Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns What would cause this type of FTF?

Please take a chill pill, HawkI.

It was either that or Annealing Part 3......

LOL.

Well, that was super educational but little to do with the question at hand. Unless you can explain how the firing pin has more force than the slide going into battery.


As for my "junk" Lee FCD, Hawkl, untold thousands of 9mm and 45 acp loads - yes, successful - have not been a problem here for my use. And that FCD did not contribute to my verification of your earlier post. Sized = longer. Mouth expanded slightly = back to starting length, more or less. That was all. Interesting, but of no practical consequence for run of the mill range rounds.

Were I competing in Bullseye, I might care enough to toss my "junk", but that ain't my bag. Now, rifle loads...they get more respect from me.

Regarding Lee "junk": I shoot High Master scores in Service Rifle and load all of my ammo with Lee "junk".😉

It has everything to do with the question at hand, and no, the firing pin doesn't have more force than the slide. The 45 Colt brass pictures say it in so many words without even putting a caliper on them.

Bulk fired brass, fired in whatever chamber and sized with a carbide die, can still have a slide close and still be in battery, yet still be sticky at that bulge, deadening the firing pin blow. The same round slammed home a second time and the problem is "resolved". I would point out the extractor isn't very good insurance at this instance.

The OP has admitted as much by having rounds stick a bit in the gauge and his next remedy is another die, a "Bulge buster" (that will probably fix his issue) but involves another step because lubing a thousand 223's is respectable work while the lowly .380 needs five dies to make sure it goes bang every time. But hey, you don't have to lube anything.
The fact that there are "Bulge buster" dies and Factory Crimp dies that coincide with carbide sizer dies to cajole a loaded round in a single fixed chamber remind me of creating a problem to have a solution, but I digress...

Revolvers aren't immune from having this happen either. Anyone out there have to push their carbide sized brass fired from their Ruger "home" a bit in some of their Smiths? My experience with a 44 Desert Eagle says pass the FL steel sizer.

Yes, the Federal caps go pop easier but having them all go off, regardless of brand, makes more sense.

YMMV, but if handgun rounds have a High Master Service Rifle shooter asking why his aren't all going off maybe we should respect them a little more.

I think Mackey was correct in that its a sizing issue.

If that is the case, then I will have learned something again. BTW - that's four dies here, not five. But I don't load 380.

Excuse me, sir - if that comment was a dig at me please take your condescension somewhere else. I was simply saying that Lee makes good enough "junk" (your words) that you can shoot high master rifle scores with it. I admittedly don't know a whole lot about loading pistol ammo, but do a pretty good job of loading rifle ammo.

Trigger,

My point is that if people loaded their handguns understanding what they know about loading rifles they would have less of a chance to have issues. But they dont. Thats where the mileage varies.

Like clockwork, the standard response "get a LEE Factory Crimp die" comes out of the woods. Why? Because its pretty obvious folks like skipping things they wouldn't with loading rifles and the symptom curing seems more like help than the actual cure is, which most anyone loading rifle ammo already knows how to do. But that doesn't sell more dies or make people feel like they've conquered something.

You don't need four dies or five because you've created perfectly good functioning ammo that doesn't need ironed out at this end, then at that end with a special die.

A steel FL die set, like you have for rifle cartridges, works pretty well.

Gotcha.
But, since there's no shoulder to index off of like with with rifle ammo, pistol ammo makes me kind of lost.

Just index off of the shellholder to FL size bulk once fired brass.

As pictured above with the 45 Colt cases, it still works the brass less than a carbide die and you don't need a bulge die; you've already sized the pressure ring.

OK, I have some more info. I went to my range today and fired the remainder of the ammo through two identical P232's that I have and had misfires with both guns, so it's definitely not a dirty gun or firing pin issue. Second strike set off all but one round that required 3 strikes.
Before shooting the ammo, I measured most of the rounds at various places on the cases and they were almost identical. Some of the cases still wouldn't just drop in and out of the case gauge, but I couldn't determine any differences in measurements from those that dropped in easily. Maaaybe .001 difference now and then.
The only thing I remember doing different was loading the primers on the press this time rather than the hand-primer, but I'll be damned if I could see or feel a difference in
I'm going to clean all my dies and start from zero.

I would smoke or color with a marker the cases that stick in your gauge, drop them in the gauge again to see what's the "hold up" if they haven't all been fired already.

I've not encountered this, but have read where a batch of bullets having some out of spec caused issues chambering. Not saying that's the problem, but the process of elimination might include checking.

Well, they're all gone now - all shot up.

Is the slide going into full battery when this happens? Can you smack the slide forward any? Sounds like a weak recoil spring.

Revolver - revolver is the answer.

Yes, it's in full battery.
It's happening in two identical guns, one practically brand new, both of which have fired hundreds of rounds of my cast lead ammo without issues, so I don’t believe it's a weak recoil spring.

Yeah, I'm about fed up with semi-autos in general. Just too sensitive to ammo.

If it’s happening with two guns that fire other, cast bullet loads and factory loads OK, you’ve pretty much removed the possibility that it’s the gun. (Other than the extractor dictating headspace) There’s something about your recently loaded ammo that’s causing the problem. I would guess that something is preventing the firing pin from reaching the primers.

…Cases too short or a slight crimp allowing the case to seat into the chamber a little deeper if the extractor hook is a tiny bit farther from the breech face. Is the extractor hook within spec?

…Are you you using the same case brand? If they’re a different brand, is the rim thickness the same as the cases of those loads that work OK? Thinner rims may be allowing the extractor hook to hold the cases a tiny bit farther away from the breech face or the firing pin.

…Are the primers seated deeper than those in those cast bullet loads? Just hold a thin straight edge across the bases and eyeball the depth of the primers or measure if you have a tool to do it.

Hope you get it figured out.