Light primer strikes

[James DeTorre]

Had a spate of clickers . New Nosler brass, CCI lR primers, Stabil powder, 7-08 Kimber.
Pulled remainder of batch apart, Measured everything. fired primed empty cases and they went pop.
reloaded with exact same loads. Same batch of primers and powder. No subsequent clickers.
never though about shoulder / case length. 40 plus years with this hobby and more to learn.

 

[thwatson2]

I have personally had really bad time the the cci br4 primers. try Some federal 215m primers before faulting the bolt assembly. I've never had a misfire with them. Easy place to start

 

[MGN]

If I follow you correctly, 5 of 90 rounds misfired, with what appeared to be a light primer strike. I'd be willing to bet $1.00 the primers in these cases we not seated into the primer pockets as deeply as the others that fired properly. This is not an unusual occurrence, especially with new brass with tight & pristine primer pockets. Personally, when seating primers, I ALWAYS rotate each case 1/4 turn after seating a primer, and then reapply the same pressure, in essence seating the primer a second time. I learned this trick many years ago, and while I can't say I've never had a misfire, there has only been a couple out of thousands of hand-loaded rounds. Probably the best reloading tip I've ever received! Good luck with your problem solving, and I hope this helps.

Check this. I have seen this and when you say you have pulled the other components except for the primer and then it fires points in this. Why this will now fires is the primer was seated further in by the firing pin the first time

 

[Dvldad]

Too much head space your firing pin is pushing the case ahead. Try neck sizing your brass or back your full length sizer out 1/8 to 1/16 of a turn. Size the brass drop into chamber close bolt. If bolt closes freely back the die out more and try again on a new piece of brass. Your want some slight resistance when you close your bolt.

 

[Charlie M]

Sorry if wrong forum.
I've had 5 out of 90 what I'm assuming are light strikes with a new rifle.
After removing bullet and powder I chambered the primed empty brass and they all fired. Measured firing pin protrusion and best I can tell it's .046-.047 which from my understanding is what bighorn says it's supposed to be.
Big horn sr3 action
Proof steel barrel
Peterson brass
Cci br4 primers
Any ideas? Don't have headspace gauges but fired brass measures .003-.004 longer than new brass.

Strip the bolt and make sure it's clean in side. Then clean the firing pin and spring and just barely oil it.

 

[Grizz1148]

On the cases that did fire, do the indents form the firing pin hitting the primer look pretty pronounced ?

Look normal to me

 

[Greyfox]

Primers weren't backed out. Wouldn't excessive headspace show up in the fired case measurements?

This is easy enough to determine by measuring the headspace of sized vs fired cases(with and without primers. Assuming this is OK, and your primers are well seated, I would adjust the firing pin out a few thousandths longer over your current setting. I have used BR4 primers with my PRS rifle with a Bighorn{TL3) with a few thousand rounds fired ……No FTF's. However, at matches, I have seen a couple of Bighorn action shooters adjust their firing pin distance when experiencing FTF's. Problem solved. I believe this adjustment feature was designed into the action to accommodate changing bolt heads for cartridge versatility.

 

[spladi]

New rifle firing reloads? weak firing pin spring a little too much Head space maybe, and hard primer metal. Seems like most protrusion lengths I measure are closer to .060" There may be more issues like obstructions in the FP bore, bent pin etc.

 

[RockyRandy]

This post really caught my eye only because it has happened to me and when I posted the problem I received a lot of the same responses talking about shoulder bump .002-.003. I really like what Rogerpa & Timeout has said. Being a slow learner that I am i finally ordered a complete Comparator set so that I can see just how far I have been bumping the shoulder with my full length sizing dies. I also believe one of the best tools I have purchased is a RBCS Automatic primer so that i make sure that my primers are fully seated. I as well am still learning.

 

[Dvldad]

Watch this video there is some super good info here

 

[AaronSkipDavidson]

I second the comments pointing to examination of the fire control system. Very common cause of FTF. Any drag that can dissipate energy will do it, especially new clones where the system has been optimized for bolt manipulation and the PE safety factor is minimized.

This could be dirt, or part interference.

 

[jdyoung]

Sorry if wrong forum.
I've had 5 out of 90 what I'm assuming are light strikes with a new rifle.
After removing bullet and powder I chambered the primed empty brass and they all fired. Measured firing pin protrusion and best I can tell it's .046-.047 which from my understanding is what bighorn says it's supposed to be.
Big horn sr3 action
Proof steel barrel
Peterson brass
Cci br4 primers
Any ideas? Don't have headspace gauges but fired brass measures .003-.004 longer than new brass.

Grizz1148: At what point in the firing sequence did the misfires occur? ie: were they one after the other, beginning, end or scattered throughout?

 

[GWSpringer]

Sorry if wrong forum.
I've had 5 out of 90 what I'm assuming are light strikes with a new rifle.
After removing bullet and powder I chambered the primed empty brass and they all fired. Measured firing pin protrusion and best I can tell it's .046-.047 which from my understanding is what bighorn says it's supposed to be.
Big horn sr3 action
Proof steel barrel
Peterson brass
Cci br4 primers
Any ideas? Don't have headspace gauges but fired brass measures .003-.004 longer than new brass.

most likely the primers are not being seated deep enough.

 

[Grizz1148]

Update. To those that said clean the bolt, it is new 130 rds as of this morning but I did wipe out some grease. Took it to the range this morning loaded with new lapua brass and 2 diff primers. Cci br4 and fed AR match. No misfires out of 25. Thinking Peterson brass may be the culprit. More investigating to do lol. Thanks for all the advise so far.