Dead CCI pistol primers

[Castaway]

10 year old primers shouldn’t be an issue. I’d try to refire them. If they go bang the second time, a likely cause is the primer not being seated deeply enough when installed. All primers are not the same height and you may have to adjust your primer seating tool to seat a little deeper.

[nannyhammer]

Had a similar issue with a 6.8 AR and CCI 450's. After troubling shooting it, I found the hammer spring was not installed properly which reduced the firing pin hit. Fixed spring and issue went away.

[MUSTANG]

Elsewhere I had commented that prior to this cycle of Powder and Primer shortages; I did not experience primer "Fail to Fire" using USofA made primers despite having reloaded many hundreds of thousands of Rifle and Pistol rounds over the several decades of my reloading. I have experienced several "Fail to Fire" in small rifle and small pistol primers I have bought in 100 round sleeves during this shortage (Recent Production). I have also picked up many rounds at the ranges/remote shooting areas where the primer is indented - but the round "Failed to Fire".

My thoughts are is that we are seeing a decline in Quality Control at the USofA ammunition manufacturing facilities that are showing up as these "Fail to Fire" observations from myself and others. I further suspect that the "Quality Control" issue is driven by the acquisition of companies under corporate umbrellas - resulting in less competition pressures due to these Firearm/Ammunition consolidations. Post WW-II through the 1970's we saw a similar consolidation in the USofA automotive market - with an associated deterioration of quality and increase in prices which drove many in the USofA to embrace and but foreign made vehicles instead of USofA made (with the follow on of foreign vehicle companies setting up plants in the USofA to overcome "Buy USofA Made" efforts from the Unions, State, and Federal Government.

Bottom line; I believe that we will continue to see current productions of Primers having "Fail to Fires" being more prevalent than the decades before.

QUESTION FOR CURRENT MILITARY MEMBERS: Are you seeing failure to fire at the Rifle & Pistol Qualification and Training Ranges? In my Career from the 1970's - 1990's I would see a round or two of "Fail to Fire" over a week at the Rife Range Quals (50 targets - 6 relays - 50 rounds - 5 days. That's about 75,000 rounds fired for each Qual week (USMC old Qual format based). Thats a 0.001333% to 0.002666% failure rate for one or two "Fail to Fires". To be truthful; most of those "Fail to Fires" I saw in my Marine Corps Career WERE NOT primers failing to fire; rather they were bullets pushed back into the case or bent sideways due to a chambering issue - with 1911's and Berrettas having bullets pushed back or sideways thrust resulting in a bent over bullet at the neck - once again not a primer failing to fire.

[mdi]

First "test"; did the suspect rounds fire with a second strike? I have been reloading CCI small pistol primers for about 40 years and cannot remember a FTF that was not my fault. 3, 38 Special revolvers, 1, 357 Magnum, 1, 9mm revolver one each 32 ACP and 380 ACP, 4, 9mm semi-autos, and experimented with about 250 rounds of small primed 45 ACP. All worked quite well with CCI SPP (some 15-20 years in my possession). The only FTF, if memory serves me correctly, were improperly seated using a Hornady hand primer...

[crackers]

When I see 'Dead CCI pistol primers' I can't get past 'I recently picked up a Rock Island .38 snubnose.' A soft spring won't snap a primer not firmly seated.

[Slahp]

I have a Rock Island snub nose and have had the same problem and have sent it back to Rock Island for repairs still the same. It fires fine when shooting single action but misfires when shooting double action. I have tried other springs and they didn't help. I use it as a truck gun and use it as a single action only. We bought 3 of these when Sarco had a sale on them and 2 have had this problem, its not a primer problem.