Failure to fire

[adamBomb]

Put 100 rounds through my new Hellcat this morning. Around the 70th shot, I had a failure to fire. I waited a min then ejected the round, which unfortunately fell across the line at the indoor range so I couldn't recover it.

This happened on the first round after releasing the slide. Rest of the mag shot fine. Next 30 rounds shot fine.

Ammo was winchester white box 115g probably 5-7 years old.

Could be ammo. Could have been a light primer strike...idk. But I don't like issues. I am hoping its ammo related and plan to take it back to the range to get another 100 shots in soon. Not sure if I should start carrying at this point...

Edit:

-Prior to taking to range I did clean and lube.
-I dropped the open slide to rack the round, didn't rack it myself. Not sure if that makes a difference.

[HiBC]

I have no experience with the Hellcat.

A new gun may have to "break in" or burnish the tight spots,

A new gun generally needs to be field stripped and the preservative grease cleaned out, followed by lubrication.

If you dropped a round in the chamber and then dropped the slide,

Or if your hand followed the slide forward,

Any one of these things could have prevented the slide from going fully forward into battery.

If that happens, energy that should have gone into the primer for ignition goes into nudging the slide forward.

Shoot it. Run the first 100 through,clean and lube it, get 100 new,fresh self defense grade ammo (not the cheaper target practice ammo. Get what you will carry) Now run that ammo for a reliability test.

Note: This suggestion has the "corners rounded off" due to ammo prices.

A few years ago the standard was a 500 round break in.

100 rounds of the hollow point ,bullet weight,and load you want to carry without a hiccup is a reasonable standard.
Remedies might include a different load ,magazines,or a trip back to the maker.
If it passes,get at least another 100 rounds for operating stash.

[smee78]

I would not worry about 1 bad round, I would run 4-5 mags of whatever self-defense ammo your gonna carry and not worry about it. I never carry a gun without a break-in range trip but I don't sweat one round.

[mehavey]

I've had a Hellcat for many years.
Never had a malfunction or FTF.
I suspect the ammunitions ATP.

[jetinteriorguy]

Did you clean and lube the gun first? If you took it to the range and used it with just the factory preservative/lube that may be the culprit.

[adamBomb]

Thanks for the tips.

Prior to taking to range I did clean and lube. I really wish I could have seen the round to determine what happened.

Current plan is to go to the range next week and get 100 rounds through. I plan to use hornady this time. If I have no issues Im not going to worry about it. I did fire several mags through afterwards with no issue.

[jar]

Bad rounds happen.

[adamBomb]

One other thing I should add to this...

I dropped the open slide to rack the round, didn't rack it myself. Not sure if that makes a difference.

[mehavey]

dropped the open slide to rack the round

Shouldn't be an (the) issue.
If you have inexpensive Remington FMJs try those instead of expensive Hornadys first.
But I suspect even the previous Winchesters will be OK upon re-test.

[JohnKSa]

Could be an issue with the gun.

Maybe a situation where the firing pin safety is right on the hairy edge of disengaging because of a parts problem and so once in a great while it doesn't. I had a Ruger P97 like that many years ago.

Maybe some crud left in the firing pin channel that gummed things up just enough to cause an issue.

Maybe a bit of debris in the chamber caused an issue with a round not fully chambering. Usually there are interlocks to prevent the gun from firing out of battery so it would have to be a very close thing for the slide to go just far enough into battery to drop the firing pin but not far enough for the firing pin to hit the primer.

Could be an issue with the round.

Maybe it was slightly oversize and didn't fully chamber.

Maybe it was just a bad round. Bad primer, missing primer, improperly installed primer.

Would have been really nice to have the round. I think I would have either asked the range owner to retrieve the round or maybe looked around for something to retrieve it with. A lot of ranges have a push broom in the shooting area to allow for a quick sweep to clear the shooting area of brass. Without that round this is mostly guesswork.

I dropped the open slide to rack the round, didn't rack it myself. Not sure if that makes a difference.

It does make a difference, but not a big one.

Dropping the slide with the release generates slightly less slide velocity than racking it properly because there's slightly more slide travel and slightly more spring compression when you rack it properly than when it's dropped by the slide release. In the case of a very slightly oversized round, or maybe some debris in the chamber, a tiny bit more slide closing velocity might make the difference, but I think it's sort of unlikely that's what caused the issue.

[44 AMP]

Pity you didn't retain the "dud" round.

Having that to examine would eliminate about half the questions being asked here now.

[adamBomb]

No doubt. Only thing I can probably do at this point is go to the range again. I plan to go again next week.

[Mosin44az]

Winchester White Box does not have a great reputation for quality

[jar]

Sounds like a great excuse for a range day.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by Mosin44az

Winchester White Box does not have a great reputation for quality

Neither does it have a bad reputation for quality.

I can't even begin to estimate how many thousands of rounds of WWB I've fired over the years (mostly .45 ACP and 9mm) and I have never had a misfire.

[5whiskey]

AB I've shot more WWB than anything other than my reloads, and i attest it is quite reasonably priced and functional practice ammo. I have had a few ftfs over the years with fairly clear primer strikes. Not very many though.

Adam I would take it back out and continue to watch for malfunctions. I typically have a few hundred rounds through any firearm before I consider it for SD use. As others have said, it could be a numbers of issues either firearm or ammo. For now, with just one failure, I would keep shooting.

[NC FNS]

FWIW, the only FTF in my LC9s was about 7 years ago, was 115gr WWB and the round was malformed enough so it wouldn’t fully chamber, tried at least 6 times.

[Mickey]

Our Department had qualifications recently. We had a high ratio of misfires and light strikes with Winchester white Box ammo. Run 2 boxes of your carry ammo through the pistol. if you do not have any issues, you are good to go.

[Average Joe]

Bad primer most likely, I would not worry about it.

[seanc]

Put at least 500 rounds in it before you condemn it. The Hellcat is a good gun and WWB is generally good practice ammo. As others have said, if it happens again, try to save the round.

Also, pick up the cases that did fire and look at what the primers look like on those too.

[WmMunny]

If you find yourself in a situation like again, consider asking the RSO for a cease fiire so you can retrieve it.

[adamBomb]

Ok...so updates. This is really in two parts as I went to the range today.

1. Hellcat did awesome. 70 rounds of winchester white box (new white box vs the 10yr old stuff I used last time) followed by 50 rounds of hornady without an issue. On a side note - not a fun gun at the range, very snappy. But you don't buy a small gun for fun at the range. So I think this gun is good to go.

2. My 380 bodyguard had a misfire! What are the chances... I was using brand new winchester practice ammo/white box. It was the last round of the mag. This gun is DAO so I could have fired again but decided to eject the round and look at it. I am posting the pic of the round that didn't fire vs one that did. It maybe looked a little lighter but I couldn't really tell a big difference. Bullet also looked sort of damaged. Fortunately got a pic for you all. Keep in mind this isn't the hellcat anymore...I did fire 4 more mags through the gun after the misfire without an issue. This gun has probably 500 rounds through it without an issue.



Image here (bullet on left is misfire/bullet on right was fired): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ry77c...o7zjtvvvm&dl=0