Light primer strikes

He should be able to shoot factory ammo.
I agree but must have missed where he said he is shooting factory ammo. My bad.
What I read is Peterson brass and CCI BR4 primers. I don't conclude factory ammo from that.
 
Should've mentioned 6mm creed
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.
 
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.
Excellent point. Been there and done that also. My Lee hand primer wore out and was no longer fully seating primers. Pretty embarrassing when one's wife attempts a shot on a buck and it just goes click, instead of bang. Luckily for me the next one fired. Bought a Century 21 hand priming tool. Money well spent. I also uniform the primer pocket depth on all my brass.
 
Ditto on the failure to fully seat the primer. I reloaded a batch of 303 british and experienced FTF. I checked the Lee hand primer I was using and it had a 'short' priming rod. Changed to a longer priming rod and the problem went away.
 
It should show up when measuring a fired case. Were these handloads? Excessive moving of the shoulder rearward when full length resizing will result in your unfired cartridges exhibiting light primer strikes. Load and fire one case 3 times, measure the shoulder to base and set your FL die to "bump" the the shoulder back .001" - .002". If you don't have the equipment necessary to take the measurements, you can remove the firing pin assembly and the ejector and bump the shoulder back until the bolt just closes with a very light or minimal resistance. Back 50 years ago when I didn't fully understand the reloading processes, I had a rifle getting some FTF's which exhibited light primer strikes. I took the rifle to two different gunsmiths and they correctly said nothing wrong with the rifle. Frustrated, I sold the rifle. The whole ordeal was simply me not having my FL sizer die set correctly and shoving the cartridge shoulder rearward too far.
👆👆👆👆
 
I've had light strikes using cci250s and Peterson brass on my 338 norma mag. Peterson pickets are pretty tight, I started making sure I seated primers all the way and a good cleaning of the firing pin and the FTF rate went down. Cci 250 are pretty hard to begin with but I would start at making sure primers are fully seated.
 
I had that happening on a Remington 700 from the late 60's, It was new in the box but had been in the gunshop for several years. I took the rifle to a gunsmith friend and told him to work on it when he got time, no hurries. He popped the bolt apart while I stood there and showed me all this old grease that had dried out, gotten somewhat hard and prevented free firing pin travel. He popped it into a container of solvent and told me to come back at the end of the week. I did and the rifle has never had another soft primer strike in 50+ years.
 
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.
You sure you have the primers completely seated? My shooting partner had this issue when starting out, as near as we could figure the "light strike" finished seating the primer and the subsequent strike would actually crush the anvil.

Even with "good brass" I still uniform and square up the pockets, maybe one in 20 "need" it, but it assuage my OCD and ensures I'm not falsely bottomed out.
 
The problem could be a combination of 3 things. Number 1, your headspace is too long. Number 2 your primer seating depth was not fully seated, and Number 3, BR4 primers have a harder cup and require more energy to ignite. All 3 put you on the brink of not firing. What I would recommend is try Federal 205 primers and make sure they are seated fully, and load your fire forming rounds jammed into the lands to help prevent the case from sliding forwards until it ignites. Once you get them all fire formed (that means 2 or 3 firings), set your full length sizer to bump the shoulder back .002 and continue to make sure to seat your primers with 1-2 thousandths crush. You shouldn't have any more problems once they are fire formed.
 
Reload those 5 with a mid powder charge, seat the bullets long to jam the rifling, and shoot them. Bet everyone goes Bang! Then you'll have 5 correctly formed cases.
 

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