308 Palma failure to fire

[KevinBaker]

I need a little help or some guidance. I decided to give the Lapua Palma 308 brass a try for next season in my F T/R gun. I started load development today with Varget powder, and CCI 450 primers. I purposely waited until today because the temperatures here had dropped to 40 degrees by the time I got to the range. When it was all said and done, I had three failure to fires out of 28 total rounds. I've been using this same lot of primers in a 6 Dasher (Same action, bolt, etc...switch barrel) so I don't have any reason to doubt them. I've read that this problem sometimes occurs when it gets colder with the small primer Palma brass.

Is this just an issue with 308 Palma brass and cold weather, or is it just primer related? It doesn't make sense to me because I'm using the same primer in my Dasher with the same powder and I'm not having any issues.

Thanks in advance,

Kevin

 

[3081FTR]

Seat them deeper in the palma brass. The ones I have checked that miss fired had a good pin strike on the primer. Pushing the primer out it looked like the biscuit wasn't broken. Seating ~ .008 deeper haven't had a miss fire since.

 

[raptor1ronin]

Funny you bring this up, I was testing Wolf primers at Ben Avery this weekend and had over 10 misfires due to primers not even going off. There was good primer strikes but the failed to even ignite. Brand new Bolt and Spring. I have never had this problem with BR-4 they always went off. I was using IMR 4064 in Palma brass .308.

Guess I will be selling the wolfs cant have that for SWBN!!

 

[KevinBaker]

Seat them deeper in the palma brass. The ones I have checked that miss fired had a good pin strike on the primer. Pushing the primer out it looked like the biscuit wasn't broken. Seating ~ .008 deeper haven't had a miss fire since.

I haven't broken down the misfires yet, but they all looked like they had a good primer strike. I'll take a picture of them and post it on this thread.

 

[KevinBaker]

Funny you bring this up, I was testing Wolf primers at Ben Avery this weekend and had over 10 misfires due to primers not even going off. There was good primer strikes but the failed to even ignite. Brand new Bolt and Spring. I have never had this problem with BR-4 they always went off. I was using IMR 4064 in Palma brass .308.

Guess I will be selling the wolfs cant have that for SWBN!!

Wow, yea that can't happen. I don't think mine ignited either. I won't rule out the spring, but I just switched back to my 308 barrel on this gun from the 6 Dasher.....which I shot 100 rounds of a couple of weeks ago at a match with no issues.

 

[ngb1787]

Funny you bring this up, I was testing Wolf primers at Ben Avery this weekend and had over 10 misfires due to primers not even going off. There was good primer strikes but the failed to even ignite. Brand new Bolt and Spring. I have never had this problem with BR-4 they always went off. I was using IMR 4064 in Palma brass .308.

Guess I will be selling the wolfs cant have that for SWBN!!

I just received new wolf primers and tried them out at Ben Avery last Thursday,they all fired, 120 of them, although they do not burn as hot, i lost 30fps versus my 210m primers. S D's were at 6.5

 

[ShootDots]

I was doing some load development 2 weeks ago and the temps were hovering around 35 degrees outside. I was shooting my F-Open rifle, a .260A.I. testing H4831SC and CCI 450 primers. It not only fired flawlessly, it shot the best it had ever shot! I was using Lapua Palma Brass necked down to .260.

 

[ngb1787]

I was doing some load development 2 weeks ago and the temps were hovering around 35 degrees outside. I was shooting my F-Open rifle, a .260A.I. testing H4831SC and CCI 450 primers. It not only fired flawlessly, it shot the best it had ever shot! I was using Lapua Palma Brass necked down to .260.

We have experienced most guns shooting much tighter at cooler temps.

 

[KevinBaker]

The three at the top are the misfires.

 

[raptor1ronin]

Wow, yea that can't happen. I don't think mine ignited either. I won't rule out the spring, but I just switched back to my 308 barrel on this gun from the 6 Dasher.....which I shot 100 rounds of a couple of weeks ago at a match with no issues.

Yep, I replaced the spring just in case.

 

[ngb1787]

The three at the top are the misfires.

Hard to tell from photo but does not look like strike depth is as deep as others.

 

[raptor1ronin]

I was doing some load development 2 weeks ago and the temps were hovering around 35 degrees outside. I was shooting my F-Open rifle, a .260A.I. testing H4831SC and CCI 450 primers. It not only fired flawlessly, it shot the best it had ever shot! I was using Lapua Palma Brass necked down to .260.

450 are great primers, I have a lot of those too.

 

[KevinBaker]

I was doing some load development 2 weeks ago and the temps were hovering around 35 degrees outside. I was shooting my F-Open rifle, a .260A.I. testing H4831SC and CCI 450 primers. It not only fired flawlessly, it shot the best it had ever shot! I was using Lapua Palma Brass necked down to .260.

For what it's worth, I hit a node around 44.4 grains of Varget that had single digit ES and SD velocities.....like as in 1 and 1

I doubt this would matter at all, but the three failures were at the low end of the charge I was working up.

 

[KevinBaker]

Hard to tell from photo but does not look like strike depth is as deep as others.

You know, they do look like they sort of ballooned a little bit on the edges. I'm using a Kelbly F Class Panda action, and I've probably got almost a years worth of firing down through it. I wonder if I should change out the firing pin spring.

 

[ngb1787]

For what it's worth, I hit a node around 44.4 grains of Varget that had single digit ES and SD velocities.....like as in 1 and 1

I doubt this would matter at all, but the three failures were at the low end of the charge I was working up.

Pull the bullets out

 

[ngb1787]

You know, they do look like they sort of ballooned a little bit on the edges. I'm using a Kelbly F Class Panda action, and I've probably got almost a years worth of firing down through it. I wonder if I should change out the firing pin spring.

Standard yearly procedure for me.

 

[KevinBaker]

Here's a top down shot of the inside, It doesn't look like they tried to ignite.

 

[CTK]

I just learned from a conversation, less than an hour ago, with Jim Borden that solvent buildup around the firing pin can gum up when cold. In my case I put grease in there. You are likely no where near as dumb as me and would not have done this. Jim said that many times solvent leaks into the bolt, from residual left in the barrel after cleanings, and eventually gums up the bolt when cold. Just a thought. See my exploration of this problem on the current thread "Load Problem" on this forum.

 

[MrBottleneck]

I magnified two of the ones from the bottom of you ammo box pictured below. They have a much harder strike of the primer it looks to me as compared to the next post which is the three that did not fire.
Might check your firing pin etc.
Can you all see the major difference?

 

[M-61]

Seat them deeper in the palma brass. The ones I have checked that miss fired had a good pin strike on the primer. Pushing the primer out it looked like the biscuit wasn't broken. Seating ~ .008 deeper haven't had a miss fire since.

I am unfamiliar with the term : "...it looked like the biscuit wasn't broken."