Troubling misfires

[HolyMeekrob]

A while a go a friend of mine asked if I could show him how to reload for a .45 pistol. I agreed and bought some bullets and he came over and I showed him how I go through the process, and then let him load 100 using my winchester primers, 5.6gr of unique, and the 185gr bullets, nothing excessive or that I wouldn't put through my own gun. In addition I watched and checked each round he made to be certain no blank or double charges were thrown and that all appeared uniform.
Since then he's fired some and had 3-4 misfires. This is troubling and a little embarrassing. I don't have the duds on hand to pull and examine because he chucked them, and it seems all that functioned ran fine.
I have personally loaded 1000s of pistol rounds very much like that load, and with this batch of win primers and unique I'm several hundred deep. I've never had a misfire. So when I see such a strikingly high number of them my first inclination is to single out the one most notable difference in this situation: The pistol.
He says his pistol is striking the primers well, but I can't say for certain. Can anyone think of any other sources of this problem?

 

[Larryh128]

What brand of pistol? My guess would be that it wasn't completely locked up & getting a weak firing pin hit. Actually a good thing that they didn't go off if that was the case. Did he try firing them more than once?

 

[fdshuster]

If you're talking about a 1911, one question would be what type, if any, crimp? Just a slight taper or a roll crimp? If the mouth of the case has a heavy crimp, (especially a roll crimp) when the firing pin hits the primer the cartridge can be pushed deeper into the chamber, to the limits permitted by the extractor, so the primer is not hit with the full force of the firing pin. Been loading for the 1911 45 auto since 1960 and always used just a very light taper crimp and never had mis-fires. A deep chamber ( .900" or longer) with short cases ( .885" for example) will also cause the type of mis-fires you describe. "The Colt .45 Automatic" A Shop Manual, by Jerry Kuhnhausen is an excellent reference and he details this very problem beginning on page 56. If it were a case without powder, the force of the primer would drive the bullet partway down the barrel. If a double charge the cause would be obvious.

 

[headhunter1111]

Did he handle the primers? Many a round has been made a dud due to someone getting their fingers on the primer.

 

[HolyMeekrob]

I don't actually know what his pistol is, I saw it once and I didn't recognize it.
My dies are taper crimp and I generally set them to .001-.002 crimp. I don't have the lock rings set, I always measure and adjust when I make a batch, so it wasn't a case of cranking the die down too far or running longer brass in it.
For priming he used that little priming arm on the press, I don't know what else to call it. But I insisted he use gloves as I do.

 

[fdshuster]

"Holy": With the very limited information available, a probable cause for the mis-fires is all guessing. If it were a typical high quality Colt, Kimber, Smith & Wesson, etc. 1911 45 Auto we could eliminate the pistol as being the cause and focus on the reloaded ammo. And if that were the case, then I would place headspace as being at or near the top of the list. Loaded round is "short"--- chamber is "long", so the cartridge is pushed forward when the firing pin hits the primer. When the slide is full forward in the battery position, a cartridge in the chamber, there cannot be any excess slop, front to rear, or a mis-fire is likely. No different with a bottleneck rifle ctg. if someone were to set the shoulder back excessively. The cartridge will be driven forward when the primer is hit with the firing pin = a mis-fire.

 

[Larryh128]

All viable reasons, I was thinking about it & it's also possible that he didn't get some of the primers seated to the bottom. It really doesn't sound like it's anything due to your loading set up but either a pistol issue or his not fully understanding that primers need to be fully seated.

 

[kelbro]

Has he tried any factory ammo? That would either point to or eliminate the reloads.