Primer failure???

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WhiskeyMike

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My wife and I just got back from the range. We were shooting among other things some 38 reloads (158gr SWC, Federal Primer, 4.4gr W231, Winchester brass). We went through about 200 rounds of this recipe. Here's were I need some help. I had 4 in a row rounds that failed to fire. On all 4 rounds the primer was backed out a little and on one the bullet exited about 1/16th of an inch. Only 4 rounds did this out of about 200. I tried 2 of the rounds in another pistol I brought with me and they failed to fire in it as well.

I have had squibs in my early days of shooting/reloading so I know that wasn't the problem.

Is it possible for a primer to only fire a little bit? Enough to build up pressure to back the primer out but not enough to ignite the powder.

??????

WM
 
Probably no powder. With a good roll crimp, I've had the lead seperate from the jacket, never did get the jacket out of the case. Maybe possible for a primer only ,to move a bullet a little bit with a good roll crimp. Let us know what ya find, behind them bullets:)
 
Yeah, gotta have a bullet puller. The inertial (hammer) puller works great.

If you want to spend some money and are shooting jacketed bullets, take a look at a collet style puller. A collet style puller goes in your press. You raise the round into the puller, move the handle until the puller grips the bullet, and then lower the round out of the puller, leaving the bullet behind. They work with a lot less fuss than an inertial puller, and leave the powder in the case. Sportsman's has 'em. The downside is you need different collets for different diameter bullets, and you can't use them reliably on lead or thin-plated copper bullets.

I think I know what you're going to find inside your duds. But I ain't saying yet. That way, whatever you find I can claim it was what I thought. :)
 
I think I know what you're going to find inside your duds. But I ain't saying yet. That way, whatever you find I can claim it was what I thought.
Click to expand...
Me too, but I'll post my answer where one has to want to see it.

Place your cursor here and Highlight below to see my answer:

The primer worked fine. My guess is no powder at all in the cases. The primer ignition normally pushes the primer out of the case a little (except for crimped primers like the military uses and that's why they crimp them in), but there was no powder ignition and gas pressure to push the case back against the breechface and reseat the primer. A primer alone can push a bullet barely out of the case. I had the same thing happen several times with a Lee auto-disk and powder it didn't like. This is why I insist on verifying powder in every case I reload and why I'm completely changing my reloading tools for rifle loading.


End Highlighting.
 
OK

I pulled the bullet on each one. It's all blackened inside and on the bottom of the bullet, some semi burnt powder inside but not much. There was suction on the bullet, when it came out it "popped". I know that a primer alone will set a bullet about 2 inches inside the barrel. I have had a few experienced with this.(makes for a bad range day, and taught me reloading is not a team sport).

This is the second bad experience with a Federal product that I have had (the other could have been much worse)
 
Why was this a federal product failure? The primer fired. There was very little to no powder to ignite; that seems to be the problem. I've had squibs in the past that only pushed the bullet just barely into the revolvers forcing cone keeping the cylinder from rotating. 2 inches into the barrel is much more than I've ever heard of for a primer-only "shot". Usually, they move forward enough to just start to engage the rifling then stop. That's normal for any round, then the powder ignition and resulting gas pressure pushes the bullet into the rifling and down the barrel. A lead bullet might go a little further since it's softer than a jacketed bullet.
 
I have seen multiple times in a 45acp where a "primer only" ingnite sent the bullet to about the middle of the barrel, the last time was during an informal competition, both me and the course official knew exactly what happened.

I think it is a primer malfunction because of two reasons:

There was still some powder in the case (maybe 1 grain), not alot, but some. A properly ignited primer would have burnt a very small amount of powder.

Each time I have had no powder and just a primer (squib) it could be heard with ear protection. Unmistakably heard, its a sickening thud letting me know what just happened was another stupid mistake. On these four rounds there was no clear sound that could be heard, just a hammer strike (electronic muffs). My first thought was a light primer strike but upon inspection that clearly wasn't the problem. There was a deep strike on the primer and the primer was about 1/4 of the way out of the brass on all four rounds. Every subsequent one was fine.

I am begining to think the primer only lightly ignited, if thats possible.

I could be wrong, it wouldn't be the first time....Thats why I am asking the masses....
 
The primer did it's job since the inside of the case is blackened/burned. You weren't using the correct powder, or enough powder for the job though. You have to use a powder that fills the case up a good amount. If you only used a "little bit" of powder, then the powder was no where near the flash-hole in the case when the primer fired. Was the powder from a fresh can? What powder did you use? How much powder was supposed to be in the case? Did you use a heavy roll crimp that's standard for .38SPL?

Sounds to me like you're seeing the normal residue of a fired primer in a case with either no powder at all, or not enough to ignite. How far the bullet travels during a primer only firing depends on the constriction of your specific chamber/throats and the amount of crimp on the bullet. Trust me, just don't ask me how I know (har har), that a heavily crimped .38SPL with no powder will usually do nothing more than back the primer out. :)
 
Sounds to me like your progressive press short charged your cases for some reason and you had very little powder in those cases...You are using a progressive press aren't you?:uhoh: Using W-231 you are probably lucky that the powder didn't ignite as pressure build up on short charges of W-231 can be a real bad thing...

It's very rare for modern primers to fail these days.
 
Whiskeymike...Repeat what you did except this time varify the powder charge and let us know what you find. We are not always right here, but we try. As far help goes, we're cheap. And you know how that goes. "You get what you pay for".:D

Good luck.................:)
 
Even if the primers didn't fire properly, little to no powder in a case is a real problem. Bushmaster is right, extremely light charges can detonate instead of burn correctly. I don't understand the exact reasoning behind it, but detonation is a real condition that happens just often enough to be a safety issue with extremely light loads (much lower than any loading manual lists).

If you get a pop in the future and a case full of unburned powder, then I'd be looking for some different primers.

When you figure out what was happening, please post details and the solution. It might keep someone else from having the same issue.
 
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