Misfire Today

[StarMetal]

I was out shooting my Type 99 7.7 Jap Arisaka today. I was trying out the Lyman 314299, 311284, and the Lee 312155. I was using both 5010 and 4895 surplus. The 4895 load was 30 grs. When I fired the Lee's, on the second round, no boom...just little smoke coming out of the breech. Well ejected the round and the bullet was just lodged in the throat. The interesting thing is the powder was pushe to front of the case and it was rock hard. I had to use a small screwdriver to dig it out. Never seen that. I've seen where the primer burns the graphite coating off the powder kernels and I've see just little clumps maybe, not the whole charge stuck together. The powder has worked wonderful in everything, and it seems like very fresh powder, has the solvent smell pretty strong too like new canister stuff. I'm wondering if it was a weak primer.

Joe

[44man]

Star, some questions. How old is the powder and how was it stored, container, humidity, etc. If the primer had enough force to compress the charge, drive the bullet out and give out smoke, it sure was hot enough. I suspect a lot of moisture in the powder. I have used surplus powder that was over 40 years old but I stored it in ideal conditions. I have no other answer, maybe someone else does. This would be a bad position to be in with a bear coming at you.

[Poygan]

I had the same thing happen twice in the same pound of powder. Bought it from a friend who said it was AA-9. I believe it was 820 instead. He said he had some misfires with it as well and suspected it was a moisture issue. As best as I recall, the primers burned some of the graphite coating off and appeared to melt it into a partial clump and lodged the bullet in the bbl. I know it happened in .357 and maybe 45 Colt, would have to check my notes to be certain.

[JDL]

Joe,
You didn't mention if a filler was used but, if it wasn't maybe, the powder charge was forward and failed to ignite?-JDL

[StarMetal]

Yes I used a filler of Dacron. The powder is stored in a cool dry basement that is heated in the winter and it's in metal powder cans.

The primer did have enough power to push the bullet out and the charge and dacron forward. Not very many kernels at all had the graphite burned off the.

Joe

[Wayne Smith]

Last time that happened to me I had to later remember that I had deprimed those cases before polishing them - you guessed it, had some walnut stuck in almost all flash holes and forgot and loaded a couple before catching it.

Yeah, I should have pulled them, but was too lazy. Should have taken my brass rod and hammer when I went to shoot that 357, but I didn't do that, either!

[9.3X62AL]

I've had failures to fully fire brought on by exactly the source cited by Wayne--a kernel of tumbling media lodged in the flash hole. I make a point of checking EVERY casing tumbled after decapping for this little anomaly. Since then, no such occurrences.

[StarMetal]

It wasn't tumbling media. I had ten casings that I was reloading over and over. My reloading shop is only about 50 yards away from my shooting bench. I didn't want to load more shells as I was just testing powder and bullet combinations. So the brass was clean inside especially the flash hole since the depriming pin had to pass through it to knock out the spent primer.

Joe

[bruce drake]

Were your lubricating the cases during the resizing? I've had the same problems before when I got a lot of excess RCBS lubricant down the inside of the neck of the shell. I've since switched to Imperial Sizing wax and haven't had this problem since the switch.

Bruce

[StarMetal]

Yes with Hornady aerosal which isn't suppose to be harmful, but you know I particulary got inside the neck because if they aren't lubricated they drag horribly on the Lee expander.

That's probably it, thanks guys.

Joe

[45 2.1]

Sounds like you got hold of a weak primer.

[Jumptrap]

Yes with Hornady aerosal which isn't suppose to be harmful, but you know I particulary got inside the neck because if they aren't lubricated they drag horribly on the Lee expander.

That's probably it, thanks guys.

Joe

This one piece of bait that makes me rise to the surface and strike!

I'll bet one of my most important physical parts that the powder was wetted by the aerosol....because I have done the same durn thing.

Nothing wrong with your primer, it did it's job. That clump of congealed powder points to being saturated enough to clump. I DON'T KNOW how much it takes to make it happen, so the jury is out on that.

As for dampness in powder....I read somewhere, years ago, that when Bruce Hodgdon was buying 4831 and other surps, it was stored in OPEN bins, just giant piles of the stuff and he bid on it by the lot.....i.e., "Gentlemen, here we have bin number 32A containing surplus rifle powder 4831....who'll offer the first bid?" It wasn't in drums or loaded ammo, but in bulk piles. How's that for humidity control?

[bruce drake]

Yes with Hornady aerosal which isn't suppose to be harmful, but you know I particulary got inside the neck because if they aren't lubricated they drag horribly on the Lee expander.

That's probably it, thanks guys.

Joe

Glad to help out! [smilie=f:

[buck1]

That happened to me a few times too, now I wash/ dry the cases as a last step before loading. no more problims. ...buck

[beagle]

I'd suspect a weak primer. I've had that happen in the .375 H & H with IMR 4895 and WW regular primers even though WW says they're for magnum loads. A switch to Fed 215s put a stop to it right quick.

I'd get a snap and nothing. Not even the bullet would move. Aha! a bad primer. Tried a second..same thing. The third gave me a click, bang...hangfire.

I immediately knocked off and too them home and broke out the eraser and started pulling bullets. The primers on the two snaps had fired and the powder was caked in a solid, molten looking mass against the base of the bullet. Took a punch to break it up so it had started to ignite or some of it did.

Next week, same load and Fed 215s shot a group of about 1 1/2" at 100 yards with no problems.

So, I'm saying weak primer. Could be a firing pin spring that was weak but them jappers are strong as hell so I'd rule that out./beagle



I was out shooting my Type 99 7.7 Jap Arisaka today. I was trying out the Lyman 314299, 311284, and the Lee 312155. I was using both 5010 and 4895 surplus. The 4895 load was 30 grs. When I fired the Lee's, on the second round, no boom...just little smoke coming out of the breech. Well ejected the round and the bullet was just lodged in the throat. The interesting thing is the powder was pushe to front of the case and it was rock hard. I had to use a small screwdriver to dig it out. Never seen that. I've seen where the primer burns the graphite coating off the powder kernels and I've see just little clumps maybe, not the whole charge stuck together. The powder has worked wonderful in everything, and it seems like very fresh powder, has the solvent smell pretty strong too like new canister stuff. I'm wondering if it was a weak primer.

Joe

[StarMetal]

Yeah that Jap punches those primers pretty good. Never had a problem with it. The primer did go off first strike and like I said smoke oozed from the breech area. It did pop the bullet into the throat. With the Lee 312155 you can't engrave the rifling on a Jap because the bullet is too short. It took a few hard waps with the clean rod to dislodge it.

Joe