I had a very scary experience today. Yesterday I purchased a box of CCI large rifle primers. I had left over exactly one Winchester large rifle primer from a box I bought a month or so ago. Now I normally use CCI, I just bought the Winchesters on a whim. Last night I loaded up ten rounds using the last Win primer and CCI's for the remainder.
This morning I went out to shoot. The first round with the Win primer: bang! The second round with the CCI primer: click! Wait a full minute, eject the round and load the second: click! The same on the third. The fourth round: click-bang! Out of the nine CCI primered rounds I had five complete misfires and four hang fires. I have never had a misfire or a hang fire in my life before.
Temperature was in the mid forties. The load was 54 grains of IMR 4320 in a .300 Win Mag. I bought the primers from my usual source, B-Mart, a large chain discount store with a good turnover. The lot number stamped on the primer box is D17G. The gun is a Ruger No. 1. The unexploded primers have a good healthy dent in them.
This is scary because the primers appear perfectly normal. We can control a lot of variables in reloading but we are pretty much dependent on the primer manufacturer for quality control. Has anyone else had an experience with bad primers?
Posts: 53 | Location: Olympia, WA, USA | Registered: 18 November 2001
Allan, I had problem with ignition in one ball powder/CCI 200 combination, I switched to CCI 250(large rifle magnum), works like a charm. It's surprising to see CCI200 having problem with single-base powder, but yours is a magnum case, the 200 may not produce a long enough jet.
Posts: 638 | Location: O Canada! | Registered: 21 December 2001
quote:Originally posted by Allan D: Temperature was in the mid forties. The load was 54 grains of IMR 4320 in a .300 Win Mag. I bought the primers from my usual source, B-Mart, a large chain discount store with a good turnover. The lot number stamped on the primer box is D17G. The gun is a Ruger No. 1. The unexploded primers have a good healthy dent in them.
I have NEVER had it happen in 1 zillion primers and all CCI. Contact CCI and explain this situation. I would expect to get a brick of free from them after they confurm good firing pin hit with no bang, they are just that kind of company.
quote:Originally posted by ricciardelli: You sure it was a manufacturing defect and not a reloading problem?
I'm reasonably certain it wasn't a reloading problem. I don't touch the primers with my fingers, I clean the primer pockets and I seat them carefully. It's a new gun, however, and an unfamiliar load. I'm going to use them to load a few .284 Win rounds with an old trusted load and fire them in an old trusted gun.
Posts: 53 | Location: Olympia, WA, USA | Registered: 18 November 2001
WOW! I thought it was important to seat ALL primers to the bottom of the primer pocket - never made any difference how deep as long as they were bootomed and below the surface of the cartridge base... live and learn I guess.
I had a couple of hangfires while using CCI 250 primers so I no longer will use any CCi primer. I switched to Federals after that and haven't had any hangfires or misfires.
Welcome to a fellow Oregonian. I had a problem a couple of times with my M77 and CCI primers. All misfires. Not sure if it was me, the primer lot or what. All I know is that I never had a primer problem with CCI in other rifles. But I now use Federal primers in my Ruger.
BTW, My Grandparents lived in Madras up until last summer. They were partners with Oscar of Oscar's Sporting Goods for a few years in the 60's. The also ran the Bakery in Erikson's (Maw's Bakery) until the mid 70's. I've spent many a good time in Madras.
Take Care,
-Steve
Posts: 2781 | Location: Hillsboro, Or-Y-Gun (Oregon), U.S.A. | Registered: 22 June 2000
Allen D, Like Boltman, I too haave had problems with CCI primers. Some years ago I had problems using them in a 416 and 338, these were the 250 mag primers. I sent the remainder to the factory requestiong a drop test, and gor a form letter back, stating my loading practices. I had loaded for 30 years prior to that time and a lot more since with out any problems. I know longer use cci of any kind today. I stick with Winchester and Federal. I also, ran some mickey mouse tests using a rifle set level in a vice. Then I placed a a flat faced jag on the end of a cleaning rod. I then pushed this down thru the mouth of the case against the primer, and a piece of tape at the muzzle. When fired this will push the rod out, and you can measure the distance each time. Using this method the ccI moved the rod from 6.75" to 10" very inconsistance, while others were much more consistant at 9" to 10.5" I redid this test last year and the results were still the same. George
I have always found CCI primers to be slightly tighter than Win Fed or Rem primers.As such they are a little tougher to seat to the bottom of the primer pocket especially if you prime with one of the small handheld priming tools.I have used thousands of CCI primers over the last 30 sum years and I don't ever recall any misfires.Try seating some of those primers with the priming arm on a press (seat them firmly) and I would bet your problem goes away.
