Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles How Many Mis-Fires--Hand Loads/Factory ?

I'm talking 'certerfire' cartridges; handgun and or rifle.

I started handloading in 1975, that's 38 yrs. now. Like most, it was for 1 gun (rifle) and rapidly increased and expanded. I could NOT tell how many pistols/rifles I've loaded for NOR the 1000s of rounds IF YOU WERE GOING TO SHOOT ME.

I'll also include factory ammo. After getting into handloading, my factory ammo shooting has been very limited.

In these 38 yrs, I PROMISE I have only had TWO rounds to misfire.

My youngest son was not in school yet but he was interested and enthralled with guns and my hand loading. One day I was loading some 358 W ammo. I had an old heavy desk w/drawers as my loading station.

While I was loading he was standing at one end of the desk. I had my components handy and PRIMERS laying on the table AS I was priming. I got down to the last two - and did NOT have those primers. I asked him IF he saw my primers. He opened a little hand and VOILA there were my primers in his sweaty little hand. (ha ha sweet memory)

I went ahead and loaded them and MARKED them. Later when I was shooting the 358 THOSE 2 rounds did not go BOOM. No problem, nothing important.

All this loading, shooting involved MANY brands of handguns & rifles. Those were the only 2 mis-fires I've ever had.

How about YOU? Any interesting, funny, or aggravating events?

1 30-30 Winchester factory loaded round, never in any of my handloads.

Gunner

Had one hang fire with a 7mm Rem. Mag in very cold weather. That was "interesting". Click! "Hmm, must be a misfi"BOOM!

Handful of misfires with CCI-500 small pistol primers, these were all from boxes purchased after the big Clinton shortage of the 90's. I noticed the QC had slipped since, prior to buying those, all primers were oriented the same way in the box. After the shortage and while the factory was working overtime to make more, some primers would be right side up and some upside down in the boxes.

I had three fail to fire in the same Mannlicher Schoenauer 30-06 on the same day. Problem was not the ammo but a gunked up bolt keeping the striker from hitting with sufficient force. A good cleaning solved the problem. I've never had a misfire or hang fire due to either handloads or commercial ammo.

As far as I can recall, I've never had a misfire or hangfire with any ammo. It's extremely seldom the I shoot factory, centerfire ammo.
Bear in Fairbanks

A misfire is not a misfire if there is no powder in the case or it's missing a primer.

Just wanted to clear that right up.

Been loading since about 1962. No center fire duds to date.

Never had a misfire with centefire rifle or pistol ammo, either factory or handloaded. Did have a few dud shotgun shells/slugs but to be fair they were very old {cardboard} and I don't know how/where they had been stored.

Never with CF rifle ammo, handloads or factory. I did have some '06 loads that had crazy long hang time with a low charge of BLC-2.

I have had a couple with handgun loads using primers I picked up off the floor...

LOL Karnis, Dad said my 30-30 round prolly had a bad primer, I sent the dud and the other 19 hulls off to the big R in Lonoke, never heard a word back from those pricks, this was in the late 70's.

Gunner

In 46 years of loading, I've had one misfire that I remember ( :)). A 45 ACP that turned out to be just a tad short in the base to case mouth dimension but it fired when chambered in a different chamber of my Ruger convertible.

Quite a few rimfire rounds of various flavors. Contrary to what I've read on some different forums, they weren't more common with R-P Golden Bullets.

Gunner you are more patient than me. I would not have waited 40 years for follow up.

I expected at least a nice letter or something, I bought those shells from hauling hay and cutting firewood, that $4.35 came the hard way.

Gunner

When the 25/06 was pretty new, I had a couple of factory loads fail to light up....never sure if it was rifle or ammo but that 700ADL was a good gun and never did it again.

Only one time with some old surplus 8mm ammo. Several times in the one box in fact. Other than that never have had a FTF other than rimfires.

Even the 25-06 was trying to push you off to the much superior 270 WCF eh Bob? lol

Gunner

Me too on the rimfires Smith, bet I've chunked a ball cap full of those things.

Gunner

Back in the '60s had two '06 handloads that failed to go bang. I had just shot my first deer and the finisher went click. The CCI primers had almost no priming compound in them. The rest of the box of 100 were OK.

In the '70 had over thirty misfires from a carton of 1000 CCI Large Pistol primers. Again the failures were due to a dearth of priming compound.

In the '80 had several misires from a box of vintage GECO 9mm Stery ammo. The anvils were upside-down in primers.

None since then.

Just 1.

Factory .35 Remington on a buck I would have probably mounted.

Oh wait... I did mount him because I jacked that pos out and shot him.:)

I found that bullet and held on to it for years with the intention of hanging it on the mount, but I managed to lose it.

I had one way back about 1977, I was learning to load and the cousin who was teaching me insisted on putting the new primer in while the case was still lubed up and in the resizing die. I can't swear to it but I think I grabbed a primer with my lubed fingers. After I started with my own equipment, I separated the steps and haven't had a problem since. Of course, I was shooting at game when I found the dud. Still got the buck, but I said a word or two that a 16 year old shouldn't say

Then there was the one about 3 years ago when my son was helping and we produced a round without powder. Found that one at the range so no biggie.

I don't shoot a lot of factory CF ammo but can't think of any bad ones there.

Dale