First time with 45 ACP - a couple questions

[Rattlehead]

I put together some rounds with

- Red Dot (one of very few powders I've been able to find for pistol or shotgun)
-Berrys 185 grain round nose
-Winchester WLP Primers (labeled Large Pistol for Standard or Magnum Pistol Loads).
-PMC once-fired brass

I started with 4.0 grains as a starting load, and took them to the range to see if they'd even reliably cycle (spoiler: they didn't). The part that caught me off guard was that out of 10 rounds, 3 completely failed to fire. Not cycling properly was a failure I expected with a starting load... failing to fire, notsomuch.

I'm curious about a couple things related to the FTF:

- What would have caused this? I'm shooting a RIA 5", and have never had issues with firing pin strikes. All three have a pretty solid pin strike on the primer, so I'm pretty confident it's not the pistol. Did I seat these too deeply? Should I be looking at a different primer?

- What should I do with the FTF rounds? I'm assuming I can just run these through the kinetic puller and recycle the components?

[Valornor]

Did you pull apart the bullets that failed to fire?

I bet you find the primer fired on all three but a)a very little powder didn't ignite, b) no powder in case or c) yellow looking powder in case. I'm not sure I've ever heard of red dot failing to ignite. It's a pretty quick powder. My first impression is that your starting load is too low, or that your powder dispenser isn't consistently throwing charges.

[hodaka]

Sounds like dud primers. Even without powder a primer will usually put the bullet an inch or two down the barrel. Try some reliable Tula's

[Wreck-n-Crew]

Bad primers exist

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Sounds like dud primers. Even without powder a primer will usually put the bullet an inch or two down the barrel.

Agree, had one 9mm actually exit the barrel

When you have a hammer SA/DA re-cock and try to fire the round again. If your strikes are dimpling well and hitting hard there is no doubt it is the primers. Even a clogged primer port will make a little fuss if the primers are good.

[Rattlehead]

Haven't pulled the bullets yet. When I pulled the trigger, it sounded like a dry fire, and the rounds were still seated in the case (nothing scientific, but they're not noticeably loosened). Just a SWAG, I'd be surprised if any of the powder burned (since, as noted, primer has the ability to at least dislodge the round.

Good call on the second strike by manually cocking... it completely slipped my mind when I was out there.

(FWIW, I weighed each individually to 4.0 and visually rechecked before seating a bullet)

Are WLP primers known for a 30% dud rate? One in ten seems high enough, three seemed astronomically high... That's the part that has me scratching my head.

[Powderman]

You may want to check the primer seating depth. If your primers are not fully seated, the first strike of the firing pin will seat the primer deeper. A second strike might fire it--then again, the priming pellet might be damaged and the gun will not fire.

As for the charge weight, I have never used Red Dot, but I know people who do, and they are happy with their results. Unfortunately, I have no load data either.

[Nick_C_S]

4.0g of Red Dot is a light load, but they still should have burned. It's starting to sound like dud primers. Which is still highly odd.

I've been loading for almost 30 years. And in that time, I've loaded somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 rounds; and I have had one - exactly one - slow primer ignite (click-wait-wait-bang - and still put it in the bullseye ). And the fact that the primer was 26 years old may have been a factor (the other 1400+ 26-year-old primers fired fine). And I have never had one not ignite at all. Granted, I'm somewhat lucky here. Out of 100,000, a few non-ignites would be expected (I've never had any factory ammo fail to fire either.)

But I digress.

Point is, we can write it off as bad primers, but 3 out of 10 still warrants investigation. What are you priming the brass with? A hand primer? Press? I have always used a hand primer and often unintentionally push the handle as far as it will go. Even though the primer is deeper than it should be, it still fires fine. I don't think you can over-seat a primer. At least, not with a Lee Auto-Prime.

Pull the bullets if you haven't already (it's safe to do so with a kinetic puller). Maybe there's something to be learned inside.

(You can also deprime the "live" primers. Just wear eye protection - like you always do when when you load - and go slow. I've never had to do it; but as I understand, they almost never go off during this procedure. You would discard the primer, of course.)

[Slamfire]

Hummer70 wrote an outstanding article about the reasons firearms are issued with inadequate ignition systems, IT DON’T GO BANG: FIRES, HANGFIRES, MISFIRES AND SHORT ORDER COOKS IN JERSEY but as long as you are shooting the battle tested M1911, which has a very robust ignition system, I don't think you should be experiencing any misfires due to a poorly designed ignition system.

For a new gun I would remove the firing pin, mainspring, and remove any and all oils from the firing pin channel. Ken Warner found in a new Colt M1911 that oils had gummed up the firing pin and it was sticking out, causing a slamfire. It is possible that gummed oils could cause a misfire.

If it is due to the ammunition, perhaps you did not seat the primer firmly. CCI states in their article: “Mysteries And Misconceptions Of The All-Important Primer” that high primers are the most common cause of misfires. You have to ensure that the anvils are firmly seated on something and the primer cake is pushed on to the anvil. You do not want to crush the primer cake as it may flake out from under the anvil. There is a firm but not crushing feel to seating a primer and this is important for reliable ignition.

