Ammo fail

Q

qwert65

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Joined
Jan 26, 2008
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For the first time in my 20 years of shooting handguns- I had a SELF defense round, commercially loaded fail to go off
It was a buffalo bore 158gr 38 special - the rest went off

The sobering part was it was one of the rounds I have been carrying in the gun for months ( I normally practice with hardball then fire whatever hollow points I have loaded in my carry piece at the end)

Honestly it kinda has me favoring revolvers and I carry a semi auto as primary 80% of the time but it was nice just pulling the trigger and making another hole in the target

That said has this ever happened to anyone else? I’m sure it has but I’ve never actually known of it happening to a particular person always a what if
 
I like BuffaloBore and Underwood but their primers are not sealed. (I’ve never seen sealant). How much difference could this have made in your situation, I don’t know.
 
Well, chit happens. I think it's long odds. Saw Hartkopf's entirely legitimate question; all my reloading career, I never even touched primers.
Then, during the primer crunch, a friend gifted me some primers that got pretty damp in transit. They all worked, though only in range ammo.
It just may have been a duff primer.
Qwert, we're assuming a good firing pin hit?
Moon
 
qwert65 said:
For the first time in my 20 years of shooting handguns- I had a SELF defense round, commercially loaded fail to go off
It was a buffalo bore 158gr 38 special - the rest went off

The sobering part was it was one of the rounds I have been carrying in the gun for months ( I normally practice with hardball then fire whatever hollow points I have loaded in my carry piece at the end)

Honestly it kinda has me favoring revolvers and I carry a semi auto as primary 80% of the time but it was nice just pulling the trigger and making another hole in the target

That said has this ever happened to anyone else? I’m sure it has but I’ve never actually known of it happening to a particular person always a what if
Click to expand...
I only load factory for protection. Don't care what the big mouths here think. Young I had glocks and domestic 1911's. Switched to revolvers after my wife adopted a 22lr revolver for purse gun. Made fun of her when she had some practic duds. But then she started to just pull the trigger again and boom. Well pop. So I enjoyed reading your comment . Especially after people been having some primer or weapon issues lately. For that horrible need for a life saving shot or two ill stick to revolvers. Just pull it again. Good evening
 
Hartkopf said:
I like BuffaloBore and Underwood but their primers are not sealed. (I’ve never seen sealant). How much difference could this have made in your situation, I don’t know.
Click to expand...
Oh man years ago my brother put bullet sealer on some x39 we made. Tied them in a sock and threw them in the pond with a deer head. Forgot. Next spring drug out the nasty deer head and there they were. SKS fired them. Always thought that was cool.
 
halfmoonclip said:
Well, chit happens. I think it's long odds. Saw Hartkopf's entirely legitimate question; all my reloading career, I never even touched primers.
Then, during the primer crunch, a friend gifted me some primers that got pretty damp in transit. They all worked, though only in range ammo.
It just may have been a duff primer.
Qwert, we're assuming a good firing pin hit?
Moon
Click to expand...
Yes perfect hit- I also t tried it in another pistol and it didn’t go off
 
qwert65 said:
Yes perfect hit- I also t tried it in another pistol and it didn’t go off
Click to expand...
I’d pull that puppy apart and inspect the primer. Push it out and see if the primer manufacturer left anything out. If the second hit didn’t make it fire, then BB seated it correctly.
 
only fail to fire I've ever seen is with .22 LR, infrequently - but, 1 in 150 or 200, maybe a bit more depending on how cheap I was when I bought it. Did you spin it around and hit it again, or just pull it to review for further consideration? Was there a nice solid primer strike on it?
 
Could be QC issue. I bought some Buffalo Bore 45 Colt ammo years ago. They were over max length and I had to seat them deeper to get the cylinder to rotate.. Not impressed to say the least.
 
I bought a box in 454 Casull and they miss fired. I called BB and he said Rugers have a firing pin problem. Grizzly, HSM and others fired every time. After close examination of the BB ammo I found the primers to be the problem. Some were not seated and some of those were tilted in the pockets. After 10-20 trigger pulls they would seat and fire. BB sucks!
 
A lot of money spent. If someone I know made those I'd blame rookie mistake.
 
qwert65 said:
For the first time in my 20 years of shooting handguns- I had a SELF defense round, commercially loaded fail to go off
It was a buffalo bore 158gr 38 special - the rest went off

The sobering part was it was one of the rounds I have been carrying in the gun for months ( I normally practice with hardball then fire whatever hollow points I have loaded in my carry piece at the end)

Honestly it kinda has me favoring revolvers and I carry a semi auto as primary 80% of the time but it was nice just pulling the trigger and making another hole in the target

That said has this ever happened to anyone else? I’m sure it has but I’ve never actually known of it happening to a particular person always a what if
Click to expand...
I get it - I'm definitely a revolver man.

