Another .17 HMR incident : HSE Informed

I've recently had an issue with my CZ452 .17hmr, cycle the bolt, squeeze the trigger and click, no fire?!?!? Hold it in a safe direction in case it's a hang fire, nope not happening, lift the bolt and recock the bolt without extracting the round, drop the bolt squeeze the trigger and bang it goes off second time round.

This happened with the next 5 rounds, all failed on the first and went on the second attempt. Anyone who, like me, strips and cleans the mod off their hmr after each outing will know what a dirty round it is, filthy.

So it got me thinking maybe the firing pin was dirty and not striking properly, with no enough force to ignite the primer. I stripped the bolt, cleaned it up and lightly lubed before wiping it almost dry with kitchen roll. Reassembled I took the rifle out and stuffed 3Nr 5 round mags through it without issue, problem solved.

So I would say cleaning the bolt on your hmr every 500-750 rounds isn't a bad idea.

Good advice, but relevant to a different type of failure -of the firing system, not of the ammunition- and one which can affect a gun in any calibre.
 
Not to have a go, but surely most people now know there's a problem with the ammo, so surely anytime something doesn't sound or feel quite right, it's up to you to check. After all, you'll be the one to find out if there's an obstruction in the barrel.
 
I have a Finnfire that is rebarreled in 17Mach2 and have never suffered any misfires, split necks or failures to fire. Obviously the Mach2 is not as popular as the HMR but maybe that's a good thing with HMR rounds being knocked out by the million maybe the quality suffers?

Just a thought.
 
Unsettling to understand there are potentially issues with HMR ammo, but I've gone through ~1,200 HMR rounds this year without incident.
 
I have had similar problems with mine, one of the reasons I got the .20 vartarg. The HMR is a fun rifle, accurate and fun to shoot, the ammunition is the big problem. I had one box of winchester where half the box was split.

The problems stem from the fact that the cases are primed before the necks are formed, this means they can't be annealed after forming leaving the brass very brittle. The cracked cases allow moisture in which dampens the powder causing complete misfires, hang fires or incomplete combustion which is the worst case scenario as it can leave the bullet in the barrel. I can forgive the shooter from not noticing the incomplete combustion as on such a quiet low recoiling round it could go un-noticed.

I have heard that winchester (I think) have started to make their own 17ammo instead of buying them from CCI who apparently make all the her ammo there is, maybe it will be better…..
 
THIS TYPE of THREAD , sums up this site at its very Best , FOCUSE'S Every ones Attention on a serious safety issue,, with 1.7 hmr ammunition ,,, So now, Any One ,,(with any sense).. Who was not aware of this problem , Will how be checking all their ammo ,
And paying more ATTENTION when shooting this caliber , And spreading the word far and wide. GOOD STUFF ,,makes up for all the crap;;
 
The following indicates to me that CIP should be taking an interest. See bottom of para.

Now, the shooting community has been expressing disquiet for at least a few years. What's going on?

The Commission internationale permanente pour l'épreuve des armes à feu portatives(Permanent International Commission for Firearms Testing - commonly abbreviated as C.I.P. or CIP) is an international organisation whose members are 14 states, mainly European.
The C.I.P. safeguards that every civil firearm and all ammunition sold in C.I.P. member states are safe for the users.
To achieve this, the firearms are all professionally proofed at C.I.P. accredited Proof Houses before they can be sold to consumers. The same applies for cartridges, at regular interval, cartridges are tested at the C.I.P. accredited Proof Houses.
 
Yesterday lunchtime I had a call from a shooting mate who is also a SDF member. He was out sighting in his CZ American using Hornady ammo and suffered a barrel blockage, result was a badly twisted bolt and a 2" piece of the stock from behind the bolt shattered off, so another ruined .17 HMR. Very luckily he was unhurt.

I am unclear of the exact events but clearly the prev round was a mis fire and the bullet lodged in the barrel far enough up for the next round to be chambered and fired.

I have done a quick search on the net "Faulty .17 HMR ammunition" and it brings up reams of stuff.

I am also aware of the posts on SDF.

Clearly this is an ongoing and serious problem which is not being resolved so I have written to the HSE and asked them to investigate.

Its not really their issue, however if any Gamekeeper or Pest control officer who uses a .17 HMR as a part of their job suffered the above then it could be reported as a Dangerous Occurance and if the shooter was injured it might also be reportable as a RIDDOR if it was a seven day injury.

I await the HSE's response.

D

Happened to a friend of mine a couple of months ago, the shooter didn't realise the mis-fire, just thought he'd missed the rabbit. Leics dealer very helpful.
 
