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

Kind of a different twist on the subject but some years back I had a Mark X in 7mm RM. Shot reasonably well and happened to go to a range with a small shop that sold primers and such. Running a little low on 9 1/2M's I bought a carton. Couple weeks later return with some "fresh" loads which went bang. Sounded a little different and the groups were horrendous. From <1.5" to >3.0. Had all my gizmos with me so I tore the rifle apart, checked all the screws and nothing was loose. Shot a few more times same result.

When I got home I looked and the primers had bipod anvils instead of tripods. I called Remington to ask them when they last produced those and they guy that I talked to said it had to have been at least 20 years prior to the purchase.

NowKarnis-

You know 'twisting' subjects ain't allowed nowhere on the fire
Jerry

When i was pretty young my dad got a "friend" to do some reloading for us(my dad only has one hand). We had way too many mis-fires with that stuff. Mostly 243 and 30-06.

I have had"1"! 270WSM. When I loaded it, I knew something was wrong. I marked it and went on. That round happened to be in the chamber when i called in my first bobcat!

Gunner that was so long ago,I don't remember if I even HAD a 270 back then...I was originally an 06 guy...which I have really always been anyway.

Gunner

After decades of handloading, I have yet to have one of my handloads FTF, hangfire, or otherwise malfunction.

Factory ammo is another story- Have experienced blown primers with Federal 270 WSM and Hornady 204 ammo. Not really 'misfires' per se, but certainly malfunctions.

I've been handloading since '68, and have only had 1 CCI LR primer fail to light.

I had two hangfires in reloaded ammo with primers from the same tray of 100. That was about 15 or 16 years ago, and there were no others with the any of the other primers from that box of 1,000. Never had a centerfire rifle or pistol round fail to go "bang",

I have had a few rimfires fail over the years--maybe 4 or 5 in the last fifty-some odd years. Back shen we were using .22 rimfire blanks to propel darts to immobilize deer and other ungulates, we found that the amount of priming and powder varied rather dramatically from round to round. We had a couple of instances where the darts hit with enough force to bury themselves in the hams. We were forced to start weighing our rounds and sorting them by weight, saving the ones with the heaviest charges for deer out at the limits and using the lightest charges for deer close in.

Never had a misfire in any of my handloads or centerfire ammo I've fired. Had some in rimfire ammo and some in shotgun rounds when I used to shoot skeet.

Factory Remington 30-06 180gr coreloss ammo.Green box garbage

Never had any issues with rifle ammo either factory or my reloads. When I first started loading my colt .357 revolver I was not seating the primers deep enough, click then on the next pull bang. RCBS hand primer took care of that issue.

I know the thread said rifle or pistol but back in the early 70s we started hand loading shot shells and it was not uncommon to have one or two duds in every thousand with Winchester 209 primers. We tried some Italian ones (don't remember the brand) that not only would not always ignite they were a few thousands undersize and would fall out. I have to say the components we use now (cci for rifle and pistol, Winchester rifle, pistol shotgun, Remington rifle shotgun) have always gone off.

One failure to ignite on a good primer strike. It was a handload. Decent buck on opening day after I ran into him the last day of the season the previous year while climbing out of my stand at 2pm. He came out of a dry creek running thru a cutover at a distance of about 10 yards. By the time I messed around reloading he got nervous and was behind a Holly tree. He stood there for a long time but I didn't want to try and shoot thru the tree. After about 10 minutes he walked straight off behind it.

He lived at least one more full year, nobody ever killed him that I am aware of.

When you think about the odds of picking 4 rounds out of 20 in the truck that morning and that 1 round making it into the chamber out of the other 3.....blah

Never had any factory or handloaded CF ammo fail in civilian life. Have had a very few RF rounds fail to fire. 3, maybe 4.

Only other experience with ftf was with a minigun. You burn thru a staggering amount of ammo there, and maybe a half dozen times the roar would burp a little.

Remington 9 1/2 s didn't go boom 5% of the time, which is why I NEVER use 'em anymore. (7x64 Brenneke, and CCI's have always worked for me, plus Federal primers.)

Well what thread is complete without some kimber bashing? Here is my story. I bought a Montana in 338 federal off a guy over on LRH forum with dies included and some brass. I started to work up some loads and opened the dies and found a note in there that said use only federal primers bc cci's were too hard. I looked at my primer stash and CCI's was all I had so I tried them. Sure enough I think it was 2 out of about 18 duds. The strikes didn't look that bad but ended up going with feds and haven't had a problem since. Here is another. I have a Montana 223 that didn't fire one cci primer out of prob 60 I've shot. Also tried a couple LC NATO primed cases and prob 4 or 5 out of 20 didnt fire the first time but would the second time or one even went on the third lol. BTW the same ammo shoots fine out of either of my remingtons.

Man, guess I'm lucky - other than 22lr (where I've had a bunch, 50+ at least), I've never experienced a misfire, factory or reloads (not including forgetting to prime my rounds one time early in my reloading career... )

I had some 45/70 loads that hang-fired and did not get complete ignition with light charges of 4198. The charges were well within the range listed in the loading manual. I suppose I should have used some filler. I also had some misfires recently when I evidently got some mil spec small rifle primers loaded into some 9mm rounds. Several handguns would not set fire them.

Both situations were educational experiences that taught me how to keep them from happening again.

I have had misfires with Remington factory 7mm Rem Mag rounds that were about a decade old and that showed a good bit of corrosion and powder deterioration when I pulled apart the remainders in the box.

I've shot very few factory rounds since I started handloading in 1986 and I've shot several thousand of my handloads since then. Only had three failures to fire, all three on game.

The first instance was in 1994 near Gillette, WY. I'd killed a 72" antelope the year before (my first) and put the sneak on a buck that made the previous year's buck look like a runt. 300 yards, rock steady from prone position, crosshairs high on the shoulder and CLICK! I tried to cycle the bolt on my Ruger M77 30-06 but he took off to parts unknown. I'm guessing he would have gone 80" or so. I'll never know.

The second instance was in 1996 southwest of Grand Junction, CO in the Uncompahgre NF. I was on my first elk hunt and had trailed up a group of cows and calves in the snow. I was about 60 yards from them and undetected. My heart was pounding as I got on the biggest cow and squeezed the trigger. CLICK! I cycled the bolt as quietly as possible and aimed again. CLICK! The elk wouldn't tolerate me working the bolt a third time and they thundered away. I trailed them for the rest of the afternoon, jumping them twice. I finally jumped them again and got a clear shot at a big cow trotting through the timber. BOOM! That time the Winchester 70 .338 WM went off and I had my first elk.

none that i can remember in centerfire factory stuff. 22's, a few. my reloads...only 3 or 4 and those were the same batch with a contender that had a weak hammer spring and i couldn't figure out what was wrong for a while.

I had a misfire with one of my handloads but it was BGG's fault.



Travis