How many have had a "hang fire?"

Never with my loads, nor with American factory ammo. However.....

.....I once had some Pakistani .303 British surplus ammo. And about every third round it was: Click, wait for it, wait for it, BANG. It was POF, but I think that the last letter should have been changed.

I found my little red notebook. Last time I had to test a bunch of old .303Brit MkVII (which means that all were charged with cordite, for those who may not know) for mis-/hang-fires I recorded the results in that notebook.

From somewhere I had acquired a thousand or two cartridges so I sorted them by headstamp, and took 1 5rd charger of each with me to testfire thru one of my Nº4s. As I recall, November 01, 2006 was a nice, cool, sunny Fall day. I sat on a big rock, part of the old kneewall, where the ancient barn used to be and shot across the little creek valley into the ridge that is the western boundary of the ancestral farm.

K36 & K51 were fine, as were K^F 65 (1 primer leak), K2 1942 & K5 1942 (each w/1 shoulder split), K^F 4-63 & RG43 each produced 3 slight hangs, K2 1943 2 slight hangs & 2 shoulder splits, GB1942 1 slight hang, and all 5 of the B^E 1942 were plain ol' Click ..... Bangs.

I broke down all of the B^E 1942s for the projectiles.

Decades ago I blundered into several boxes of .22 LR that could be counted on to hang fire every ten rounds or so. They were an oddball brand, the name of which is lost in the mist, and the boxes were old and abused. As a teenager with a Ruger "Standard" pistol I thought it was great fun. If you still score a bullseye with a big fat hangfire you know your follow-through is perfect!

I have had 1 hang fire when shooting some craptastic Pakistani surplus 303 rounds. That junk was for sale everywhere at one time. Needless to say, after the first hang fire, I stopped shooting that ammo ad broke the rest of the box down and burned the powder.

The only hang fire I had was with some old black powder and a caplock rifle. It took about 4-5 seconds to fire after the trigger pull, kind of unnerving for a 23 year old young man with a borrowed rifle. I have had hundreds of dud .22 lr when I was a boy scout summer camp counselor, most of those coming from 1 lot of PMC? ammo that the camp got for a "great price." We followed the hang fire protocol of safe direction action closed for 20-30 seconds everytime.

The duds were broken down with the lead going into the mold pot and the powder going into the "show and tell" pot. The kids loved seeing the gunpowder burn up when lit with a match.

I had a hang fire in my Ithaca mag 10, while shooting some old 10gauge shells I had picked up off an estate sale.

I pulled the trigger and it went click, I had just about enough time for a thought of "ok, now what" to get through my head when the shell went off at about half power.
I emptied the shotgun, and made sure the barrel was clear before shooting anything else.

Oh Yeah the notorious 8mm Lebel and that wonderful French surplus CRAP ammo !. You could nearly count one ,two before it ignited . Ammo as well as the Rifle , went bye bye to a friend who collects Military firearms . I made a cannon while in HS ,for a metal shop grade project " ONCE " !. You'll die laughing ,as I nearly died firing it . A close friend and I drove out to a rock quarry ,where I proceeded to load and fire it .
Blackpowder ; Heavens NO I was to stupid for that !. Try Red Dot and oh my far to much of it .

So there's an undercut almost a 4 ft. deep ditch about 15 -20 ft. away from where I'd set the cannon up . I didn't even have cannon fuse ,I made my own should have seen that magnesium and aluminum mixed Red Dot flash off . So a .750" Dia. Cat ball bearing rammed down a full High base load of 12 Gauge Red Dot and I lit it turned and ran towards the ditch . TWO distinctly MAJOR problems occurred ,I didn't make that fuse near long enough ,secondly I was WAY WAY SLOW .
Never saw it coming but man oh man did I see it GO !!. Right past My head minus the carriage and it accelerated way faster than I could ever imagine running .
I began studying pretty extensively after that Boneheaded incident . Yes I went on to make Bigger and Better cannons and properly loaded and fired them . Until someone ratted me out to the principles office ,seemed Metal shop wasn't for cannon building . My Dad didn't find it one bit humorous or really care about the ornate details of my constructing a 16 Th. century Ships cannon . Can we all say " DESTRUCTIVE DEVICES " Local PD had ZERO sense of humor also !. So My LAST beloved 16 Th. century Falcon cannon was CONFISCATED

I've had some, milsurp 7.62x54r. Bad stuff, the kind that comes in 20 rounds in a paper bag. The rifle was horrible, that specific ammo was even worse, half the cases split on first firing and had recoil as bad or worse than a 12 gauge firing 1 oz slugs. Don't think I ever knew what kind of ammo it was but I was in my early 20s and I wasn't afraid of anything, my skin crawls thinking of it. The delay was noticeable and the accuracy was nonexistent.