Not entirely on topic but, do the actions stand up to the excess pressure when this happens.
be interesting to know. If they do stand it without harm, would it indicate there is sufficient saftey margin to enable
a re chamber to 17 wsm??
 
Okay so playing devils advocate...... someone wanting a powder burner for bunnys, Doesnt trust the HMR for worry over bad ammo and doesnt like .22lr because of ricochet fears. What calibre would you recomend so you still have a sellable/edible rabbit at the end of it ?ATBMatt
 
I' with Rg7mm with this having had a bad batch of Hornady . I mailed them and they passed it on to Edgar bros the importers.
Firstly the remaining 200 rounds from the batch of 500 were replaced with a new batch of 500 and have never been a problem since.
I had conversations with Derek Edgar who was great and spoke with CCi the manufacturer of Hornady,Remington etc cases.
There was a faulty batch for the reasons Rg7mm explains but CCi commented that every round should be checked before loading.!!!!!
 
Not entirely on topic but, do the actions stand up to the excess pressure when this happens.
be interesting to know. If they do stand it without harm, would it indicate there is sufficient saftey margin to enable
a re chamber to 17 wsm??

I've never heard of an action requiring replacement after such an incident, or of anyone being more than very superficially injured (though this is bad enough). As to whether this means the action of a a Ruger, CZ, etc. HMR is resilient enough to handle the 17 WSM, I don't think it's proof either way.

My guess -and it's no more than that- is that they would, but there might still be a problem with ignition, as the 17 WSM uses a thicker case and requires more striker energy than previous modern rimfire rounds. At least, this was cited by Savage as the reason their B-Mag was designed to cock on closing, pushing the bolt being deemed easier than pulling as a means to compress its stiffer firing pin spring.

The other problem with being interested in the 17 WSM is that there are as yet no plans to sell either rifles or ammunition in the UK.
 
Okay so playing devils advocate...... someone wanting a powder burner for bunnys, Doesnt trust the HMR for worry over bad ammo and doesnt like .22lr because of ricochet fears. What calibre would you recomend so you still have a sellable/edible rabbit at the end of it ?ATBMatt

Start with the 17 hornet, once you realise it's not the answer get a proper 22 Hornet and be done with it :stir:

Neil. :)
 
I had a similar experience with Federal 17hmr ammo, whereby I had a number of rounds that did not consistantly fire and gave me poor grouping and on each occasion when inspecting the case it was badly cracked in the neck. I also had a couple if miss fires. In the end I took all the ammo with that particular batch number back to my local gun shop and they kindly swapped it.
 
I had a similar experience with Federal 17hmr ammo, whereby I had a number of rounds that did not consistantly fire and gave me poor grouping and on each occasion when inspecting the case it was badly cracked in the neck. I also had a couple if miss fires. In the end I took all the ammo with that particular batch number back to my local gun shop and they kindly swapped it.

My mate and i bought a couple of thousand Federal 17 HMR V shock a few years ago because after exhaustive testing it was the best in both of our rifles.
We used it all up earlier this year so went and bought 1000 more, what a pile of $hite! split necks on unfired ammo, split necks after firing and plenty if misfires (you easily hear the difference in the report) and poor accuracy.
On examining the rest for split necks (a real ball ache) the cull rate was 12% so we took the lot back to the shop and get another couple of blocks, the first box of 50 opened had 7 split necks so we took the lot back and got our money back.
We are currently shooting CCI 20g game points which are phenominal accuracy, no split necks and so far no missfires after shooting.
This round has restored my faith my faith in the 17HMR and allows it to be what it was originally devised for, a genuine 150yd to 175yd small gane cartridge.
If the next batch of CCI goes tits up like the Federal then that will be the end for the 17HMR and a 17 Hornet or WSM will replace it.

Ian.
 
I saw a thread on another shooting forum ~18mts ago about split necks. Checked my ammo and found I had some split rounds. Went out with a traget and the split necks shot as well as any other. I stopped looking after that.

Obviously if the gun does something odd then clear the barrel and check. With my .22 I sometimes rush to cycle the bolt and miss chamber a round.
 
Oh man not this again! I thought this had been sorted? I haven't found any split cases yet but have had a few Hornadays fail to fire despite a good strike on the case.
 
Okay so playing devils advocate...... someone wanting a powder burner for bunnys, Doesnt trust the HMR for worry over bad ammo and doesnt like .22lr because of ricochet fears. What calibre would you recomend so you still have a sellable/edible rabbit at the end of it ?ATBMatt
.

The HMR's daddy, .22WMR no problems with cracked necks as there are no necks, ballistic tipped rounds still available to eliminate the bounce
 
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