Got a real lesson today

['ol shooter]

I am a careful hand loader, and today I had two squibs in 14 rounds, that being two magazines of my .45 ACP reloads. I bought some Win LP primers from a fellow here, and they looked just fine, packaging and all. Well, the two squibs were both the Wins, where the CCI's I bought some time back were all fine. I will now be pulling several hundred rounds apart in the next few days. Lesson learned. Fortunately, they sqibbed right at the rifling, so a followup round would not chamber, both times. Glad I did not have to replace my sons barrel, but I sure was embarrassed, since I am so careful. Moral of the story, be careful and test ten or twenty before committing to a large reloading project. Not blaming the brand, just got some bad ones from the way they were stored, I guess.

[Pablo5959]

Soo..., your blaming the primers for you not making sure you charged your ammo?

A dud primer would not cause a squib.

['ol shooter]

Sorry that's all you got out of the post.

[bsumoba]

had the same question about a squib with a bad primer and powder in the case. if it had enough oomph to send the round into the rifling, it should have ignited all the powder, and assuming to ignited all the powder, then the primer would have been the ignition source.

i can see a dud primer not firing at all or maybe a hangfire, but not a squib.

please explain OP. did you just have a lot og unburnt powder as well?

[jericho89]

Well it sounds like the primers popped in order to get it out of the case. Only once did I use reloads that I did not load and there was no powder. I was pissed and he was embarrassed.
I agree that you should test a few if you are using different components before you load up a bunch of ammo.

But as stated by others I would say that you had something else go wrong rather than bad primers. If there was enough energy to push the slug into the barrel then the primer went off and there should have been enough to ignite the powder. If you had powder in your slide then it may have been contaminated powder. IF you had no powder in the slide then you probably had no powder in the case.

[SonofWWIIDI]

At least you didn't end up with any of these:

[klewan]

OP, if you have a digital scale, weigh all your rounds. You'll find out which ones don't have powder, which is why you got squibs....Don't bother with a balance beam scale, too slow.

[AandO]

Originally Posted by Pablo5959

Soo..., your blaming the primers for you not making sure you charged your ammo?

A dud primer would not cause a squib.

Hey OP, How is Pablo not correct?

I must be really tired or something. This thread makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever......

You are blaming primers for your mistake?

[slopoke]

Were these rounds made on a progressive or single stage? When you fired said rounds, did it do a muffled report with the slide not moving? I was always taught that if it kinda sounds funny and have to rack the slide and when you do, a cartridge gets ejected and it has no bullet, check for a squibb. Luckily I have not experienced one yet.

I agree with the others here, if the primer went off and caused the bullet to get lodged in the barrel, the primer did it's job. There was probably no powder charge.

[kcstott]

the only time I've ever had a squib is when i had a good primer and no powder. Did that twice when i was in a bit of a hurry reloading.

Bad primers don't fire, they do not not fire and yet through the bullet into the lands. and if it was a properly charged case... Where's you powder???

Powder should have dumped from the weapon if the primer didn't ignite as you suggest

[Divernhunter]

I had some bad, new from gun shop, Win primers(LRM) and they just did not fire.
I guess it is possible to get a squib because of a super weak primer, with certain powders like ball powders, but I also guess it was because of no powder or almost no powder.

[RandyD]

Based on what I read, OP, you most likely misdiagnosed the problem. An unfired primer would result in a dud round with no bullet movement from the case and into the barrel. Even a defective primer that fires but gives a weak ignition would still ignite the powder, pushing the bullet completely through the barrel.

[bandook]

Were you making 'very mild' loads. If so, does the powder meter well? If it doesn't, the variation between two charges could be enough to determine whether the bullet makes it out of the barrel or or not.

A powder check/cop die may be a worthwhile investment

[jericho89]

These look cool, but who would fire 5-6 rounds before they realize that things are not working right

Originally Posted by SonofWWIIDI

At least you didn't end up with any of these:

[Voo]

I'd have to agree with "Pablo's" statement. How is it the fault of the primer? If there had been powder in the cartridge, the primer would've ignited it. If the primer had been a 'dud' nothing would've happened and the bullet would not have dislodged from the case.

I find that when people don't recognize the root cause of a problem, they tend to repeat them. Everyone makes mistakes but the real shame is when you don't learn from them..

[Pauliedad]

Voo makes a great point. Learn from this and go forward. Figure out the mistake made then alter your process to avoid in future.

[Cheep]

You didn't say what kind of powder you use. Some powders take magnum primers to properly ignite, like W296 or H110. Although I don't think you would be using that in 45acp.

[BillyGoatCrawler]

Originally Posted by 'ol shooter

Sorry that's all you got out of the post.

I think that's all everyone got. Sounds like the primers were working but you forgot a sufficient charge...?

I can say that I am less than satisfied with any ammunition Winchester produces and will not buy any components from them. Too many failures to fire from their products for me to keep paying for it.

[Pauliedad]

Been using winchester primers since the beginning of my loading career. Almost three years now with no ftf.
Is this a fluke? Is this reputation common?

[Eljay]

Originally Posted by Pauliedad

Been using winchester primers since the beginning of my loading career. Almost three years now with no ftf.
Is this a fluke? Is this reputation common?

Winchester primers are great.

I HAVE seen some weird problems with loaded Winchester ammo and their bulk products aren't that great. But they make really nice defensive rounds. Basically they just have high end and low end products and their primers are definitely quality.

