Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Thoughts on primer failure

I’ll report when I hear from Blaser USA, the importer.

DF

Yep. Compressed striker spring from long term always-left cocked bolt. New spring works fine. I think I put in an extra strength one as well. I store all my guns uncocked now.

Gunk in the bolt, or chamber, or a rough striker shaft can slow/lighten the strike as well. Cold thickened oil in the bolt will do it too. Ask me how I know. I now hunt in all weathers with "dry" bolts, using Corrosion X or Eezox for cleaning/lube. Could be some other things as others have mentioned.

If Tubb makes a striker kit for your rifle, try that. IIRC, I had to shorten firing pin protrusion (there is a pretty good range of "acceptable") for the wone I put into my M70 7 X57. Said kit, by the way, made no noticable difference in my accuracy, which may be an impedient to the rifle's accuracy.

Stable temps--no big temp swings

Dry.....our part of the west means 10-15%

I remember getting a bad batch of Rem 7.5's

I had a batch of 7mm-08 handloads producing duds on game, turned out that my primers were not seated deep enough, as my Lee tool had a stress crack and was flexing under pressure. Also had issues with some 444M Leverevolution ammo in a Handi-Rifle. Gunsmith told me the batch of Hornady ammo they'd sold at that time was doing this in several Hand-Rifles, due to primer pockets cut too deep. Had a 223 bolt action giving light primer strikes and it turned out that a shaving of brass was stuck to the side of the firing pin, near the tip, and was "jamming" on the firing pin hole of the bolt face. Also had a fairly new M77 start giving chronic misfires due to light strikes on my handloads (that had been fine the year before) I'd kept that rifle all year with the bolt raised and slightly retracted on a loaded round (truck gun). The sound of the pin dropping on a dry fire was not strong, so I swapped in a Wolff unit with 25% more power. Seems to have cleared it up, so I bet it was spring fatigue. As for unexplainable misfires, I've probably only ever had 2-3 with a centerfire rifle in 30yrs of shooting.

I prime with an RCBS bench mounted tool. So, I'm pretty meticulous getting primer below the case head.

I guess one could have been seated too deep, just not sure. Generally, it takes some effort to get them seated adequately.

Here's what I got from Blaser, USA. No real surprise here. Gun makers trend toward blaming the ammo. And, he could be right.

DF


The Firing pin assembly and shroud can be easily removed by turning the shroud clock-wise until it disengages from the bolt body.

I have not seen or heard of our rifles having any debris in the bolt. You will find some low temperature grease on the main spring that I do not recommend from removing.

The M18 design is proven and we have so far seen no weak springs or headspace issues. In your case I would definitely be looking at the primer itself or primer seating. The rifle is not designed to handle military grade primers since they are much harder.

A good, simple test to check the rifle functionality would be to use good quality factory ammunition.

Best regards,

Andre Gorjup
Gunsmith and Technical Service Manager

Phone:

210-377-2527

Fax:

210-377-2533

eMail:

[email protected]

Didn’t realize military grade primers were that much harder.

DF

When my "Big Rifle" was a Springfield 03 and I was not out of high school, I had a fail to fire. My brother had a Springfield 03A3 and he had FTF on the same deer hunt. It was cold, driving rain, then driving snow then colder yet. Very light hits on the primers. We replaced the firing pin spring with a heavier springs and checked to make sure there was no gunk in the bolt. Went back out later and no issues. I'm not sure whether it was gunk that caused the failure or an old spring that had been in cocked position for many years that caused the problem. We were both chastised by the oldest brother for wasting money on new springs.

I have some military grade primers with the thicker cups that I bought when I had a 308 AR; I sold that AR and have used them in 700's. So far I have not had an issue with them.

I've wondered if the FTF issue is maybe, besides other reasons, caused by leaving the firing pin spring compressed, especially with old rifles and not as good of metallurgy...

BTW, I find that rifles in the gun safe fit better with the bolt open, therefore the spring is compressed, so I'm not taking this possible problem to seriously.

My bolt guns are stored with open bolts. They fit in the safe better that way. And the firing spring is not compressed.

DF

This........exactly & agree

I don't know how that would be possible except on rifles like the 1914 or 1917 Enfield.

I see what you're saying. Only a cock on closing bolt design would actually have the firing pin spring without tension with an open bolt.

I think you're right. Just didn't think it through. Cock on opening gun would have to have closed bolt, firing pin in the fired position to unload the spring.

Thanks for that clarification. Nevertheless they're easier to store in the safe with the bolts fully open. And those springs are evidently made to hold tension even while compressed.

DF

I don't worry too much about this "issue" because I believe that the springs on modern rifles have much better metallurgy than those of ww2 and older.

Update on the primer problem. So I have been waiting out the weather to try out a few loads I loaded up, trying to get a good accurate load for the .30-06. I had the same primer issues with this rifle. So that is two different rifles, with the same tray of Winchester primers that have fail to fire. This trip, I had 6 - 3 shot groups loaded up. The first 3 I tried to shoot I pulled the trigger on 3 times each, with no firing at all. I had problems with most all of the 18 rounds I tried but some fired on the 2nd try, some not at all. I would say having the same problem with two different guns in pretty much the exact same manner is going to be a primer problem. I will contact Winchester and see what they have to say

Might be a good idea to test some of those primers in a different rifle. A good rule of thumb is that a dry fired primer dent of .018 to .020 or more is where you need to be. I would guess that that dent is less than that.

It has been two different rifles so far, a Winchester Extreme Weather Model 70 in .264 Win Mag and a Tikka T3 Superlight in .30-06. Lookig back in my original post, it looks like the first one was CCI Magnum primers, while this one Winchester Large Rifle Primers..... The winchester primers should have been fairly new, within a year.

Now I am really wondering what is going on. Two rifles, two different batches of primers by different brands, that are misfiring. What a mess I have to try and figure this out without easy range access, lol.

Excess headspace? Primers fully seated?

If you have excessive headspace issues, swapping rifles won’t make any difference. Never had a Fed primer FTF.
One reason I like my belted cartridges is that if they chamber, they will fire.
Good luck finding your solution.