Are FTF's common?

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hokiemojo

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Hey everyone. I'm trying to figure out if I've been fortunate or if I'm just comparing my results against hyperbole on the internet. I'm new to shooting, but have fired a few hundered rounds of 9mm and .40 through various loaners, rentals, and my own XDM. I've also sent a couple hundered rounds of various types of CCI .22LR through my 22/45 lite. I've yet to have an FTF.

Is this because the guns I've used are good, the ammo I've used is good (the centerfire stuff was numberous brands of target ammo like PMC bronze, fereral eagle, lawman, WWB, remington, and some hornady self defense), or have I been lucky? I read reviews about bulk 22 and people talk about 5-10% FTF rates.

Does this really happen? Is it different for centerfire vs rimfire? I've never seen an FTF, so I'm just wondering if I should expect to see this much in the future, or if it is internet posters exagerating. Maybe it's both...
 
Most ftf's will be rim fire ammo, some handloads, and sometimes even centerfire factory.

They can be firearm problems also.

You can rest assured that if you shoot enough you will experience a FTF.
 
FTFire is mostly due to cheap rimfire ammo, handloads, or light strikes (a gun issue).

And just in case you don't know, FTF can also mean FTFeed, which is much more common among centerfire ammo in guns that don't like that particular cartridge. Also common in cheap rimfire ammo.
 
I don't think it's very common for centerfire. I've never had a FTF with a factory barrel. The ramps on my atermarket barrels don't like certain bullet shapes, but factory barrels always feed everything.

A FTF could also be the shooter too. With my Tec-9, I've never had a FTF, but my buddy shooting the same ammo through it will get 5-6 FTF's per mag.
 
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Yeah its pretty common with rimfire. I would guess in a 550 pack you'll have 4-5 FTFs.
With centerfires, it happens in handloads when the primer is not seated all the way. When you pull the trigger, the firing pin simply seats the primer. Another pull of the trigger will usually fire the round.
 
Until last week, the very few FTFs I had seen with defense ammo were when my son shoots a little limp-wristed. Until Saturday, I had never experienced an FTF with factory practice ammo, including WWB, Federal, PMC, Magtech, Remington, etc. We shoot two or three times per month, 100-400 rounds, 9mm, .45ACP, and sometimes 5.56 or 12 ga. shotgun. Saturday my son and I had a box of Federal FMJ .45 ACP that was good for 33 of 50 on the first try. I loaded the remaining 17 a second time and only 2 said "bang!" Apparently, even factory loads set primers a little wrong. All firing pin hits seemed valid.

It's taken us almost three years of this to get to this point. In twenty years of USMC rifle & pistol quals, I never encountered such a thing.
 
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With just a few hundred rounds of centerfire, odds are very slim that you'd ever have a primer fail.
After thousands of "factory" centerfire handgun rounds fired, I believe I have enough fingers on one hand to count them.

Rimfire.. That's another story. Ark Pauls misfire numbers are a bit higher than my experience when using "good" rimfire, but yep, it happens far more with r.f.

Won't say the company name, but stay the heck away from those r.f. "Golden" bullets if you're countin on em to go bang..
 
I don't think it's very common for centerfire. I've never had a FTF with a factory barrel. The ramps on my atermarket barrels don't like certain bullet shapes, but factory barrels always feed everything.
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Actually that is incorrect for pistol ammo. Eastern European pistols like XDs &CZss have 'short chambers' and won't feed a number of commercial HPs and FPs.
Glocks, Sigs and others tend to have larger chambers that will feed anything within SAAMI maximums.
When someone adds an aftermarket precision bbl, the chamber will likely be a little tighter too.

Re light strikes: when pistol springs are lightened to reduce trigger pull weight, that can lead to light strikes depending on the primer used in the ammo. Russian primers and others take a very firm hit to fire reliably. With Federal, Winchester & Magtech primers, less impact is needed to fire them.
Light trigger pull DA revolvers and commonly need the most sensitive primers to go bang reliably.
 
Does this really happen? Is it different for centerfire vs rimfire? I've never seen an FTF, so I'm just wondering if I should expect to see this much in the future, or if it is internet posters exaggerating. Maybe it's both...
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Yes, it really happens so if you sent enough bullets downrange you can pretty much rest assured that it will happen to you.

Yes, it is more common and likely to happen when shooting bulk inexpensive rimfire ammunition.

While there are assorted causes for a failure to fire it really comes down to either the gun being used or the ammunition.

Anyway it's the law of averages, sooner or later you will experience a failure to fire if you shoot enough. :) So see, you have something to look forward to.

Ron
 
1SOW said:
Actually that is incorrect for pistol ammo. Eastern European pistols like XDs &CZss have 'short chambers' and won't feed a number of commercial HPs and FPs.
Glocks, Sigs and others tend to have larger chambers that will feed anything within SAAMI maximums.
When someone adds an aftermarket precision bbl, the chamber will likely be a little tighter too.
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My post was referring specifically to my Glocks and their barrels. While the chambers are tighter on the aftermarket barrels, the ramps are different and some brands of factory ammo won't feed up the ramp and chamber.