But failure drills are part of training with bottom feeders, or at least should be. I argue that a fellow isn't really competent with one until "tap rack" becomes an autonomic response.

And of course, ammunition failure (at least with brand-name factory stuff) is incredibly rare. As you noted, "once in twenty years". Those're pretty good odds...
 
As far as my primers go when i drop them in my primer trey and flip them, i give a quick look to see if they all have anvils in place, never found a dud yet.
 
There is only one thing to do, and do it quickly:

How to Clear a Failure to Fire - Pistol

In this week’s NRA Firearm Training Tip, we are going to provide you a tip and drill on how to clear a failure to fire stoppage. There are several things that can cause this type of stoppage. The most common cause is a magazine that is not seated completely.
www.nrablog.com www.nrablog.com
 
i had read some views that blazer ammo sucks but paid no attention until i learned my own lesson. i recently regripped my taurus 856 bedside piece and wanted to run some rounds through it. commercial, low-recoil reloads from cavalry ammo, and new norma and federal 38sp ball ammo all ran well. then i tried cci blazer fmj. the first two rounds of several cylinders went bang but then the cylinder invariably hung up on #3. w.t.h. checked the revolver, dry fired, rotated the cylinder, then ran more federal, ok. then i looked at the blazer rounds closely and noticed a slightly raised rim on each case that prevented the cylinder from cycling. asked the range officer if he had ever seen such a thing and he replied, “blazer is crap.” i’m surprised as cci makes blazer and my blazer 22lr is fine. now i know better. at least i can run what is left of my blazer 38sp ammo in a bond arms derringer.

lesson 1: always proof each ammo in each firearm that you use in some way.
lesson 2: revolvers can fail and when they do fail it is game-ending at that moment.
lesson 3. another reason to have a simple, robust bond arms derringer.

IMG_1082.jpeg
 
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@qwert65 you mentioned that you had a nice solid hit to the primer. Not sure what the QC is for primers to peevent failure. I would think Buffalo Bore is just purchasing them from a manufacturer.
For the squibs that @alfsauve mentioned that is a ammo manufacturer issue most likely. Not loading powder in the case.

I think for the most part you get what you pay for in ammo in today's market. I shoot a lot of Underwood for wilderness carry/defense. In my personal carry/defense guns I use Hornady (Critical Duty and Critical Defense) along with Federal and Underwood.
I mentioned getting what you pay for. I personally don't see Buffalo Bore delivering a better product over Underwood for the additional cost.
 
After 69 years shooting, reloading, and competing in handgun, rifle, trap and muzzle loading involving hundreds of thousands of roundsthe only ftfs I’ve had were with 22 rim fires, a few wet black powder reminds and some old crusty pre 1900 or so military rounds.
Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen. I don’t lighten mainsprings, use cheap wired off brand primers, and visually check each powder charge.
Next week, weather permitting, I’m going to shoot up a bunch of 70’s S&W Fiocchi 38s and 357s and I’m confident they will all go boom.
I think, but can’t prove and am making no accusations, that many ftfs are the result of trigger/spring mods.
 
The only centerfire I’ve ever had primer failure in were Yugoslavian surplus Tokarev ammo. They mostly fired on a second strike. Ive had oil seep into carry rounds from the chamber, but the primer worked and powder failed to catch (Hornady 9x18).
 
I have had enough failures in the last few years from factory ammo (bad primers, failure to pass a case gauge, failure to chamber, primers falling out after one firing) to tell me that factory ammo isn't what it used to be. If I had done as badly with my reloads as the factory ammo here recently I would quit reloading from the fear of myself.
 
After over 50 years of reloading, competition and a lot of just plain plinking, the only CF primers I have had problems with are the ones from Argentina. Very hard to begin with and with about a 1/2 of one % ~ 1% true failure. As far as rimfire duds, very few and those with low cost ammo. Never with CCI, Eley, Lapua, RWS, SK, etc. My ammo and primers were usually purchased by the case for an indication of volume.
 
Reinz said:
Great, I just bought 20K.

From Argentina; I wish they were from Mexico, never had any issues with 44Auto Mag ammo or Aquila before they were made here.
Click to expand...
Where ever they were from I had maybe 35 work out of a box of 50. I had another box loaded where I pulled all 50 and then deprimed the cases. Still have another box of 50 to do the same. I put the rest of them - around 850 - in the trash. Bad garbage.
 
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