I had two misfires out of 50 rounds last week,6.5x55, new lapua brass, rl22). Those were fresh loads. I though I did something wrong, or accidentally killed primers with gun oil or something. last Saturday I went to the range to shoot wonderful 260AI Savage that I bought from a fellow member,thanks again Bob) and had 2 misfires and 3 hang fires,with approx 0.5 sec lag) out of 25 rounds. The brass was new, dry and I reloaded the night before. Can overcompressed powder cause this? I can't think of any other reason, unless the batch of the primers I got is defective.
Has anyone experienced misfire/hang fire with Wolf primers?
- Thread starter w123driver
- Start date
I had a couple FTF in my 30X47 HBR with two tries on each when I first started using them. Upon taking those rounds apart and removing the primers I laid them on the floor on a piece of metal and hit them with a hammer and they went BANG. I got to reading and taking a good look at the primer itself. You will notice that the anvil sticks up a bit more out of the cup than in other primers. When you seat the primers with a hand primer like the LEE that I use you can feel the anvil bottom out and then you need to press a little harder and you can feel the cup bottom out. Sense I started making sure that the primers were seated like this I have had no problems. I did forgo using Wolf primers in my deer hunting ammo this year and will continue to do so until I do a lot more shooting on the range without any FTF problems. They are accurate primers and the price was great.
I have been experiencing the same hangfire problem with Wolf Large Rifle primers in a Swiss K31 rifle. I posted a question and got mostly gibberish answers - I have not shot them but.......,just gotta' love some of these responses).... from wet powder to weak springs.
My thoughts are that the primers are not as 'strong' as they should be to properly ignite slower powders. They seem to work fine in Small Rifle sizes, but I am starting to wonder about the large rifle priimers.
George
My thoughts are that the primers are not as 'strong' as they should be to properly ignite slower powders. They seem to work fine in Small Rifle sizes, but I am starting to wonder about the large rifle priimers.
George
George, I've shot about 3500 of them in the past year in a 30-06 with H4350 and H4831sc as well as about 10,000 to 12,000 of them in .22 PPC, 6BR, 6XC and .308. I also wrote up extensive primer tests in the June and September 2008 issues of Precision Shooting.
I mention the 30-06 specifically because it's somewhat larger than the Swiss cartridge and I have had no problems of any sort with the primers in the 30-06. Without seeing your particular rifle and your priming setup, I prefer not to speculate on the cause,s) of your problems. However, it is my opinion that the Russian primers, while mild, provide adequate ignition for a case in the 30-06 size range in temperatures above 40 degrees,I haven't tested below that) when the firing mechanism is in good working condition and the primers have been fully seated in the case.
I mention the 30-06 specifically because it's somewhat larger than the Swiss cartridge and I have had no problems of any sort with the primers in the 30-06. Without seeing your particular rifle and your priming setup, I prefer not to speculate on the cause,s) of your problems. However, it is my opinion that the Russian primers, while mild, provide adequate ignition for a case in the 30-06 size range in temperatures above 40 degrees,I haven't tested below that) when the firing mechanism is in good working condition and the primers have been fully seated in the case.
Travelor, are you getting Hang fires or Miss fires from your K-31?
If a miss fire I would say that perhaps you did not have the bolt all the way into battery when you pulled the trigger. Not an uncommon situition with reloads that were not fired in that particular K-31 or not full lenght resized. Remember if the serial number on the bolt is not showing straight up the bolt is not fully closed and you will have a miss fire, as designed.
Hang fires I have never had one with the Wolf primers yet.
Bob
If a miss fire I would say that perhaps you did not have the bolt all the way into battery when you pulled the trigger. Not an uncommon situition with reloads that were not fired in that particular K-31 or not full lenght resized. Remember if the serial number on the bolt is not showing straight up the bolt is not fully closed and you will have a miss fire, as designed.
Hang fires I have never had one with the Wolf primers yet.
Bob
Mudcat
Gold $$ Contributor
I have to agree with German, I have too have shot at least 10,000 Wolf primers, SRM, LR and LRM. While a few of those have been in plinking loads, 99% of them are in my competition and practice loads, all of which I expect to be perfect. And, trust me, if I had a hangfire, I would know it. We are also talking full power 6XC, 308 Win, 6.5x284 etc loads for XTC and LR use. I wouldnt imagine going back to the 1000 yard line with inferior loads that would hangfire. I also wouldnt rest my US Palma team tryouts on hangfiring primers! Yep, Wolf LRMs are in my Palma loads.