There's something weird going on here. I have heard of some random results when people started wet tumbling and didn't deprime first and didn't get the cases totally dry and the moisture either partially killed the primer or some of the powder. If there WAS powder in there you would expect to see unburnt powder sticking to various places in the chamber and in the gun - it's not all magically going to vanish. But the OP would be wise to really investigate this rather than just assume the primers are bad.

[Eljay]

More potential sources of trouble...
1. Corncob or other media stuck in flash hole.
2. Powder contamination from lube or polish.

[himurax13]

Originally Posted by Eljay

More potential sources of trouble...
1. Corncob or other media stuck in flash hole.
2. Powder contamination from lube or polish.

I am sure I have had this happen before. That is why I don't lube cases anymore.

[SonofWWIIDI]

Originally Posted by jericho89

These look cool, but who would fire 5-6 rounds before they realize that things are not working right

At least these three guys.

And there are more pics of the same kinda thing.

[RogueSniper]

I thought the same as Pablo. Where's the powder?

No squibs for me. I make 5-10 test rounds. Weigh each. Remeasure and check with a gauge. Shoot one, check brass, check primer, check unburnt powder, check gun, then write notes. Repeat.

- I had some "bad" primers from Winchester (LPP and LRP). Turns out it's the firing pin.
- Some bad recipes - no KaBoom but a BIG SCARY BANG!
- Shot some subsonics and worried that it didn't actually fire. Ran a cleaning rod through just to be certain.
- Live round stuck in dirty chamber. Cleared the bench and thought it through.

Step by step diagnosis of every reload is necessary. You are working with a potential disaster if you don't follow certain steps. Learn a new lesson - we're always learning. Be humble, no one's perfect. BE SAFE.

[mjmagee67]

+100 for Pablo.

[sl0re10]

Originally Posted by 'ol shooter

Sorry that's all you got out of the post.

Sorry; its what came to mind for me too. The bullet wouldn't make it into the barrel if the primer failed to fire.

If winchesters are not hot enough to use with your powder / case combo; that's not the seller's fault either (unless you asked if they'd work for your application).

But I DO get your other point about not mass producing rounds with a new recipe / component combo. Pulling bullets is not fun.

[TomReloaded]

I do 100+ for new loads. If you use known components and published loads youll be alright. Has anyone really started at min loads and had catastrophic failures? I havent even had a failure to cycle.

[sunnysmarine]

Not that this is what happened here but, I have had similar problems that showed up in accuracy decline and one squib with a full charge of powder only partially burned in a near magnum rifle case, Fault a broken hammer spring not striking the primmer sufficiently CCI primers were used the worst Winchester's primers worked better, Someone suggested that they were made of harder metal for auto firearms, Even my gunsmith blamed the RELOADS, after a month or more of wondering what I did wrong, one day after cleaning the rifle I dried fired it a dull spring noise instead of a snap.....replaced the spring and it goes BANG now I smile at how great my reloads shoot. Incomplete ignition of the primer was the result of a weak strike not fully igniting the powder. I have had pistol rounds with out powder before not fun, so I bought a Dillon problem solved

[tylenol9999]

Originally Posted by TomReloaded

I do 100+ for new loads. If you use known components and published loads youll be alright. Has anyone really started at min loads and had catastrophic failures? I havent even had a failure to cycle.

I had a number of failed to eject when doing load testing and starting with min load data.

[Cowboy T]

Originally Posted by sl0re10

Sorry; its what came to mind for me too. The bullet wouldn't make it into the barrel if the primer failed to fire.

Same here. The two squibs I ever had, the bullet made it into the rifling and stopped there. No powder. But the primer sure did pop.

OP, could you let us know what you find after pulling some of those rounds?

[kcstott]

Originally Posted by TomReloaded

I do 100+ for new loads. If you use known components and published loads youll be alright. Has anyone really started at min loads and had catastrophic failures? I havent even had a failure to cycle.

Had this issue when I first started out reloading a very long time ago.

Didn't know anything and started with minimum loads using powder dippers on 9mm nato stuff was so slow the first shot i fired i thought i had a problem then went looking for the brass. it was still in the chamber.

so i started to get a little ballsy and cranked up the loads then found out i can't get enough unique in the cases to get the bullet moving as fast as I like.

I tend to load my stuff on the hot side and the only time i take the time to work up to a load is on a new weapon or a new powder. especially on rifleloads

on my 45 loads 7.5gr of unique for 230gr slugs gets me right at 950 FPS good and hot and no failures.

[ARKLITE881South]

Don't feel bad, you are NOT alone. Yesterday a guy i know said he's been having problems with some hand loads. 9 mm. He'd shoot one, and then 3-4 failure to fire, shoot maybe 2, 4-5 failure to fire. Then he said, he'd wet tumbled a bunch of pistol brass with the fired primers in the cases. Then, put them on a pan in the oven to dry them for like 20-30 min. Now, he's got 600 plus loaded rounds to unload. It was so bad, he'd hold his pistol sideways ejection port facing down so he could stack the empties and non fired rounds in a pile. He's a leftie. I've never dried cases without knocking the primers out, betting he won't either, from now on. Forgot to add, this all happened while he was taking a pistol training course.

[Eljay]

When I dry them with the primers in I give them a couple of hours in a dehumidifier. This is based on letting them dry for a while and then depriming a half dozen and checking for moisture. It takes an amazing amount of time to get them 100% dry. I also keep ahead of brass processing so they sit at least a couple of days before I need to use them.