win small pistol primers - bad batch?

[rp85]

hello;

got these win small pistol primers @ 3mos ago. load is for 38special, 140 grain lee cast bullet, 3.0 grains of bullseye, taper crimp, oal 1.45"

primer is not igniting pistol powder in @10% fired. primer is going off but not the powder. the bullseye powder is @6mos old and always stored inside. not good when you have to drive the bullets out of a barrel with a brass rod and hammer.

any suggestion? harder crimp??? at a loss, never had this happen before.

thanks for any input.

rp

[Tatume]

Hi RP,

From your description it doesn't sound like the primers are at fault. The charge appears to be sufficient, and is what Alliant recommends for a 148 grain hollow base wad cutter. However, your bullet is neither 148 grains nor a hollow base wad cutter, and the next lighter bullet in the Alliant data calls for a 50% increase in the charge. If it was me, I would increase the charge.

Take care, Tom

[TES]

did the cases have excessive oil on them?

[Harter66]

I had a similar thing a couple of yr ago. I shot 200 rounds over a weekend w/witnesses ,of course,to every 1 of the 10 misfires . Now while thats no help as to your Winchesters I will say that every now and then a bad tray slips through. I had those 10 misfires while I was attempting to shoot for best group which shook my faith in the loads and everything else I shot all weekend as well.

[Tatume]

The primers fired or the bullets would not have entered the barrel. One thing you didn't mention is the condition of the powder. In cases like this one of two states can occur. The powder burned and no powder was present. The powder did not burn and was found in a clump at the base of the bullet.

If no powder remained and the powder burned, then there was insufficient powder.
If no powder remained it is also possible that no powder was present, the case was never charged.

If the powder did not burn, then the primer flash was insufficient to ignite the powder. I've never seen this happen with Bullseye, as it is one of the easiest to ignite powders on the market. Therefore, this condition would indicate that the powder was contaminated or the wrong powder was used.

Take care, Tom

[Silverboolit]

What reloader are you using? If a progressive, could have missed charging cases. Did the ones that fired seem to work as intended, or were those kinda 'weak sounding' ?
'

[lwknight]

Forget the idea of there not being sufficient powder. I shot hundreds of 100 grain and 158 grain wadcutters with 2.0 grains BE. The velocity was around 400 fps. Never a problem even with 20 year old powder as well as new powder.

More likely you either got bad powder or a bad powder measure and I'm leaning toward a bad measure or scale even.

[kevmc]

The powder did burn normally in 9/10 cases.....
In the remaining loads, the primer did drive the bullet into the barrel.....
I'd vote for no powder in those cases.
Did you load these on a progressive press and/or with what powder measure?

[Shiloh]

I suppose there could be a bad batch, but have to agree that there are other issues. Unlike slow magnum powders, fast pistol powders are easy to
ignite. Are you getting boolits wedged into the barrel??

Shiloh

[mulespurs]

Would it be possible that you have used a spray case lube and not have let it dry long enough before you charged and loaded them?
I recollect a time that I sprayed case lube and loaded right away in reduced loads in 44 mag.
I had erratic ignition that I blamed on not letting the case lube evaporate before loading.
The other thing if you was loading on a progressive loader and the charge bar was not getting full travel or sticking in one position. I had it happen with a powder measure that had a spring return and I had not kept my equipment clean

[44man]

The primers fired or the bullets would not have entered the barrel. One thing you didn't mention is the condition of the powder. In cases like this one of two states can occur. The powder burned and no powder was present. The powder did not burn and was found in a clump at the base of the bullet.

If no powder remained and the powder burned, then there was insufficient powder.
If no powder remained it is also possible that no powder was present, the case was never charged.

If the powder did not burn, then the primer flash was insufficient to ignite the powder. I've never seen this happen with Bullseye, as it is one of the easiest to ignite powders on the market. Therefore, this condition would indicate that the powder was contaminated or the wrong powder was used.

Take care, Tom
I have to go with this.
Next is a reduced hammer spring that does not make primers perform and barely go off.