a solid company. I cannot imagine under any circumstances that they would not remady this. Would be surprised if they did not send you out a couple boxes of ammo...and a Hornady patch and stickers.

Good luck.

I'm not convinced it was an issue with bad hornady ammo after having a misfire with my reload too. What are the odds that I get two bad factory cartridges and then one from my reloads?

I've never had a misfire in a rifle cartridge. I rarely shoot factory ammo but I thought I'd start with factory ammo for break-in of the new rifle.

How snug is the extractor holding the case head to the bolt body?
If it allows the case head to move, you may be reducing that .060" to .040".

Then throw in undersized brass in an oversized chamber. What kinda headspace on your reloads?

One item of note: I had a misfire using factory Prvi 7x57 in my MRC ASR. When I looked at the primer, it was barely dented, not enough for ignition. I stripped the bolt and cleaned the factory grease off the springs, etc., and put everything back together. I've had no issues since. Just a thought.

I haven't shot any Hornady ammo in quite a while, but might they have harder primers, which can be a cause of misfires?

I use only Federal primers and my handloads always fire. But I tried some Nosler factory ammo that failed to fire more than half the time. Primers had decent dents, but less than my Federal primed loads.

Put a 38 special case over the shoulder and measure a fired case and a factory case. Or if you have a comparator.

Yeah, I had the same thought as well. When I got back from shooting, I stripped the bolt and cleaned the spring with some aerosol action cleaner. It really didn't look too dirty or had an obvious large amount of grease on it.

I wish I would have done that before ever firing a shot or at least right after the problem with the factory ammo.

I'll try to measure it up when I get home from work tonight.

One thing to note on the reloads: I loaded up the new unfired primed GFL brass that is for sale here: link

Maybe brass fired in my chamber would be more reliable instead of new brass. I'll try to see how much the brass moved after firing.

Quite a bit better and all virgin brass is undersized. Once fired in your chamber and you can control minimum headspace.

I got a response from MRC already. They say to try a different brand of factory ammo. They said: "try another brand of out of the box factory ammo. No re-loads since we don’t support these types of issues under warranty if re-loads are being used."

At least they got back to me unlike Hornady. I don't really want to buy more factory ammo, but maybe I will to see if get more misfires. 18 out of 20 Hornady ammo worked fine and 19 out of 20 of my reloads worked fine and 12 of 12 factory winchester ammo worked.

They pretty much stated the obvious. Measure the stuff and you'll see whats going on.

Replace the spring and problem solved.

See how easy that will be?

I measured the amount of movement from the Hornady and GFL brass. GFL moved 0.012" and Hornady moved 0.011".

I think I will see if I can get a stronger spring. Seems like it might cost less than another box of factory ammo. I just don't want a misfire when I'm hunting.

Happened to me 7mm-08,Hornady Whitetail, 5 of 20. took the bolt apart cleaned best we could after the first two misfires. I did not try the other box. I am going to call them.

Pretty much only the factory will know if they are running a problem with their latest runs of ammo or components. If a problem is worse than normal, their customer service calls will tell them the story, and they will hopefully get some lot numbers and take some tests.

In the last couple years or so, CCI had a big problem with large rifle primers, and maybe some others. When I contacted thew with my problems with some of those primers, they already knew the problems, the size of the problems, and all the lot numbers. (and they took care of me)

So, contact Hornady directly and have a frank conversation with them about their customer history calls on misfires... They will respond honestly if they have integrity.

So glad I don't shoot [bleep]-tory ammo.