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

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

I had a bad run with WSP's this past summer. Had a bunch of dud primers, saw it in different rounds in different guns, so cant blame one gun. Finally noticed that the primers looked more rounded off than flat. I finally got to where I could tell which ones were gonna be duds. They must have all come from the same brick, since I havent had a dud since about Sep.

Had two .444Marlin factory rounds fail to fire in a cold and greasy H&R Handi-Rifle. Wasn't the ammo's fault. Only had one handload fail to fire. It turned out that a brass shaving had made its way into the bolt body of my 700 223AI and got itself stuck to the back of the boltface, overlapping the firing pin hole a bit. The shaving was slowing down the pin as it fell.