Problem with Misfires

[JO JO]

If it was me I would try another brand of new fresh primers and see what happens, I personally never had a tray of defective primers
Did you buy these primers new off the shelf?

 

[BMood]

I just put some factory ammo in my case gauge that always shoots fine through my gun, along with a handful more of my loads that didn’t fire... looks identical. The only difference is my primers look a little deeper. I’ll clean my firing pin and see if that helps, I did try and fire one of the misfires through my AR and it still didn’t go off but these rounds not being crimped I was nervous to slam it in so I loaded it by dropping it in the chamber and lightly riding the bolt home, I don’t think it seated properly though since it didn’t extract the first time and I had to slam the bolt and try again to get it out.
My brother was with me sighting in his brand new .223 bolt but wouldn’t let me try a “reject round” in his gun since I’m new to reloading and he was convinced his gun would explode.

 

[BMood]

If it was me I would try another brand of new fresh primers and see what happens, I personally never had a tray of defective primers
Did you buy these primers new off the shelf?

I did, ordered them from MidwayUSA. I’ll try some different primers but I feel like since it’s my first time reloading the odds of the problem being user error are a lot higher than a bad batch of primers.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Before you do anything else I suggest you buy a new package of 100 CCI or Winchester SRP and give them a try. Don't change anything or buy anything until you test with new primers first!

I did try and fire one from my AR and it didn’t go off but these rounds not being crimped I was nervous to slam it in so I loaded it by dropping it in the chamber and lightly riding the bolt home,

Crimping the primer would have no effect on the ammo. The military uses crimped primers out of an abundance of caution so as not to risk a primer coming out after firing and locking the action in combat. It has nothing to do with the round firing. Besides, how would you crimp the primer safely anyway? The Remington 7 1/2 primers are on the suggested list too.

Please try new primers first and let us know the results.

 

[Bfh_auto]

I just put some factory ammo in my case gauge that always shoots fine through my gun, along with a handful more of my loads that didn’t fire... looks identical. The only difference is my primers look a little deeper. I’ll clean my firing pin and see if that helps, I did try and fire one from my AR and it didn’t go off but these rounds not being crimped I was nervous to slam it in so I loaded it by dropping it in the chamber and lightly riding the bolt home, I don’t think it seated properly though since it didn’t extract the first time and I had to slam the bolt and try again to get it out.
My brother was with me sighting in his brand new .223 bolt but wouldn’t let me try a “reject round” in his gun since I’m new to reloading and he was convinced his gun would explode.

It could be slightly under sized brass and primers set too deep. These two things could stack the tolerances and make it not fire.

If the extractor wasn't over the case rim when you tried to fire the AR, I'm fairly certain the bolt want locked home. It will still click, but not fire.
This puts you back to only tried in one gun.

I would set the resize die to match the brass checker.
Then I would try to fire a primer only case in the bolt gun. Then try the same one in the AR.
If that doesn't work, buy new primers and repeat.

If you go slowly seating the primer, you should feel the point where the primer bottom out. It shouldn't take gorilla strength to prime cases.

 

[joseywales76]

Take the bolt apart and clean it. Adjust as necessary

 

[BMood]

Crimping the primer would have no effect on the ammo.

Sorry, I meant the bullet isn’t crimped.

 

[BMood]

It could be slightly under sized brass and primers set too deep. These two things could stack the tolerances and make it not fire.

If the extractor wasn't over the case rim when you tried to fire the AR, I'm fairly certain the bolt want locked home. It will still click, but not fire.
This puts you back to only tried in one gun.

I would set the resize die to match the brass checker.
Then I would try to fire a primer only case in the bolt gun. Then try the same one in the AR.
If that doesn't work, buy new primers and repeat.

If you go slowly seating the primer, you should feel the point where the primer bottom out. It shouldn't take gorilla strength to prime cases.

Ok thanks I’ll give that a try, I never thought of firing empty primed cases, that’ll save me a lot of trips back and forth to the range. What’s frustrating is when I make a batch of 20 that seem all identical, get sized and primed together, some fire and some don’t. (About 80% work)

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Even the bullet not being crimped won't hurt anything. It's perfectly safe.

It's not a good idea to fire primer only cases in your rifle. When you fire a complete round the primer backs out of the case and because of the pressure the case slams back into the bolt face pushing the primer back into the case. No powder or bullet means no pressure so the primer is not pushed back into the case and it's possible the backed out primer could lock up the works. It's just a bad idea IMO.

 

[higgite]

I agree that the case head in the photos looks like it might be sitting a little low in the gauge. One way to check for sure is to take a thin, metal straight edge, like a ruler or machinist’s scale, and set it on top of the case head in the groove on the end of the case gauge and hold it up to a bright light. If you see light between the straight edge and the case head, you are setting the case shoulder back too far when sizing the case.

 

[Rule3]

How about a picture of JUST the case head after you have deprimed it and is ready to reprime?

You stated you "cleaned" the primer pockets, How did you do that? Did you use some kind of reamer??

 

[Bfh_auto]

Even the bullet boot. Being crimped won't hurt anything. It's perfectly safe.

It's not a good idea to fire primer only cases in your rifle. When you fire a complete round the primer backs out of the case and because of the pressure the case slams back into the bolt face pushing the primer back into the case. No powder or bullet means no pressure so the primer is not pushed back into the case and it's possible the backed out primer could lock up the works. It's just a bad idea IMO.

I don't recommend doing it too the same case over and over because it will push the shoulder back, but a properly headspaced 223 with a case that is in spec will not lose the primer.

 

[Blue68f100]

To me it looks like the brass is over sized and setting too low. Hard to tell from the photo, may just be the angle of view. Like mentioned, use a straight edge to check position in the gauge. You want the head setting between the top and reduced section. You can also use a straight edge to see of the primers are high. You can not detect 1/1000" by just looking or feel. With the mention that the extract did not pick it up and had to really slam home helps indicates that it may be high.

 

[stillquietvoice]

I did, ordered them from MidwayUSA. I’ll try some different primers but I feel like since it’s my first time reloading the odds of the problem being user error are a lot higher than a bad batch of primers.

If you have factory rounds check your reloads against a factory cartridge. Look at base to shoulder on each if shoulder is lower on your reloads then its likely your issue. I recently started a thread about hornandy factory round misfires I'm my savage m11. The ones that misfired were shorter base to shoulder than ones that fired. I measured 15 to 20 thousandths shorter at that datum than say spec.

Hornandy never addressed the issue so I pulled bullets out and ran them through my neck sizer die reprimed and they all fired.