So, that really leaves us a few options....1, somebody doesnt know how to reload, 2, someone has a gun with a firing pin, spring, etc issue, or 3, somehow, some way, German and I, along with a bunch of others, have found a way to avoid some bad batches of Wolf SRM, LR and LRM primers. ,NOTE: SR primers and ball powder will cause hangfires....that I will agree on, but the others, havent seen it yet). Or, maybe option 4, are we seeing hangfires with ball powders? ,most comp shooters arent using ball powders for competition, which might explain why we arent seeing it...though I have used Data 85/Ramshot Hunter in my practice loads in the 6XC and havent has an issue).
Thoughts?
John
So, that really leaves us a few options....1, somebody doesnt know how to reload, 2, someone has a gun with a firing pin, spring, etc issue, or 3, somehow, some way, German and I, along with a bunch of others, have found a way to avoid some bad batches of Wolf SRM, LR and LRM primers. ,NOTE: SR primers and ball powder will cause hangfires....that I will agree on, but the others, havent seen it yet). Or, maybe option 4, are we seeing hangfires with ball powders? ,most comp shooters arent using ball powders for competition, which might explain why we arent seeing it...though I have used Data 85/Ramshot Hunter in my practice loads in the 6XC and havent has an issue).
Thoughts?
John
I've been using Wolf SRM & LRM for about a year now. Don't recall having any FTFs or hangfires with the SRMs, but have had quite a few FTFs with the LRMs, mostly in fireforming 250 AI & 6.5x55 AI cases. That's understandable, even though I was quite careful to fully seat them using a RCBS ram-prime unit. I could probably reduce the failure rate by going to the false shoulder FF method, but then I've also had several FTFs in a couple of straight 284s. The 284 FTFs were in a LA 700 & BAT 3LL. There was some discussion earlier about an issue with BAT's firing pin spring strength, and the 700 has a fluted striker, but I've never experienced any sort of ignition issues with any of the other primers I've used in either of these rifles.
Whatever - when I go to a match with Wolf primers, I just make darned sure I've got plenty of extra ammo to cover potential FTFs. If I weren't otherwise very pleased with these primers, I wouldn't put up with the FTF issue.
Whatever - when I go to a match with Wolf primers, I just make darned sure I've got plenty of extra ammo to cover potential FTFs. If I weren't otherwise very pleased with these primers, I wouldn't put up with the FTF issue.
Dennis, your post serves as a good starting point for something that I've observed quite a bit. Lightened firing pins very frequently are associated with failures to fire and more so with failures to fire with the Russian primers which have harder cups than most US made primers.
We have a tendency to want to improve various systems in our rifles and the ignition system is prominent in this regard. However, the usual procedure of lightening the striker and increasing the spring rate is one that often leaves us with a marginal system. Lock time is indeed faster, but the ability to reliably ignite tough primers is decreased, sometimes below an acceptable level. Simply stated, a fast light hit is not as effective as a heavier, albeit slower, hit.
Manufacturers have standards for primer testing,way too long for me to describe here) which involve testing primers in a device that drops a specified weight on to a 'firing pin' of specified dimensions and materials from various heights. The higher you go, the higher a percentage of primers will ignite. There is a height for '100% fire' and a height below which none fire. In between, there are, obviously, various percentages of fire/no-fire situations. For safety and performance reasons, the 'all-fire' and 'no-fire' heights are industry standards and are well matched to commercially available rifles' ignitions systems. This ensures reliable ignition and prevents slam-fires.
When we lighten the striker and increase the spring rate, we are moving quickly away from the stadards under which the primers were tested and approved,by the manufacturer) for retail sale. To use an extreme example, a needle at mach 1 will not ignite a primer. There is more to this than a simple kinetic energy equation. When it comes to reliable ignition, mass is your friend.
We have a tendency to want to improve various systems in our rifles and the ignition system is prominent in this regard. However, the usual procedure of lightening the striker and increasing the spring rate is one that often leaves us with a marginal system. Lock time is indeed faster, but the ability to reliably ignite tough primers is decreased, sometimes below an acceptable level. Simply stated, a fast light hit is not as effective as a heavier, albeit slower, hit.
Manufacturers have standards for primer testing,way too long for me to describe here) which involve testing primers in a device that drops a specified weight on to a 'firing pin' of specified dimensions and materials from various heights. The higher you go, the higher a percentage of primers will ignite. There is a height for '100% fire' and a height below which none fire. In between, there are, obviously, various percentages of fire/no-fire situations. For safety and performance reasons, the 'all-fire' and 'no-fire' heights are industry standards and are well matched to commercially available rifles' ignitions systems. This ensures reliable ignition and prevents slam-fires.
When we lighten the striker and increase the spring rate, we are moving quickly away from the stadards under which the primers were tested and approved,by the manufacturer) for retail sale. To use an extreme example, a needle at mach 1 will not ignite a primer. There is more to this than a simple kinetic energy equation. When it comes to reliable ignition, mass is your friend.
