Hi all, benn stewing over this for a week so I gotta ask. Last week I was shooting my 257 weatherby and over the course of 20 shots I got 5 hangfires, ya know click then bang. I was shooting my own loads 117 sst, little better than middle of the road charge of rl-22 and cci250 primers. The temps around 20f. Has anybody had any problems like this with this powder and primer combo? It's just kinda weird I had my 300h&h loaded with different powder,but same primers and no problems. Any advice appreciated

could be the primers were not seated.
check the condition of the firing pin.
also the inside ofthe bolt could be dirty and letting the firing pin hang up . some times powder can be slow to ignite when its real cold. or your ammo gets frozen
dave

I agree, primer not seated; grungy bolt; also a coming together of gungy bolt and weak firing pin spring.
How did the firing pin mark look on the hang fires? Damn those things scare me!

At that temperature any oil or grease in the bolt/striker/spring area could congeal and cause the problem. Dis-assemble the bolt and make sure the innards are clean and dry.

I've never heard of a hang fire being caused by poor primer strike, they usually don't fire at all. I am betting cold temps & low powder charge. RL22 is not a good choice for reduced loads in large cap cases. It's better run near the high end, not the middle. Same for any of the powders H4831sc & slower in large cap cases, especially on really cold days.

quote:

Originally posted by fredj338:
I've never heard of a hang fire being caused by poor primer strike, they usually don't fire at all. I am betting cold temps & low powder charge.

If your load is less than the recommended starting load for that powder, per a good manual, that could be one source of the problem. Also, it's probably a clue to try a magnum primer, with that powder, in that cartridge.

Of course it doesn't hurt to check for mechanical problems and crud in the bolt mechanism, or primer seating, but I doubt that's the problem.

I haven't had a hang fire in a long time, but when I did I'm sure it was because I started with less than the recommended starting charge. I've made sure not to do that again except for loads that clearly the mfg and load manuals say is OK, such as Hogdon's (60%) youth loads using H4895.

Last week I did have some loads with CCI 250 primers that failed to fire. In a batch of ten test loads, two failed to fire. After the click, I waited about a minute then quickly recocked the bolt without ejecting the cartridge and tried again. It still didn't fire, so I waited a while again, then removed the cartridge from the rifle. The next one that failed to fire on the first attempt, fired on the second try. Neither were hang fires. Anyway, I put a new firing pin spring in the bolt when I got home, but I haven't tried the rifle again yet, other than dry fire. Hopefully the firing pin spring was the problem. It's an old Mauser action, and the spring was original, so that's why it's the first suspect.

KB

Well thanx for the input, I guess I have to rip the bolt apart again and check but first I'll order a spring for the pin. The load was 3gr under max. I seat all primers with a rcbs hand tool so I don't think would be the problem but ya never know. Oh yeah the srike marks on the primers are good,this just weirded me out abit.I've been loading for bout 25yr and never had a problem like this. Truthfully I figured someone was going to say this is common when reloading weatherby cart. ya got to do this....but if it turns out to be one of the other culpirts I'll be happy I really like this cart. and rifle. (yup new aquisition) Again thank you.

Try another brand of primers first. Could have been a bad lot. I don't use Remington primers because of one bad experience with one caliber. CCI has never failed me (but it is possible).

Bullet Pull- make sure you expander is .002" or more under bullet diameter. Change to a bullet with a larger bearing surface.

quote:

Originally posted by 243winxb:
Bullet Pull- make sure you expander is .002" or more under bullet diameter. Change to a bullet with a larger bearing surface.

Lots, if not most, BR shooters load bullets that can be pushed in the neck by hand, with the inside neck diameter very close to bullet diameter. Just enough squeeze to hold the bullet to load single shot. Although the BR shooters most likely seat the bullet so it touches the lands, which probably makes neck tension moot, I don't think lack of neck tension causes hang fires. In a hunting rifle, of course it will cause other problems.

Also a 117 gr .257 bullet has lots of bearing surface.

KB

quote:

Bullet Pull- make sure you expander is .002" or more under bullet diameter. Change to a bullet with a larger bearing surface.

What the hell does bullet pull have to do with hangfires?

I agree that if the firing pin hits the primer hard enough to ignite it, the powder should light. Grungy bolt/FP would result in no fire with a light primer strike.

I had surplus WC-846 fail to fire in 45/70 with lead boolits. Some went, some did not. Primers fired, just failed to ignite the powder. Back of powder charge was fused into a chunk. That powder works well in .223, so it wasn't bad powder, just that combo didn't work.

quote:

inside ofthe bolt could be dirty and letting the firing pin hang up

Fred its not about a poor strike its about the pin not going foward when the trigger is pulled. a delay may be a better term.

IMO that's exactly why Federal 215's are the primer of choice for Weatherby cartridges. I'm not saying other primers are crap, but if one wishes to use something other than the F215, try it with a faster powder and settle for a bit less velocity.

quote:

Originally posted by hivelosity:

quote:

inside ofthe bolt could be dirty and letting the firing pin hang up

Fred its not about a poor strike its about the pin not going foward when the trigger is pulled. a delay may be a better term.

Does the above quote make sense to anyone? Or is it just me?

