Thread: Hang fires

Originally Posted by Eat Meater

I had a misfire with a Fiocchi LRP yesterday. Just lifted the bolt after 10 seconds and fired again with no problems. That's 2 from 45 that I've shot from this box of primers. The first one I ejected without thinking and got the heebie jeebies when putting it back in after I realized it might be a hangfire. The first one fired fine the second time as well.

A 4% failure rate isn't good...

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I will take them off your hands

Misfire, hang fire, call it what you will. A hang fire can last many seconds, that’s why that NZNRA rule is in place. Over the years there’s been shooters injured, sometimes severely, by opening the action only to have the round go off. But whatever, your problem could be caused by any one of several issues from poor primer or powder storage, contamination/age breakdown of primer or powder, headspace issues, weak firing pin, contamination inside bolt body etc. Just have to work through the possibilities and discount them after checking.
We generally fire in the region of 36 rounds each, 16-20 shooters, every Saturday during the season and we get the odd hang fire/misfire from time to time. Primers are naturally blamed first but I don’t think there’s been a trend of one brand being worse than others apart from Winchester and for me personally, Ginex for pierced SR primers. Anyhow, good luck tracking your problem down John Duxbury.

No not at all, I just had to measure how much I were supposed to push the shoulders back, but I was lazy and thought, I'd just send it.

After I adusted the sizing die to only bump the shoulders 2 Thou back, everything was fine. No more hangfires - Im on my 3rd brick of Fiocchi primers.

Ah, thanks John. Hang fires can result from wrong propellant/primer combination. Propellant or primer got wet. Ball powder has a tendancy to clump up and would sometimes be difficult to ignite, I dont belief you used ball powder though.

Headspace can also cause hang fires but to a lesser extend.

Sorry for misreading, your origenal post.

These hang fires I am experiencing involve the primer not going off for half a second, so its not the powder.

I have never experienced a hang fire with modern ammo or components. Until now. Misfires yes - where the primer simply doesnt go off. But not a hang fire.


I suppose Ill go and buy another box of primers tomorrow and go back to the range. If it happens with another brand, then Ill have learnt something...

Originally Posted by Jaco Goosen

Ah, thanks John. Hang fires can result from wrong propellant/primer combination. Propellant or primer got wet. Ball powder has a tendancy to clump up and would sometimes be difficult to ignite, I dont belief you used ball powder though.

Headspace can also cause hang fires but to a lesser extend.

Sorry for misreading, your origenal post.

I have had both with one lot of murom primers in a 6.5x55 when I started reloading. I had loaded 20 rounds in sets of 4 with slightly different charges. Found the one that worked best and then went and made 100 handloads of the same. Of that 100 I had about 13 misfires and another 4 with a hangfire and stopped using the loads until I figured out why. rechecked powder charges...(One misfire had no powder but I think I know what I did there....the others showed good primer strike, and one of the misfires showed the projectile almost out of the case. After working through it, It looked like I had either mishandled the primers or stored them incorrectly. I had purchased 200 and used 120 so had 80 to play with. Of those 80 quite a few failed too...The place i got them kindly let me have another half packet from the same carton and we tested those primers and they all worked 100% so were able to eliminate the cause from being the batch of primers....Most likely I had something on my hands (oil or perhaps case lube) or I had done something in the storage that allowed them to fail. It took me a long while to start reloading again (confidence knocked) but I now reload a few for the 303 I use so starting to relearn again....

Contamination by handling has been well proven to be an urbane tale.
I have soaked primers in light oil and they still go bang days later.

I seem to remember issues years ago with Murom. Dredging my memoery but I think they needed quite a bit of preload when seating in order to bring the anvil in contact with the priming compound.
No sure if that is still the case.
Also, Murom make lots of different primers (Obviously we don't see many variations here.) Maybe the preload wasn't applicable to all of them.

Could it be that your choice of primer isn't 'hot enough' to ignite the amount of propellant in front of it? (consistently)

"the Real Gunsmith" has a video on the different types of primers and why they exist.

The rough short version is that different primers generate a different level of ignition and the the more propellant there is, generally speaking the hotter or greater the ignition requirement is.

