Fail to fire

[nvbroncrider]

How frequent are primer failures? Had my first one the other day on my 9.3 it was kinda a surprise no bang no boom no thump. I'm using WLR primers and I'm almost through my 2nd brick of 6 I have. I know it's possible to occasionally have one I'm just asking ahead of time in case it becomes more frequent. I tried re cocking and firing a total of 5 times no joy. Today when I pulled it apart I tried again and nothing happened.

I then had two rounds I pulled apart that were messed up and they popped fine so I know it's not a headspace or a case sizing issue. Although the primer looked very similar to a case size issue.

 

[Ridgerunner665]

Don't be so quick to decide its not a sizing/headspace issue...that can be very random and hard to sort out without actually measuring both your sized cases and the chamber they're being used in.

I've had this issue...took me 2 years to figure it out...and in that 2 years I only had about 10-12 misfires, out of about 250 rounds.

Just .001"-.002" too much and most will fire...but some will not.

 

[NYDAN]

I don't know about rifle primers but during my days as a registered skeet shooter I reloaded over 100,000 shotshells using winchester shotgun primers. I had two misfires. Of course, there could have been other reasons for those two misfires such as moisture in the shotshells picked up off the ground. But, my record is two misfires in over 100,000 rounds.

 

[DrMike]

It happens, but not commonly. I went through several thousand primers per years for many years. Only twice did I have suspect lots of primers. As RR suggests, headspace/sizing issues were almost always the cause when the misfires were examined. Failure to true the primer pocket or incomplete seating of the primer was another common cause of such misfires.

 

[Horsethief]

Two possible causes of the failure to fire are a bad primer caused by the manufacturing process (out of your control) and a primer that had some kind of post manufacturing contamination, such as case sizing oil from your fingers seeping into the primer. More than likely it is the former cause. That's my .02 cents worth.

 

[1Shot]

I have been handloading for pistol, rifle and shotgun for over 35 years and can recall only three times I had a failure to fire situation and one of them was a hangfire and squibload all rolled into one. It was from a shotgun shell that went click, bloop, and the shot cup and shot just did make it out of the barrel. Chalked it up to moisture in the cardboard base wad of the shell. The others where when I first started using some Wolf LR primers. It was not the primers fault but mine in that I did not seat them properly. These primers have a really hard cup and maybe are a little larger than most and you really have to put the pressure on them to make sure that they fully seat and compress the anvil against the priming compound. Once I got this right I have had no trouble. I have had too many to count of bad 22 rimfire round over my lifetime. One bad primer, chalk it up to nothing is perfect. If you have a number of them then it is a problem and I would call the factory and tell them and get them replaced.

 

[muleman]

Last range session I had WLR primers breach the cup at the edge Like some others have had on here. The only misfires I've had were from an oversized chamber and an occasional fireforming load that doesn't fit tightly enough in the chamber.

Scott