I was thinking a hang fire was a delay in ignition, after the pin struck the primer.

If there is a delay in the strike, that's different than a primer failure to lite the fire.

The result may be the same either way - a timing delay between pulling the trigger and bang. I think an average shooter should be able to tell the difference. The first would result in a normal click just like dry firing, then bang. The second example where the strike is delayed would result in nothing happening when the trigger is pulled, but then a bang soon thereafter, in which case there would be no click - only bang. In either case the hang-fire is because of the delay, but the cause is very different.

If there is a delay in the fall of the firing pin, that's mechanical, and crud, spring strength, etc. is suspect. If there is a click (same as if dry fired), then delay, then bang - that's probably not mechanical, with the primer, load density, temp, all being suspect.

KB

I personally have never had a "hang fire", but I was under the impression that this occurs when one uses loads that fill the case less than half. This creates a situation where the powder can be too far forward away from the primer to ignite immediately. I also think this is a real concern with the larger bottle-neck magnum cases, not so much with cases like the 375 & 300H&H where the powder tends to fall towards the primer in most situations. Please correct me if I am wrong as I am sure most of you will.

I don't use CCI primers nor do I shoot a Weatherby but I think I'd lean towards the "crud in the bolt" idea. You mention later on that the load is about 3 grs. under max. according to the manuals so I don't think that's the problem. I use Rldr-22 in my .270 Win. and my .338 Mag. and while I load to near top end, I've never had a problem with it igniting.
My .270 was taken out several years ago in relatively cold weather - about 0, maybe around -10 and I noticed that it didn't want to fire after pulling the trigger on an empty chamber. It fires fine in warmer weather. Obviously "gunk" in the bolt. I've never taken it apart to clean but suppose I should. The rifle shoots fine as is. I'd look at cleaning out the bolt. Good luck.
Bear in Fairbanks

Hangfire to me means the firing pin hit the primer hard enough to cause it to detonate. Then for some reason the powder failed to immediately ignite. A click----bang.

My dad bought 3 30-40 krag rifles from the NRA back in the 50's. As I remember it, they were $2.50 apiece, something dad had to save lunch money for 3 months to afford! Anyway, he got a bunch of military ammo along with them, that stuff had hangfires of up to 2 seconds! They were deer rifles for my three older brothers. Remington core loct 180 grain ammo worked well for Wi. whitetails.

My new-to-me M-98 Mauser had a bunch of hardened grease inside the bolt. I didn't know about it until I went to sight in on a cold November day. You could almost watch the FP slide down to the fired position after pulling the trigger! One of the range officers knew how to field strip a mauser bolt, a little gasoline, I was shooting without further incident.

quote:

Originally posted by hivelosity:

quote:

inside ofthe bolt could be dirty and letting the firing pin hang up

Fred its not about a poor strike its about the pin not going foward when the trigger is pulled. a delay may be a better term.

Except he said "hangfire"; click, fffft, bang. I just don't see anything to do with the primer strike or bolt causing this unless the primers are contaminated. Cold weather, large charge of slow powder, running light, that is my bet.
Case neck tension certainly plays a role as the powder gets slower. I've had hangfires w/ the 44mag & W296 w/ mag primer on cold days at less than near max loads. It's why Hogdon/Win now say to not download that powder. Maybe if grizz would share his load a better determination could be made.

I think Grizz's concern is not the semantics of whether it's a hang fire or a delayed fire but rather why isn't his rifle going bang when he pulls the trigger.
I kinda like the idea that the trigger is grunged up or iced up enough that it's taking a moment for the trigger spring to over-ride the grung. This is sort of supported by the fact that the pin strikes on the primer look normal.
I'm of the opinion that if you have to change primers to get consistant ignition, you haven't corrected your problem, merely side-stepped it for a while.

Click then bang is a hangfire, which is powder failing to ignite correctly. A gunged bolt, weak spring etc, will only cause a misfire. A primer either ignites or not.

Hangfires seem to be peculiar to large capacity (small or large bore) cartridges with light charges of slow powder and are a step away from that phenomenon known as detonation which will destroy a firearm.

I have experienced hangfires in my 404 when trying to get some cast bullets to group and went as low as 55 grains H4831 which was the only charge that would group these bullets from all the other powders I had on hand to load. Also experienced hangfires when loading a double 10.75x47G with swaged 44 cal 265gr bullets using Rottweil powder, and a few other oddball large capacity European cartridges when working up loads.

IMHO Weatherbys need to be loaded to maximum with the slower powders and mag primers. Middle of road or light loads are not what they were designed for and any hangfire situation is a potential bomb.

Click-Bang is a Hang Fire. Primer fires-powder starts burning making pressure-70% of the powder charge is pushed forward against the bullets base-so far ok-but if bullet moves out into the "free bore" pressure drops off- when bullet takes the rifling, pressure starts to go back up- this is the delay-the pressure is lost around the neck and some times into the body also. A faster powder or loading closer to maximum is needed.

See'n this is going good, I just took the bolt apart the insides clean and looking good. I still degreased them and relubed lightly. For those asking what load it was 61.5-62.5 of rl-22 with 117 sst's, with cci-250 primers, and light crimp. I'll probably try this load again on sunday and see what happens. Thanx again