Now what'd I do?

Out of 10 rounds shot from the bench today, I had 2 misfires. 270 Winchester (Browning A-Bolt II), Win brass, CCI 200 primer,100 grain Remington bullet. Trying to find a very light load for my wife in this combination, so I used 45 grains of H 4895 which I figured would give about 2,900 fps.

When I pulled the trigger, the gun simply clicked. Turned out the primer fired, and when I pulled the bullets later, some lumps of the powder came out. Kind of yellowish and clumped together - clearly the primer went off, but didn't quite achieve full ignition. AND on several of the others, I could detect a brief delay between the firing pin falling and the rifle going boom.

Powder problem?
Volume/load problem?
Primer problem?
Firing pin problem?
Did my firing from a bench rest with a very light touch somehow affect this?

I'm stumped. All help would be appreciated. I'll also inquire of Hodgon.

We had a 264 Winchester do the exact same thing with CCI primers. Switched primers and the problem stopped.

I too would say it's a primer problem, I've never had a problem with H4895, Jay

Sounds to me like your primer wasn't "hot" enough. When using squib loads, and 45 grains of H-4895 in your caliber with your bullet is a squib load.

Try switching the WLR primers in a couple of loads.

I agree with the above, BUT.
Take the lid off that can, and smell it. Does it smell the same as a fresh can of powder? or could it be contaminated with moisture?

It seems to me that if the primer went off properly you would have heard more than a "click". I also think the bullet might have come out of the case just with the primer going off and lodged in the barrel.

At least it did when I was experimenting with light loads in a 45-70 trapdoor. The bullet went into the rifling far enough that when we ejected the shell the bullet stayed in the rifling and we had powder all over everything.
AND we all heard much more than a "click".

A primer functioning normally won't always generate enough pressure to pop a bullet out of a crimp. But it sounds like these loads got a weak primer flash for some reason.

My guess is that you have some-or-all dud primers. The case is too small for the powder to hide from a primer working normally. And the powder is going to be homogeneous. By the time you move the canister around and pour it in the powder measure and sift some out of the trickler, it's just about all the same, and it should all go bang or none of it should go bang. So that leaves the firing pin strike and the primers. Since the primers went off, you can rule out various bolt and firing pin defects. And that leaves the primers. Sounds like they don't all have enough primer mix in them. It will be difficult to weigh them to detect the defective ones, because if I recall correctly the difference is actually only about .1 grain between a good primer and a fired one, and the ones you are looking for have the foil, just not all the priming material, so the difference is going to be less than .1 grain.

For that quantity of powder in that case, you might want to switch to CCI 250s anyway.

It seems to me that over the years I have seen a few people post that their CCI primers didn't go off. Mine always go bang, even when I don't quite know what I am doing, and I am most certainly doing it wrong.

Case in point: My first .51 Gibbs loads (.510" bullet in .505 Gibbs base case, full length) hangfired about half the time from the benchrest, though not at all if the powder had first been tilted to the back of the case. This was because I was using WC 872, and only 120 grains to start with in a case that might hold 165 grains under the bullet. If you have ever seen a .505 Gibbs case, you would know that there is (relatively) plenty of room for the primer to flash all over the place, unless the space is filled with powder.

So....there'd be a click, and you'd have this awful feeling like somebody had just opened a trapdoor under your feet, and after a delay of .1 second or so, BLAM, just like normal. Later, we got rid of the hangfires, first by using filler, and then by switching to the bulky IMR 5010 and working up to a compressed load of 145 grains under a 700 grain bullet for (yawn, delightful) 2075 fps out of our 32" barrel.

Point is, even with nonoptimal loading practices (really light load and no filler) in a really big case, the load always goes bang (mine did), so your problem is unlikely to be the powder or the empty space, but some other cause, most likely dud primers.

"yellowish lumps of powder"..... I'm gonna guess some sort of powder contamination. 45grs of H4895 isn't really that light of a load. And he said the primers did fire, the powder just didn't ignite. I have fired rounds that didn't have powder in them and they just went click with no bullet movement.

I've never had a problem with cci's but considering the gazillion of them that are made, there's got to be a dud once in a while.

Speer lists a reduced load with a 100 grain bullet using SR4759 at 16 grains to start yielding 1548fps, up to 20 grains at 1915fps.

My book lists 48 grains of H4895 as the starting load. Try a powder more suited for light loads. I think your problem will disappear.

I appreciate the comments. I don't think it's a bolt,chamber size, firing pin problem. I also don't think it's a powder problem. The primers definitely went off and that's the component that's showing inconsistency. The powder, as pointed out above, sort of self-mixes to where it either all burns OK or burns poorly, but it will behave the same IF THE PRIMER IGNITION IS THE SAME for each shot. Could be powder position within the case, but I don't think so. Anyway, that's what makes horse races.

A customer service rep from Hodgon got back to me early this morning, even though they are closed until Monday. Impressive.

Here's what he said:

"The load is too light. Raise the charge weight of the powder up a bit and you will get better ignition. Also, switch to a Remington, Winchester or Federal primer."

My solution - since I'm out of time to load 10 boxes of these things (don't ask) - is to change to H 4831 in a similar light load. 57.0 grains. And I'll use a different primer.

Live and learn. Does make me wonder though about using the 60% of max "rule of thumb" with H 4895 for squib loads. Certainly won't be trying those with CCI 200 primers!

Odd that a Hodgdon rep would say that since they list 38 grains of H4895 under a 100 grain bullets in the 270 as their suggested youth load. I got three thoughts on the matter:

1. Primer -- I've had more trouble out of CCI primers than all other brands put togther.

2. Possibly aggravated by flecks of media stuck in the flash hole.

3. Could your powder have been other than modern canister grade H-4895? There still may be a little 60 year old WWII surplus floating around. I know there has been some pulldown from 50's ammo sold in the last few years.

I've got some 1955 pulldown 4895. It takes considerably more than book charges to approach book max velocities (which it will do without pressure signs), but I've never had any trouble lighting it off with CCI standard primers.

I still think it's bad primers, due to the inconsistency.

Last year I had many missfires with 4895.This was discussed at length a couple months ago. The powder had deteriorated to a severe acidic state. Take a very, very SMALL wiff of the powder. Do you know what nitric or nitrous acid smells like? Is there a yellowish brown haze in your powder container? Has the powder lost that nice shiny graphite appearance? If any of these scenarios is found to be true pour a pound of the powder into a 33 gal. garbage can and fill it with water. Now spread it on your Patunias. It makes good fertilizer in this state but seriously make sure it's diluted. 8 lbs. of it burned up a patch of my lawn. roger

Well today I tried 10 rounds of H4831 with the CCI 200 primers. Not a hotter load, but one with a much more full case. Had no problems with misfires or hangfires, either one. Because I changed the mix, I can't say for sure whether it was the primer, the powder, or the light load. But now I'd bet on a combination of the light load powered by a weak primer.

The 4895 powder was purchased this last week from a retail outlet in my area. While possible, it's not likely to be a storage or deterioration problem. And there was no acidic smell.

Also went out and bought 1,000 Winchester large rifle primers. I've got other things to do during weekends over the next month or so. But sometime soon I'll load up some more of these light H4895 loads and try them with both the Winchester primers and the CCIs. Then we'll see what we see.