Haven't had one since and I did load some primers from the 40s or 50s that I expected to have trouble with but it all went bang

Never seconds, but the right (wrong) combination of slow powder and a non-magnum primer in a .375H&H will lead to a delay of tens of milliseconds. . . enough to barely perceive the "click" separate from the "boom".

It's kind of disconcerting, but it's a neat way to tell if you're flinching.

"... I once had some Pakistani .303 British surplus ammo. ..."
"... With POF .303 Brit. : Pakistani. ..."
"... some craptastic Pakistani surplus 303 rounds ..."

Me too! I had a bandolier of the Pakistani surplus, in stripper clips* which was nice, clean looking ammo.
Hang fires. Like shooting a flintlock. Click-bang. Great for spotting, overcoming flinch due to anticipating recoil.

Aug 2020 I had the horrible thought someone could inherit that gun and that ammo and decide to do a "mad minute" drill.
So. I took the last 35 rounds to the range and shot them up from the bench at 25, 60, and 100 yards.
Many noticeably hung fire and 3 or 4 did not fire until I recocked the cocking piece**
They shot nice using slow trigger squeeze and long follow through. The last six shot 100 yd group was 1.5" vertical 1.25" horizontal.
The last three rounds I shot at the 25 yd target made a coverleaf and the barrel was hot.
Definitely cordite and presumeaby corrosive primer so I applied my black powder substitute cleaning methods.

* (which did me no good because my sporterized Enfield has a centeral mounted scope; originally a Rifle No. 1 Mk III*, made BSA 1917, FTR 1954)
**(Enfield No 1 Mk III also has a half-cock safety; the thumb safety was an afterthought).

NEVER !!!

I've never had a delayed ignition of the primer on any modern center-fire firearm. Modern for me goes back to the early 1970s.

While we're on the topic, the guidelines for what to do at the range when you have an apparent "dud" is to wait a few second before ejecting the round because it might go off.

In police and military training we're taught to eject the fail-to-fire round ASAP. Doing less than that can get you killed in a firefight when someone is shooting back at you.

It happened once with my Savage 300WSM. It was a cold and rainy day when a doe came by and offered a perfect shot. The gun went click bang and the doe went her merry way. I think that the bolt handle wasn't all of the way down. It has never happened again.

I have had ignition problems in several of my 35 Whelen rifles. The 35 Whelen has a very shallow shoulder and that shallow shoulder does not provide good case rigidity for best ignition. That, and clearance between case shoulder and chamber, insensitive primers, weak mainsprings, minimum firing pin protrusion, ball powders, and cold weather have created misfires and hangfires in two of my rifles. The hangfires I remember were not a click, pause, bang, but click-baaannnggg. I could feel the rifle continuing to accelerate in my shoulder, (jet like?) as if the powder charge did not fully ignite, but then, started to fully ignite. It is weird when you feel this. Because the shallow shoulder cushions the firing pin blow (I think the case shoulder gets pushed/sized back) I size my 35 Whelen cases so the shoulder just touches the chamber walls. I don't like doing this as I prefer 0.003" shoulder clearance, but for reliable ignition in my 35 Whelens I have done this, and I use Federal rifle primers, which are the most sensitive rifle primers on the market. I also made sure to have new mainsprings.

My 35 Whelen Dumoulin Mauser, once I dug into my parts boxes and found a military firing pin with more protrusion, all ignition problems went away with that rifle. My 35 Whelen Ruger #1, the primary problem was off center firing pin hits. Ruger fixed that under warranty by lifting the breech block and centering the firing pin hit. Off center firing pin hits create weak ignition, and the further from center, the more misfires you will get, till the gun don't go bang anymore.

I am sure I have hangfires with Remington Target 22 lr, because my lot misfires so often, but I can't remember hangfires. Rimfires can be frustrating as primer compound is seldom evenly distributed in the rim.

I've had the typical .303 hang fires from Iraqi surplus. I had a case of bad .308 that were either duds or hang fires. I reloaded some .577 Snider with some bad BP substitute. The primer went off, then I hear a fizzing that got louder and louder, I saw the projectile leave the muzzle tumbling about 50 yards.

With a totally ejected hang fire, if it goes off, the bullet pops out of the case, but the case can become a rocket.