Like so many things there is plenty of variation to the above and many combinations will work but it is essentially the same as matching the powder burn rate to any particular cartridge. If you go to far away from the optimum you run into problems.

My understanding is that the usual causes are:

Over sizing brass. Issues usually start at about 0.010"
Fireing pin fouled. Dirt, grease, screws too long.
Fireing pin too short or blunt, less likely.
Fireing pin spring, less likely.

Faulty primers are bloody rare.

My2c

Just throwing it out there, my most common result of a hang fire was the firing pin either clogged up at the neck or broken spring.
Check everything. I like a bolt that disassembles easily.

Originally Posted by timattalon

I have had both with one lot of murom primers in a 6.5x55 when I started reloading. I had loaded 20 rounds in sets of 4 with slightly different charges. Found the one that worked best and then went and made 100 handloads of the same. Of that 100 I had about 13 misfires and another 4 with a hangfire and stopped using the loads until I figured out why. rechecked powder charges...(One misfire had no powder but I think I know what I did there....the others showed good primer strike, and one of the misfires showed the projectile almost out of the case. After working through it, It looked like I had either mishandled the primers or stored them incorrectly. I had purchased 200 and used 120 so had 80 to play with. Of those 80 quite a few failed too...The place i got them kindly let me have another half packet from the same carton and we tested those primers and they all worked 100% so were able to eliminate the cause from being the batch of primers....Most likely I had something on my hands (oil or perhaps case lube) or I had done something in the storage that allowed them to fail. It took me a long while to start reloading again (confidence knocked) but I now reload a few for the 303 I use so starting to relearn again....

The earlier Murom in the red boxes did seem to absorb moisture and would even corrode in their boxes. The green box / sleeve Muroms are 100% reliable in my experience. Stored exactly the same as the red boxes

Originally Posted by John Duxbury

Guys I am not talking about a misfire, I am talking about a hang fire, in other words the primer was struck by the firing pin, and then it didnt go off for a split second.

Had it thirty years ago with reloads done for me by local sports shop. Used win 760 and 110 GRN projectiles at about 3k they went baboom unless I pointed skyward,carefully lowered and fired them.... So possibly primers were struggling to ignite looser powder.weird thing is I've done same load many times since with zero issues. The double detonation was terrible for accuracy and flinch....

Just to be clear again, the primers are not going off when the firing pin hits them. (Its not the case that they are going off on time, and then the powder goes off a second later.) Primer is being struck and the primer itself does not ignite for a split second.

Originally Posted by John Duxbury

The only thing I can think of associated was that the primers seat very deep in the pocket. So maybe those two were not down as far as the others...essentially the same thing as a too great headspace as far as the primer is concerned - but the result being a hang fire and not a misfire is very unusual in my experience.

I was once give a box of Fiocchi LRP where the guy was loading 30-30 Hunting rounds with them. He had a few mis-fires ?(his description) and attributed it to the primers. He was not prepared to continue using them and risk losing a stalked deer. I tried them in my Marlin 30-30 and had the same issue. Used them up in 308, 303B and other bolt actions with never an issue. My 30-30 is a Marlin and had a hammer side extension and not a very heavy hammer spring. Federal primers work fine.

I know your issue is hangfire not misfire. But the force the firing pin is delivering may well be the cause. On the cusp of a misfire as it were. Possibly due to one of a number of issues - incomplete primer testing absorbing firing pin energy, sticky firing pin, borderline firing pin hitting power for Fiocchi, head space borderline. Id go to some Federal primers and try the Fiocchi in another bolt action. A heavy hitting 303B would be useful. I still buy Fiocchi. Just not for my 30-30

I only bought the Fiocchi because Federal were no available, I will go and get another box of Fed now, I already checked they are in stock.

I have actually used Fiocchi in other rifles and they went off fine, although they seem hard, (and also slightly oversized, hard to seat in some brass) It may possibly be this Winchester 7mm RM brass contributing, which seems to have quite deep primer pockets. I shot another batch off last night after making sure I seated the primers all way down, and nothing amiss. At the moment Ill put it down to that.

I have reloaded cases using old primers from the sixties and they went fine. I have fired .303 ammo from the fifties and they all went off alright too.