how do you know if a failure to fire is ammo or gun related?

[thefamcnaj]

Hey guys,
I was wondering when you get a failure to fire, how can you tell if its gun or ammo trouble.
I took my shield 9mm and put 100 rounds through it. This took the round count up to 400.
The gun has never malfunctioned in any way.
Half way through my third magazine I get a click instead of a bang. I took the round out and inspected it and other was a strike on the primer, looked like all the other spent casings I compared it to.
I was shoot 115gr monarch from academy.
I did reload it and it did fire on its second go around.

 

[JoePfeiffer]

Hard to be sure, but if there's a nice deep dent in the primer it's quite a bit more likely to be ammo, especially when all the rest has been firing OK.

 

[Wreck-n-Crew]

One hang fire is no indication of a problem with the gun, that is for sure and if the strikes look decent I would not worry about it. I would suggest shooting a few more rounds of something else. I would also suggest taking pictures of the primer strikes if you ever have a problem again, might help to get a good look at it.

 

[Vodoun da Vinci]

One out of 400 is not yet reason to suspect the gun. If it happens again we might begin to wonder. I don't shoot factory ammunition anymore but broke my Wife's new G42 in with 300 rounds of factory.

Factory ammo is not what it was a few years ago and I'd suspect that the round you had FTF was a primer issue.

VooDoo

 

[ATLDave]

In all likelihood what happened was that the manufacturer didn't get the primer seated all the way in the case. Some of the energy of the firing pin went into moving the primer down into the pocket on the first attempt. The second time, it was seated properly and therefore the force was able to sufficiently crush the primer compound against the anvil.

If you reload, chances are high you've made this mistake yourself. It's a little unusual to see it in factory ammo, but for bulk ammo made during the current shortage, it's not shocking.

Could it be something related to the gun? Yes. But more likely it was the ammo. Barring a repeat performance (with different ammo), I'd assume ammo. And I'd inspect your ammo in the future for high primers.

 

[Field Tester]

One hang fire is no indication of a problem with the gun, that is for sure and if the strikes look decent I would not worry about it. I would suggest shooting a few more rounds of something else. I would also suggest taking pictures of the primer strikes if you ever have a problem again, might help to get a good look at it.

What the OP described wasn't a Hang Fire but a Failure To Fire. If it was a HF the round would have detonated after a brief period of time.
I agree though, pictures always help. But one round not firing isn't indicative of a problem with the firearm. Most likely a bad round.

 

[thefamcnaj]

Thanks for the replies. I was thinking ammo too. Monarch is not top quality ammo. Federal champion, american eagle124gr and federal hst's have been problem free.

 

[oldillini]

Try another gun.

 

[Drail]

If you bang the primer once and it doesn't light - bang it one more time. If it still won't light then it's trash.

 

[Field Tester]

Try another gun.

Why? It was only one round out of hundreds and ammo that the OP even said isn't top quality. Nothing to fret about here.

 

[george29]

how do you know if a failure to fire is ammo or gun related?

Mathematics

 

[thefamcnaj]

Wow thanks. I'm not a math major.

 

[george29]

Don't be dumb, if your gun is failing at a higher rate than your loads then it's your gun, if your failures are due to your ammo it's NOT your gun. BTW, most failures are either ammunition or limp-wristing (or Magazine in SA).

 

[tarosean]

Personally I wouldnt worry about it. If the frequency increases from the anomaly then it is time to do a little more investigation.

Precisely why you shouldnt believe a single one of these 100k rounds with out a malfunction "claims".

Wont hurt to clean the striker channel next time you have her apart. Doubtful that 400rds would have fouled it. Just food for thought.

 

[Cee Zee]

The way you tell if it's the gun is to shoot it some more and see if it has more problems. Use different ammo too. And checking to see how much of a dent was put in the cartridge is another good way to see if there's a problem with the gun. Comparing that cartridge to other spent cartridges is exactly what you should do. Those are the two things that tell you what's going on.

 

[TestPilot]

It is not always certain.

But, in cases that were certain I was able to visually see and verify the defect on ammo.

I had primers that refused to get properly dented due to unusual hardness. Multiple strikes and only a small dent when other cartridges went off just fine.

I also had out of spec case rim that was too thick.

 

[Cee Zee]

I had primers that refused to get properly dented due to unusual hardness.

That's why a person needs to test the gun with different ammo. Some ammo just doesn't work well. It can be a single run of the ammo that's bad too. I've bought a lot of boxes of ammo where pretty much the whole box was bad.

 

[fiftybmg]

You can check that the firing ping channel is completely dry, no oil at all in it.

If that's fine, it's the primer.

 

[gunlaw]

Very simple. Take the ammo back where you bought it, the problem will be the gun. Contact the maker of the weapon and the problem will be the ammo

 

[Wreck-n-Crew]

What the OP described wasn't a Hang Fire but a Failure To Fire. If it was a HF the round would have detonated after a brief period of time.

Yup your correct, I knew it too...brain poot, comes with age

Good catch BTW

 

[Cee Zee]

You can check that the firing ping channel is completely dry, no oil at all in it.

If that's fine, it's the primer.

I never oil a firing pin channel. Oil is like a burnt powder magnet. The firing pin will stop working eventually if you don't clean it often. I can go many years without a problem with a firing pin if I don't oil it. If it does need lube I'll use some dry lube on it. But I've rarely had to do that. And I don't have problems from my firing pins.

 

[BSA1]

This is a very god question.

With reloads a good possibility is high primers. The first hammer strike seats the primer and the second strike fires it. This is the reason I only use my reloads. The only way to rule out high primers is to inspect the ammo before you shoot it.

In fact I recently ran across a batch of high primers of 9mm's I reloaded. After careful investigation I discovered my hand primer tool has become so worn after Lord knows how many rounds that it will not seat the primers all the way. Just enough to cause misfires in one gun. However my Beretta 92 fires all them out of the same batch without a problem. The only difference I can tell is the Beretta has extra power springs. The only real solution is a new hand primer.

My personal test standard for a new to me gun is it must fire 500 rounds without any problems that I can not determine the cause of the problem...i.e. limp wristing, high primers, weak springs, etc. If I can't determine the cause then my testing starts over.

 

[thefamcnaj]

I shot 100 rounds from my xds today and had 1 failure to fire. It didn't fire the second time I tried to fire it. I was shooting wwb. When it happened I thought about post 14 ,of this thread. As soon as I got the pistol home I did a detail strip of the slide.
Wow was the firing pin channel a mess. Oily, dirty and just all yucky in there. I thoroughly cleaned it and put no lube on the firing pin.
I'm going to take it back tomorrow and I bet it will not have a hiccup. I'm assuming it came from sa like that because I never oil down in there. Plus I clean my slides firing pin facing downward.