A hangfire going off with a partially opened bolt is going to have some confinement for the ignited powder charge and that can be a mess.

I've had two shells "hang fire." I was new to guns and new to shooting. It was my college days.

A sporting goods store in my home town had a jar of loaded rounds they sold individually. They were reloads, I think. This would have been the early 70s.

I didn't buy many of those rounds. 12, maybe? But two of them didn't discharge immediately when the hammer dropped. There was a sizzle. Then the powder ignited. Luckily I kept the weapon pointed in a safe direction which was fortuitous since I was so new to guns.

The first time firing my new CZ75 using factory 9mm ammo. Around 25th round I pulled the trigger and nothing. Turned my head to signal the RO while holding it downrange and bang, even hit the target.

There are very real risks with surplus ammunition. The stuff is on the market because some Ammunition Technician inspected the stuff, and per his written requirements, removed it from inventory because it had become too dangerous to issue, or to store. Gunpowder in old ammunition deteriorates, outgasses NOx which corrodes the case internally, which helps to dud primers and make the gunpowder burn rate unpredictable,

And no one should believe that surplus ammunition is good or will stay good forever. What initiated the final inspection by an Ammo Tech was probably reports of blow ups at military ranges, and all the sellers down the supply chain know this. But the Greater Fool theory is in affect, and they know, no one is educating the American shooter about the risks of old ammunition. Because no one makes money telling shooters what not to buy. So Americans eagerly buy surplus ammunition thinking it is "day old bread", and once in a while, someone gets hurt.



Best practice with old ammunition is to pull a few bullets and see if there is corrosion in the case.






If there is corrosion, it is absolutely unsafe to shoot the stuff, the powder, the cases are toast. Bullets can be re used for rock busting. If high pressure indications happen, the safest thing to do is pull the bullets, dump the old gunpowder, and reload with new gunpowder. If you get hangfires and misfires due to primer dudding, you are really over a barrel if those primers are Berdan. If you continue to shoot the stuff, and have hangfires, make sure you wait before opening the bolt, and look down the tube to see if a bullet is lodged.

the most memorable delayed/hang fire I witnessed was at a youth black powder shoot. I was ro at the Trap stage it was hot and muggy out, one rather small girl came up we explained every thing and got her ready. she called for a bird, pulled the trigger I heard the primer go off, she completely followed the bird to 1 foot from the ground before the gun went off. And she broke the bird.

SunnySlopes said:

A sporting goods store in my home town had a jar of loaded rounds they sold individually. ...

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WHOA! Just reading about that sends up my red flags. <Slo-o-o-owly backing away from the cartridges jar.>

O'course, in 1970 (my first year at school) I probably would have been standing right behind you to buy some.

allisd17 said:

I've had lots of them with milsurp 8mm and .303 Brit. But I've never had one with a delay of more than a half-second or so.

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Almost unheard of since running out of WWI and early WWII "cordite" propellent! Such as the 303 mentioned above!
Of course, hang fires and worse can be expected in all forms of black powder firearms. It's also important to swab with water in some cases to prevent a different kind of "KABOOM"!

herrwalther said:

Half dozen over the million plus rounds I have fired over the years. Some of those were on belt fed weapons where hang fires are common enough to have an immediate reaction drill: just keep it pointed where it should for 10 seconds.

Longest hangfire was maybe 4 seconds, but certainly feels like longer.

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Why are hang fires common enough on belt fed weapons?

BlueHeelerFl said:

Why are hang fires common enough on belt fed weapons?

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The reason we were told was the cynical, ammo and weapons are made by the lowest bidder. I believe that combined with the fact that the M249 and M240 are open bolt weapons has something to do with it. The M249, for example, fires the exact same ammo as it's M4 counterpart. Just in links. I believe that has something to do with the amount of hangfires. But it is pretty hard to test because hangfires are rare, even on belt feds. They are "common enough" for the military to have a procedure that says "In case of hangfire, do this..."

I had a few hang fires, mostly with old surplus rifle ammo. Some of the Yugoslavian 8x57IS ammo was notorious for it, I think it came in bandoleers on clips. I never had hand fires with non-surplus ammo.

The German military also had the hang fire procedure to wait for, I believe, 30 seconds before working the action.

Once the cartridge was out of the breech and fired outside, it did not build enough pressure to be very dangerous but I had once turned the bolt handle after about 10, 15 seconds on a Mauser K98k, not opened it, waiting when the cartridge went off. I felt the bolt handle moving back with quite some force.