EDIT: "FTF" to me means failure to feed. I just realized it can also mean "failure to fire". I don't now which this thread is refering to.
 
NEVER had any FTF with factory centerfire ammo. And I'm not talking about high-end stuff.... WWB, UMC, PMC, Blazer etc.

I had a few FTF with .22LR rimfire in my 10/22 ... but that was like 5 out of 2,000
 
EDIT: "FTF" to me means failure to feed. I just realized it can also mean "failure to fire". I don't now which this thread is refering to.
Click to expand...

My guess and just a guess was failure to fire so in my reply I spelled it out but yeah, I was a little unsure too.

Ron
 
Before this goes much further, it might be a good idea for the OP to come back to specify if he meant FTFire or FTFeed. I usually take it to mean FTFeed, because FTFire is so rare.

As an aside, FTE also means two different things...FTEject and FTExtract
 
9mmepiphany said:
Before this goes much further, it might be a good idea for the OP to come back to specify if he meant FTFire or FTFeed. I usually take it to mean FTFeed, because FTFire is so rare.
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Ordinarily I would agree, but the specific questions of the OP seem to indicate we are talking about FTFire. Ammo brand, caliber, hand load, etc. don't have much to do with FTFeed, right? Of course FMJ vs. SWC vs. HP...those might indicate FTFeed problems, but none of that was asked by the OP.

Still, OP...A little clarification?
 
Failures to fire are almost always cheap bulk rimfire ammo.

Factory centerfire ammo in a quality firearm should basically never fail to fire.
 
Never had a FTF through my XD9 and I've loaded a lot of stuff for it in all types of bullets, primers and what ever. No FTF ever.

Not had one FTF through my ruger mark III .22 all stock ammo. Thousands of rounds. No FTF through the 45s, the 357s, or 223s.

Had 2 FTF through hunting rifles, 1 through a 300wsm and 1 through a 25-06. Tossed the rounds and never examined as to what might be the problem.

I think they are rare, or should be very rare. If you experience very many, look toward the gun.
 
I've had several bulk rimfire failures, but would say it averages closer to 1-2% than 5-10%, at least for me personally.
 
FTFeed can be quite common. FTExtract and FTEject can also happen. I have never had a rimfire FTFire (As in a dud).

Mike

PS. At some point in the not too distant future (15 months) I will be playing around with a .22
Fleming upper for my m11a1 and will probably experiance a lot of FT* :)
 
I shot my 10/22 in an Appleseed earlier this month, and out of roughly 450 rounds fired, I experienced about 6 or 7 failure to fires. All had solid primer strikes too. Ammo was Winchester white box (555-ct bulk). And I had far more failure to feeds than failure to fires.
 
I actually thought this thread was another one about 'face to face' transactions.
Perhaps we need some alternate acronyms for 'FTF'?

FTF - Failure To Fire
FTF - Failure To Feed
FTF - Face To Face

.
 
SuedePflow said:
I shot my 10/22 in an Appleseed earlier this month, and out of roughly 450 rounds fired, I experienced about 6 or 7 failure to fires. All had solid primer strikes too. Ammo was Winchester white box (555-ct bulk). And I had far more failure to feeds than failure to fires.
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Sounds like an average Appleseed experience, unfortunately.

Cheap bulk .22lr is unreliable.

Going with something like CCI Mini Mags (or equivalent...whatever that would be) might very well get rid of every single one of those and put you to 100% reliability.

Hopefully the situation improves enough soon that I can just put a link out on where to get Mini Mags. ugh
 
pockets said:
I actually thought this thread was another one about 'face to face' transactions.
Perhaps we need some alternate acronyms for 'FTF'?

FTF - Failure To Fire
FTF - Failure To Feed
FTF - Face To Face

.
Click to expand...
I recently bought a gun through ARMSLIST Ohio Gun Classifieds, it was a private FTF transaction. Unfortunately the gun is having both FTF and FTF issues so I am making arrangements for another FTF meeting with the seller to resolve the FTF and FTF issues with the gun.

Ron
 
I have fired probably fifteen thousand or more rounds of .22 rimfire ammo over the years, and that's a conservative guess. About 70-75 percent of it has been CCI MiniMags. I have never had a misfire with any of them.

I've fired about half as many centerfire rounds. I have had one misfire. It was a round of commercially-sourced reloaded .38 Special ammo issued to me about fifteen years earlier by an employer for practice. The gun was a Charter Arms Undercover, purchased new in 1987 (the misfire occurred probably around 2002.) That gun had seen about 300 rounds prior, and has seen maybe 100 since, and that was the only malfunction with it. The failed round fired the second time the hammer was dropped on it.
 
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Rimfire.. That's another story. Ark Pauls misfire numbers are a bit higher than my experience when using "good" rimfire
Click to expand...

Yeah, mine aren't "good". lol
They're the Golden ones in the green box. I picked up a few 550 packs when I got the chance. Still better than nothing.
 
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