First-ever failure with my 3913LS this weekend...

[benEzra]

Had my first-ever failure of any kind with my S&W 3913LS this weekend, and it totally wasn't the gun's fault. I was shooting Winchester white-box 9mm (out of a 100-round Wal-Mart value pack) and a round didn't go off, despite the fact that the firing pin indented the primer nearly to the bottom of the primer cup. Second strike didn't fire it, either, so I assume it was a primer with no priming compound (will disassemble it later, just to see).

That's the first failure of any kind since I've had the gun, and I've put at least 2,000 rounds through it. I recently installed a slightly heavier-than-stock Wolf spring to reduce slide battering with Cor-Bon +P, but it still feeds standard-pressure ammunition with perfect reliability.

That's the first dud round in six or seven hundred rounds of Winchester white-box I've gone through. Anybody else had failures with it?

 

[Big Mike]

The only time my Beretta did not fire was when I was using WWB 9mm. There is some documentation around here that WWB does tend to have more "duds" than one normally finds in commercial ammo. Mike

 

[stans]

Cheap ammo is cheap for a reason. I shoot white box ammo too, but I am hesitant to stake my life upon it.

 

[fastbolt]

I've seen inert/defective primers in the inexpensive "bulk grade" ammunition from Winchester, Federal & Remington come through our Range. That's one of the many reasons why we learn & practice malfunction clearance drills, after all ...

One morning, while using a combination of both Winchester 147gr JHP and Remington Express 147 JHP, we actually had non-firing primers (with good hits) in one round of each brand.

You use enough "less expensive" ammunition, you'll probably eventually come across some non-firing cartridge that looks "normal" when you remove it from the box ...

At least with the obviously damaged ones you can generally see something's not normla when removing them from the box ... if you're paying attention. Even a cop noticed this one ...