Tikka FTF - Light Primer Strikes

davery25 · November 29, 2014, 08:43 PM

Hi all,

As the title says. Reloaded 50 rounds of 223 for the Tikka and the 1st 3 rounds failed to fire. On inpection there were visibly light primer strikes. 4th round fired and 5th round failed to fire again. Rounds 6 to 50 fired fine.

Tried firing all the FTFs again and several times to no avail.

It's a new Tikka T3 but has fired somewhere around 600 to 700 rounds already without any previous FTFs.

I did adjust the trigger - first after 200 rounds to as light as it will go. and then just before this session to make it slightly heavier.

The only other thing I can think that I did differently was leaving the bolt closed and uncocked in the rifle after cleaning (possible debris in bolt?)

I'm thinking its a trigger thing. Anyone seen or heard of this before?

Brass was all several times fired (6 or 7) remington from the same batch. Primers were winchester and i've never had an issue with them before.

Thoughts? Trigger just working itself out or something more serious?

gunnut69 · November 30, 2014, 12:16 AM

Not likely the trigger. Reloads can cause this if the headspace is too short or if the primers are seated too deeply. Also some rifles can assembled so the striker is not fully seated..

davery25 · November 30, 2014, 06:56 PM

Thanks gunnut. It's not likely to be incorrectly assembled because I've never taken the bolt apart. The headspace thing might be the ticket - I've been having issues with the die in that calibre and this could be the result. I wonder...

gunnut69 · December 1, 2014, 06:31 PM

This can be checked by marking a casing fired in the rifle with a magic marker. The case is the run into the sizer die that's backed out a 1/4 turn. Note how far down the neck the sizer removed the marker. Keep turning in the sizer and sizing the case until the shoulder is just barely kissing the die. If the case freely chambers lock the die down and verify the resulting ammo fires successfully. This gives maximum case length to the reloaded ammo. You may also want to have rifle's headspace checked...

November 29, 2014, 08:43 PM	#1
davery25 Senior Member Join Date: October 4, 2011 Location: Australia Posts: 318	Tikka FTF - Light Primer Strikes Hi all, As the title says. Reloaded 50 rounds of 223 for the Tikka and the 1st 3 rounds failed to fire. On inpection there were visibly light primer strikes. 4th round fired and 5th round failed to fire again. Rounds 6 to 50 fired fine. Tried firing all the FTFs again and several times to no avail. It's a new Tikka T3 but has fired somewhere around 600 to 700 rounds already without any previous FTFs. I did adjust the trigger - first after 200 rounds to as light as it will go. and then just before this session to make it slightly heavier. The only other thing I can think that I did differently was leaving the bolt closed and uncocked in the rifle after cleaning (possible debris in bolt?) I'm thinking its a trigger thing. Anyone seen or heard of this before? Brass was all several times fired (6 or 7) remington from the same batch. Primers were winchester and i've never had an issue with them before. Thoughts? Trigger just working itself out or something more serious?

November 30, 2014, 12:16 AM	#2
gunnut69 Member Join Date: June 23, 2013 Posts: 40	Not likely the trigger. Reloads can cause this if the headspace is too short or if the primers are seated too deeply. Also some rifles can assembled so the striker is not fully seated..

November 30, 2014, 06:56 PM	#3
davery25 Senior Member Join Date: October 4, 2011 Location: Australia Posts: 318	Thanks gunnut. It's not likely to be incorrectly assembled because I've never taken the bolt apart. The headspace thing might be the ticket - I've been having issues with the die in that calibre and this could be the result. I wonder...

December 1, 2014, 06:31 PM	#4
gunnut69 Member Join Date: June 23, 2013 Posts: 40	This can be checked by marking a casing fired in the rifle with a magic marker. The case is the run into the sizer die that's backed out a 1/4 turn. Note how far down the neck the sizer removed the marker. Keep turning in the sizer and sizing the case until the shoulder is just barely kissing the die. If the case freely chambers lock the die down and verify the resulting ammo fires successfully. This gives maximum case length to the reloaded ammo. You may also want to have rifle's headspace checked...