CCI BR4 primers 60% failed

[subninja]

First trip to the range with my re barreled rifle and I had 60% of my primers fail. Rifle is a Remington 700 with a criterion remage barrel in 6mm creedmoor. Primer depth was good on all cases and primer strikes were strong. Any ideas on the problem other than a really bad batch of expensive primers?

 

[chkunz]

Do you have the option to try primers from this batch in another gun?

 

[KMart]

You must do some troubleshooting.
New brass? What brand?
Tried different primers?
Checked Headspace with go/no go gauges?
Did this action exhibit this in its other life?
Have you checked the base to shoulder length of the cases that fired vs unfired cases?
Are the bullets jammed into the lands or seated off the lands?

 

[gme]

how much pin fall do you have?

 

[cw308]

I use CCI BR2 in my Rem 700 never had a failure , pin strike is good only thing I would guess is the primers . Are you uniforming your pockets. Even if you aren't with a good strike they shoot go off .

 

[subninja]

Also 100% of the loads with large primers fired. The picture is the rounds that didn’t fire

 

[subninja]

I was using new Peterson brass and didn’t do anything to the primer pockets. Not sure what the pin fall measurement is.

 

[jlow]

The first thing I would do is to check for proud primers BEFORE loads are fired. If primers were not seated properly, the firing pin will push primer in and give what looks like a good strike but in fact it did not. Check primers by rubbing your finger across the head of the case, any proud primers will be easily discernable...

 

[Flouncer]

Sounds Oakie and half-arsed but I always set a newly primed case on the quartz counter top. If they wiggle or tilt or do anything but sit flush down they get a look at.

I know and acknowledge that vastly more experience and knowledgeable shooters have added suggestions but I doubt that any primer hit failure as shown in the pictures was caused by a pin, cartridge or dimensional problem. I am just skeptical. In this case, how the ?? would one ever prove or even reasonably define why those primers, the hit ones, failed ? How ? I don't think one can. Only way my limited brain can figure out is if CCI acknowledged they had a bad batch.

FWIW I have gone through 3, 1,000 piece boxes of Fed 210/210m without a single failure and these have been loaded in four different milsurp with original firing pins and three commercial rifles. All squeezed in with the original Lee hand auto prime.

OP, did you have a look at the rest of the unfired unloaded primers ? The ones in the tray, on the floor or still NIB ??

 

[subninja]

I checked the primers before they were fired and they were seated properly. This rifle never had problems before being re barreled. I did check a fired case vs a new one and it’s about 4 thousandths difference. The barrel was installed using gages. The bullets are seated just off the lands. And I will be trying these in my other rifle on my next trip to the range. Hope I answered all posts.

 

[savagedasher]

Weak spring on the fire pin or excessive head space or both

 

[Joe Salt]

Try putting a little crush on the primers when seating!

Joe Salt

 

[dickn52]

Oil inside primer cup...or water. Do you wet tumble?

 

[lawrence97]

From the pics it looks like the primers were not seated deep enough!
I bet that if you placed the cases with primers in place over a flat surface they would rock and not sit flat.....

 

[JBO]

Try putting a little crush on the primers when seating!

Joe Salt

Yep, try Joe's way. Not seated deep enough will give you a bunch of misfires. The primer will show it was struck but it just pushes the primer forward.

 

[butchlambert]

My opinion is excessive headspace or short brass. I would leave the bullets seated way long and fire them again. Did you reload any of the ones that fired?

 

[cw308]

I uniform all my brass only once that sets the pocket to the same depth , all primers must bottom on pocket , this is the basics in reloading . After following the basics we find the best tools that work best . When you uniform your pockets the RCBS Ran Priming tool does a nice job , once you adjust for primer depht set the lock ring and your good to go . Never had a failure . I first thought it was bad primers but by seating without knowing if they bottomed hard to say . Start all over and see what happens .

 

[mikeeg02]

First trip to the range with my re barreled rifle and I had 60% of my primers fail. Rifle is a Remington 700 with a criterion remage barrel in 6mm creedmoor. Primer depth was good on all cases and primer strikes were strong. Any ideas on the problem other than a really bad batch of expensive primers?

I checked the primers before they were fired and they were seated properly. This rifle never had problems before being re barreled. I did check a fired case vs a new one and it’s about 4 thousandths difference. The barrel was installed using gages. The bullets are seated just off the lands. And I will be trying these in my other rifle on my next trip to the range. Hope I answered all posts.

Weak spring on the fire pin or excessive head space or both

There isnt much reason to look much further. BR4s are a harder cup. Excessive headspace will get you every time, specially with harder cupped primers. Either fix the headspace, or use different primers for at least the first firing, and adjust your shoulder bump on your sizing die to match the chamber.

 

[subninja]

Butch how short would it have to be to cause this problem. I measured new brass and it was only a few thousandths off from the go gage. How much jam would you recommend for testing again?

As far as seating I use a press primer seater and can’t push on them any more than I already have.

Thanks for all the info guys.

 

[memilanuk]

Well, typical firing pin protrusion is in the 40-60 thou range... and I'm pretty sure the primer anvil will bottom out in the pocket in much less than that... a few thou (<10) *shouldn't* be enough to cause massive occurrences of mis-fires, unless something is seriously wrong with your ignition system. But some of the 'finer' custom actions tend to balance on a razor's edge of light springs to accommodate light bolt lift, and then combine that with excess headspace *and* hard primers...