[JKilbreth]

It's also possible that a primer seated too shallow will fail to fire.

We're there firing pin marks on the FTF rounds' primers?

A primer that isn't seated deeply enough can cause the firing pin to actually puncture the primer, having the identical effect of failing to ignite the powder.

[papershotshells]

I concur that a likely cause of the misfires could be connected to primer seating.

If primers aren't seated properly, all sorts of merry hell can break loose.

How did you seat your primers? By hand or on the press?

While I have had a few dud primers over the last 20 years of handloading, they were by no means a common occurrence.

Papershotshells

[John D]

Sounds like the primers weren't seated deep enough…I'd start there.

[reload]

Yep, my vote is also for primer not seated deep enough. I have to be sure to firmly seat 45 ACP LPP on my SDB or else they stick up too high.

[57K]

Rattlehead, how are you seating your primers? If you load on a single-stage press, you may find like many of us do, the advantages of priming off-press with a handheld priming tool. They should be seated as deeply as possible in the primer pocket and with a hand priming tool you can feel them bottom out.

Also, use your dial caliper as a depth gauge and check to make sure all of your primers are getting seated properly. If the primer is flush with the rim or above it, it's not seated deep enough. The industry standard is supposed to be .006" below the rim and when primers are bottomed out they'll be even deeper at around .010".

[serf 'rett]

Got to agree with others - check primer seating depth.

[Rattlehead]

When I pulled the primers, I found that they had been struck (possibly too lightly, but nothing that jumped out and screamed "light strike"), were still intact on the underside (facing the flash hole... so apparently not struck hard enough to ignite), and the powder was unburned.

Went back out this afternoon with a few more batches. I pulled the other 4.0 grn rounds I'd made, ensured the primers were fully seated, and loaded back up with 4.3-5.0 grns. (Note, previous I had not ensured that the primers were seated, so I ran them back through the RCBS hand primer, ensured that they were fully seated. I was of the - mistaken - that seated flush would place them correctly). One FTE with one of the 4.5 grn rounds, and zero failures to fire.

Thanks to all who responded; this thread has been VERY informative.

[steve4102]

I would have to agree that the primers were not seated fully.

Firing the "dud" a second/third time will usually set it off if it was indeed high.

[Slamfire]

I would have to agree that the primers were not seated fully.

Firing the "dud" a second/third time will usually set it off if it was indeed high.

I will agree with the "usually", but I have had the experience of multiple attempts to fire a rifle primer, it did not go off though well dented.

Disassembled the round, knocked out the primer, and stuck it on a stove burner. It went BANG!. I suspect the primer cake had cracked out from under the anvil with all the multiple firing pin strikes.

[Mike / Tx]

The only caveat I had found with the above two statements is that sometimes with this situation the dent in the primer is more than can be overcome by the firing pin on successive tries. IF there is enough pin extending out of the bolt face yes, but if it has already dented the primer while also seating it to the bottom of the pocket without it firing, you might well be SOL getting it to fire normally.

[57K]

It may also be primer dependent. I have never used foreign made primers and about the only ones I'd be willing to try would be S&B. In 28 years of handloading using mostly CCI and Win primers, I've yet to have a short seated primer that didn't ignite on the first strike, not being further seated and firing with the second strike. This I've had some experience with because I like the ease of using LEE AutoPrimes and I'm probably on my 10th by now and I use two for large and small primers. Once they start wearing out, they will short seat primers but I've yet to have a Win or CCI primer fail to ignite on the 2nd strike. It's something I try to stay on top of because I load my own defense loads so I do begin monitoring seating depth with a well used AutoPrime. I've tried to replace them in the past with other brands of handheld priming tools but found no significant advantages. I may revisit the Hornady priming tool where I will most likely buy and only use Hornady shellholders. My previous experience was that the Hornady tool didn't like working with other brands of shellholders. My shooting partner whom I helped get in to reloading recently is using the RCBS hand priming tool and so far he's completely satisfied.

[Rifletom]

What 57K said right there!

[rotor]

CCI tend to be the hardest primers, Winchester next, Federal and Remington about the easiest to ignite. I also have found that CCI and Winchester are the hardest to seat properly whereas Federal and Remington seat like a hot knife in butter. I had a similar problem with a revolver using small pistol primers. No matter how much I seated the primers the Federal and Remington always fired and the Winchester and CCI had some failure to fire. In the revolver I found that the adjustment of my main spring was not tight enough so only Federal and Remington always fired and CCI and Winchester were +/-. I know you are not talking about a revolver but be aware that some guns will appear to create a good dimple in the primer and still not ignite it. If you have this problem you will need to have the firearm checked by a gunsmith. If you want to test your firing pins CCI primers are the toughest to fire in my opinion. If CCI fires there is nothing wrong with your gun.

[44 AMP]

No body mentioned it, but is there any possibility your primers were contaminated? oil, including the oil on your skin can, under the right circumstances render a primer inert. something to check...