Author Topic: Faulty primer? (Read 629 times)

DeeInTejas · « **on:** July 19, 2005, 04:38:49 PM »

I went to the gun range today to practice a bit with my 30-30 and my 270 today. I was seated at the bench with my Marlin 336CS 30-30. Loaded a round, factory Remington Core Lockt SP 150, aimed, squeezed the trigger...click. Checked the safety, off. Pulled hammer back again, aimed at target, squeeze trigger. Click. Gun not go boom. Ejected cartridge, still fully intact. Checked primer, it was dented normally, so I set it aside and put a sandbag on top of it, and waited to see if the powder would finally ignite and fire. After 20 minutes or so, it had still not gone off, so I took it to the guy running the range. He said that it had a faulty primer probably. Does this happen often? It was factory ammo, new, right out of the box.

KN · « **Reply #1 on:** July 19, 2005, 05:02:22 PM »

Pretty rare but it does happen. One thing that concerns me is putting it under the sand bag. If you were worried it may still go off then why were you handling it? I'm not trying to flame you but you should have left it chambered and pointed down range for at least a minuet before ejecting it. If it had gone off under the sand bag I would suspect that you would have been peppered pretty good. Most ranges have cans specifically for miss-fires. KN

DeeInTejas · « **Reply #2 on:** July 19, 2005, 05:13:46 PM »

I'll remember that KN. I set the round on another bench next to mine with it pointing down range, then set the sand bag on top of it. Next time I will remember what you said and not eject the round right away. Thanks.

Redhawk1 · « **Reply #3 on:** July 20, 2005, 01:58:15 AM »

I have had that happen before with factory rounds. Not that it happens often, but it can happen.

Mikey · « **Reply #4 on:** July 20, 2005, 02:13:42 AM »

DeeInTejas: I have had that happen before with factory ammo. I have had it happen with both pistol and rifle ammo. In the military we refer to this phenomenum as a 'hang-fire'. You leave the cartridge chambered for at least 30 seconds and the firearm facing downrange. I have never had a detonation occur after 30 seconds. I have had detonations occur within that time and its a bit strange. Pull the trigger, gun goes click, you wait, gun goes bang or pop. In the civilian world lots of folk refer to this phenomenum as a faulty primer.

You want to wait until the thing pops or doesn't. If you try ejecting the round within that 30 second timeframe she may detonate while not fully in the chamber and then you will have problems. A bolt or lever may slam back and dislodge, causing serious gun and shooter problems and the casing may explode throwing brass shrapnel around the area. Give it 30 seconds or so. Some folks just recock the firearm and drop the hammer a second time. If she doesn't go bang then, you have a dud round.

Once you have waited and the cartridge has not detonated, remove it from the rifle. I usually take those cartridges, insert the bullet into the muzzle end of the barrel, bend the bullet out of the case and discard the powder. I usually wind up discarding the brass too but at least it isn't a loaded round. HTH. Mikey.

Lawdog · « **Reply #5 on:** July 20, 2005, 10:43:23 AM »

Had that happen twice back in the 1960's with .30-06 Western brand Winchester ammo. Not knowing any better I sent the two cartridges back to Winchester along with a letter explaining what happened. To my surprise about a month later I received a new box of .30-06 shells from Winchester along with a note from Winchester saying how sorry they were for my troubles. Lawdog