I had a fellow who sells reloading components tell me CCI primers were "harder" than other brands and thus might not ignite if seated the least bit high, or struck with a firing pin pushed by a weakened spring.
Personally, I think that's an old wives' tale, but I HAVE had misfires with CCI, and now only use Federals.
Posts: 1555 | Location: Native Texan Now In Jacksonville, Florida, USA | Registered: 10 July 2000
quote:I had a fellow who sells reloading components tell me CCI primers were "harder" than other brands and thus might not ignite if seated the least bit high, or struck with a firing pin pushed by a weakened spring.
I have two Clark Custom S&Ws that will not reliably ignite CCI primers. I use Federals in those guns. AFA CCI being harder, I'm not aware of any hard (no pun intended) data on the subject, but the firing pin dent in a Federal primer is noticeablely deeper than the dent in a CCI (from the aforementioned revolvers).
I have loaded thousands of CCI primers of all varieties, and only had one misfire. This was a #250 Large Rifle Magnum primer. I tried restriking it, but it would not fire. I then pulled the bullet from the case, decapped the primer, and sent it to CCI. They said they would try to test it, but decapping the primer damages it so they sometimes cannot tell where the problem was. They said if it ever happens again to send in the whole case without decapping the bad primer. However, they did send me a whole box of primers because of this. It may very well have been my mistake, but they were good enough to send me a box of primers. I don't know if CCI are harder than normal, but I have read that Federal are softer, and do not sometimes give accurate pressure signs.
Posts: 2852 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 02 September 2001
I agree with Paul S. I thought they were 'posed to be bottemed out regardless of the brand. I have never measured how "deep" the primer was as long as it was below the top of the primer pocket. I seat them until if feel a firm resistance and call it happy. Its worked for me thru many thousands of primers. Most of which were cci's. By the way, why should cci's be seated .003 lower than the others???? aren't they all pretty much the same size? Could you not find that much variance in any box of primers?
Posts: 2037 | Location: frametown west virginia usa | Registered: 14 October 2001
I have been through thousands upon thousands cci primers and ever one went off. The trouble i had was one time i forgot the rest of the powder in a couple rounds.
quote:Originally posted by Nitro Express: I had a fellow who sells reloading components tell me CCI primers were "harder" than other brands and thus might not ignite if seated the least bit high, or struck with a firing pin pushed by a weakened spring.
Personally, I think that's an old wives' tale, but I HAVE had misfires with CCI, and now only use Federals.
Well, I would not call it a wives' tale. They ARE harder than anything else. They need to be seated firmly, lightly chrushed to work well and they seldom give consistantly satisfying groups in light-strikers like Sako and Remington. In hard-whopping Mauser's, they're often the very best with impressively low velocity ES.
A Fed primer seated and crushed like a CCI should be will give erratic ignition and thus velocity/long-range accuracy, just like a CCI seated as light as a Fed ought to be...
Seeing the replys here and thinking about this a little bit I have a possible cause. I've always used a hand priming tool to seat primers in my .284 Win. I can feel very easily when they bottom out. I don't have a shellhoader for it in .300 Win Mag, however, so I used the primer seater on my Rockchucker press. It's very much harder to tell when the primer bottoms out. Also, as a couple people pointed out, the CCI primers seem to have more seating resistance than the Winchester primers (which I have seated using the press without problem). I'm loading up some .284's with the questionable CCI's using both seating methods.
My only question is if the problem is insufficient seating pressure, wouldn't it just produce a misfire? How does a hang fire occur then?
Posts: 53 | Location: Olympia, WA, USA | Registered: 18 November 2001