As a bit of background relating to my previous post, the concept of lightening the striker and increasing the spring rate is hardly new. John Garand's speed lock for the Springfield 1903 was probably the first widely used system. In that application, there was room for improvement in lock time without unduly compromising ignition. In more modern systems such as the Remington 700 and it's various clones and derivatives, the base system is already pretty fast and pretty light and modifications often take us out of the all-fire zone and into the fire/no-fire zone.
I have impression from some replies that either I don't know how to reload, or my rifles have issues. Before I got Wolf primers, I used only two types of primers: CCI 200 and Win LR magnum. From many thousands of reloads I only had one misfire. The misfire happened because I deliberately placed a primer into oil to check if this does indeed inactivates a primer. To be honest, the only motivation for me to buy Wolf primers was their cheap price, which was than $1.90 per 100 in powdervalley. I reload for plinking and hunting, don't really care if I don't get one hole groups. But what I do care, is that I don't want misfire or hangfire when i have one-shot opportunity in a hunting situation. Needless to say, no more Wolf products on my reloading desk! BTW, I will gladly trade those primers,locally in Pittsburgh area) for equal quantity of CCI, Winchester, Federal, or Remington primers. I have around 1800 LRM and 2000 SRM.
German,
I've been using Wolf LRMs in the Howa 6XC I wrote you about, and have yet to experience any sort of ignition issue with that rifle. Maybe it's a good thing that there aren't as many aftermarket parts available for the 1500-series actions?
One thing's pretty much for certain - no matter whether the Wolf primers give a few problems because of having a tough cup or not, they've been giving me very good numbers over the chronograph, along with fine accuracy. I've got a couple of cases of them, and will keep on using them. They came along at a time when it was very difficult to find Fed 210s, and were priced well below any of the other primers that were available - I'm grateful to have been able to get them.
I have two DPMS AR10 projects in the works - one a 6XC, the other in 6.5x47L. It'll be interesting to see if the AR10's hammer will provide enough energy to give reliable ignition with both SRM & LRM Wolf primers.
I've been using Wolf LRMs in the Howa 6XC I wrote you about, and have yet to experience any sort of ignition issue with that rifle. Maybe it's a good thing that there aren't as many aftermarket parts available for the 1500-series actions?
One thing's pretty much for certain - no matter whether the Wolf primers give a few problems because of having a tough cup or not, they've been giving me very good numbers over the chronograph, along with fine accuracy. I've got a couple of cases of them, and will keep on using them. They came along at a time when it was very difficult to find Fed 210s, and were priced well below any of the other primers that were available - I'm grateful to have been able to get them.
I have two DPMS AR10 projects in the works - one a 6XC, the other in 6.5x47L. It'll be interesting to see if the AR10's hammer will provide enough energy to give reliable ignition with both SRM & LRM Wolf primers.
I think it really depends on the powder as much as anything else.
I went to the range last weekend with H4895, H414 and BLC-2.
I had absolutely no hang fires on the 4895 and 414 but about a third of the Ball2 loads hung. Some of the hang fires were very low pressure because they didn't expand the case enough to seal and I got a lot of blowby.
Cartridge 30-06
1903A3 as issued with a perfect striker and a strong, clean and well lubed spring
Primer Wolf LR
168g Speer
Seems like I have read somewhere that ball powder requires magnum primers.
I went to the range last weekend with H4895, H414 and BLC-2.
I had absolutely no hang fires on the 4895 and 414 but about a third of the Ball2 loads hung. Some of the hang fires were very low pressure because they didn't expand the case enough to seal and I got a lot of blowby.
Cartridge 30-06
1903A3 as issued with a perfect striker and a strong, clean and well lubed spring
Primer Wolf LR
168g Speer
Seems like I have read somewhere that ball powder requires magnum primers.
Wolley, your observations are correct. Typically, ball powders require a stronger primer because of the heavy deterrent coating on them. The Wolf primers are very mild, which is why they are so good in most applications, but that makes them less suitable for larger charges of ball powder. The Wolf large Rifle Magnum will not be any better in this regard as it is the same primer with a slightly thicker cup. You don't have to find a primer labeled 'magnum' however; the Winchester LR, the Remington 9 1/2 and the Federal 215 Magnum will all provide enough flame to get that ball powder ignited properly.
I use the Wolf primers in my 30-06 loads, but that's with H4350, H4831sc and H4895, so it's a completely different scenario. I hope you can find some other primers in this crazy situation we seem to be in!
I use the Wolf primers in my 30-06 loads, but that's with H4350, H4831sc and H4895, so it's a completely different scenario. I hope you can find some other primers in this crazy situation we seem to be in!
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