... But how many have experienced a hang fire? ...
I have experienced
many hangfires, especially with old milsurp MkVII .303Brit ammo.
My first, however, was my most memorable. Shooting some 7,92x57 milsurp ammo in my maternal grandfather's old "Mauser" (a bringback gifted to him by "Uncle" somebody). There was a small crowd of family in the front field (pointing over my right shoulder thru the window, "A few hundred yards over there in front of the old farmhouse.") watching the event.
Dad fired the first shot and the
BOOM was impressive to all attending. He ejected the empty case & handed the rifle to me for the 2nd shot.
I pointed the rifle downrange, closed the bolt loading the chamber and snapped up the safety. I looked around to assure that all were in a safe place, assumed the position, released the safety, took aim, got my breathing to the right place and gently squeeeeeeezed the trigger .... CLICK!
My
second thought had to do with the fact that I was ROCK SOLID and had not even flinched the slightest bit. Yeah, I was Proud.
I then slowly went thru the 30-second wait (which was probably more like 60) before a fingers-mentally-crossed recock. I aimed at the ground 10-15 feet in front of me and squeezed off the shot. The hole blasted in the ground was impressive to us kids brought up on .22RF.
Too bad that at the time none of us had any idea about the recock notches on the rear of the bolt.
OK, so technically that wasn't a
hangfire ... but it was what the OP immediately brought to mind.
With old milsurp .303Brit, shooting them slowly is the name of the game. Just to make sure.