I would suggest oil, water, sweat from your fingers or case lube has got into the primer. Try and avoid handling the primers if at all possible.
I would suggest oil, water, sweat from your fingers or case lube has got into the primer. Try and avoid handling the primers if at all possible.
Well after soaking in oil and the little feckers still going off....
Or put another way handling is not high on the list of causing failure.
I've had several similar instances recently with CCI400 primers. Three misfires in one outing with brass that was once fired, fire-formed and neck sized only, so no headspace issues. Followed the same protocol, waited 30 seconds and removed/inspected cases to find a what appeared to be a decent strike mark. Re-loaded the cartridges and on the next strike, they fired fine with no issues. Never had this issue previously so I'll strip and clean the bolt as it doesn't take much crud build up behind the pin shoulder to affect striking force. In your shoes, as a matter of ruling things out, it might also be useful to strip/inspect and clean the bolt/firing pin assembly.
I have missed putting powder in the case a few times, I now have a small torch on my loading bench and check the cases in the block have powder at the same level before seating the bullets
seems to work haven't had any empty cases since, always reload with no distractions no phone radio or people complete each operation with out stopping,
Having 2 people do the job of reloading seems to me to be asking for trouble.
Andy,
Friend of mine had a similar issue with a Blaser in .300WM....the dreaded "Blaser click".
just to put this one to bed, after finally getting round to dismantling the cartridge, what did we find? no powder!
Double check everything of course, including a quick shake and visual check of the rounds.
As I mentioned in the original posting, I've been loading up these together with my mate
The 'click' occurrs if the bolt is not in battery, i.e. not fully closed. Pussy-footing about instead of closing the bolt with a positive forward shove can result in this situation.
That primer looks slightly backed out of the primer pocket, in which case it fired normally. And if that's so, then I'll wager there was no powder charge in the case. Highly unlikely to be a defective primer. The OP should pull the bullet and look inside the case.
-JMS
To be fair it’s my first ‘unexplained’ in twelve years of rifle shooting….. all the others went bang… I shall carefully disassembleLooks like a good strike on the primer. Probably just a duff primer (could be one of several different reasons). Shoot enough rounds and you will experience the odd duff primer every once in a while with both factory ammo and reloaded ammo.
That’s what I think is most likely I’ve got over excited with the lube; I’ve a hornady lock n load progressive press and it runs from case sizing ( I deprime by hand so I can inspect and clean the primer pocket… ) to primer seating on the downstroke and then powder measure on the upstroke, next is a powder cop dip stick ( not perfect but it tells me if there’s powder in there…) then an empty station- was supposed to be a bullet feeder but it’s redundant and my fingers do a better job in placing the bullet into the seater die which is the last stage before it chucks the round into the ‘finished bin’….I would suggest oil, water, sweat from your fingers or case lube has got into the primer. Try and avoid handling the primers if at all possible.