Poper
Member
First of all, I have been handloading for more than 25 years. A recent round of .308 test loads had 13 out of 50 failures to fire. The first couple had me thinking I had been stupid and seated bullets without dropping powder onto the cases. However, looking at the cases leads me to believe something else is awry. Look at the two cases in the picture. The case on the right fired. The case on the left did not - dud.
I weighed all 13 of the 'dud' rounds and 10 of the fired cases. I then averaged the weight of the fired cases (161.55 gr.) and then averaged the weight of the 'dud' cases after deducting nominal bullet weight and the charge weights (162.33 gr.). The cases obviously have powder.
Primers are rem 9-1/2, so they are not harder cups like the CCI-200 is supposed to have.
Case length from base to datum line vary 0.006" between all cases measured. (13 'duds' and 10 fired). Longest fired = 1.631" and shortest 'dud' = 1.625".
What is going on here? Broken firing pin? Hammer spring?
I weighed all 13 of the 'dud' rounds and 10 of the fired cases. I then averaged the weight of the fired cases (161.55 gr.) and then averaged the weight of the 'dud' cases after deducting nominal bullet weight and the charge weights (162.33 gr.). The cases obviously have powder.
Primers are rem 9-1/2, so they are not harder cups like the CCI-200 is supposed to have.
Case length from base to datum line vary 0.006" between all cases measured. (13 'duds' and 10 fired). Longest fired = 1.631" and shortest 'dud' = 1.625".
What is going on here? Broken firing pin? Hammer spring?