Two strike primers?

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WereWeasel

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Hi all, I bought a blr from a friend and he threw in some reloads that he had. The brass had been primed for 2 years and after several hang and missfires that ammo was set aside and the blr has only ate federal powershok since.

Until today, I pulled the bullets fl sized, trimmed and changed the powder and primers to CCI 200 and 48.3 grains of cfe223 topped off with the original 165 sst bullet seated to the C.O.L of 2.750. I get to the range; out of 15 rounds 1 went off with one hamer strike, 1 missfired altogether and the rest required 2 strikes. For fun I pulled 2 bullets dumped the powder and chambered the round 2/2 for positive ignition.

What could be going on? Should I seat them a little deeper the federal 150gr sp C.O.L is 2.690 but I'm weary of that? Any ideas folks?

J
 
If the primers are not fully seated deep enough, they will take a couple hits. One to seat the primer, and one to pop it off. Make sure the primers are below flush of the case head.
 
weak firing spring? federal primers are easier to set off so the factory ammo would have worked since they use'em.
 
COL makes no difference to the primers.
Like ReloaderRick says, seat the primers a tick below flush.
The rifle work ok with factory?
Assuming .308, the COL for a 150 is 2.800".
 
Try Federal primers and or a new striker spring. Both are practically free and can't hurt anything. Federals are considered easy to ignite and CCIs among the hardest of commonly available primers.

I think it was Ganderite who recently posted how we as shooters aren't well equipped to tell when something is on the cusp. When something is barely working (no margin) it doesn't take much to tip the balance to not working. A weak spring, hard primer, dirty gun or cold day can make that difference between click and bang.
 
Light primer hits that continued after you changed everything but the brass that you mentioned was used and resized makes me think they might be a little short at the shoulder causing them to not headspace properly. I would calliper to the the point the neck meets the shoulder on a fired round compared to a loaded round that has been giving issues.
 
tbdtp said:
Light primer hits that continued after you changed everything but the brass that you mentioned was used and resized makes me think they might be a little short at the shoulder causing them to not headspace properly. I would calliper to the the point the neck meets the shoulder on a fired round compared to a loaded round that has been giving issues.
Click to expand...

Would this be from the base to the neck or from the top of the neck to the shoulder? There is no difference from the base to the shoulder but there is a .020 difference in neck length, some of the cases I had the trim .040+ after sizing I wonder if I should just scrap that brass and load the once fired I have set aside for neck sizing. I have no idea how many times the brass he gave me was reloaded I know some was run in the blr and some in his tikka.
 
The measure would be from base to shoulder neck junction but if that is the same on both rounds it may be that there is some grit or powder build up in the firing pin assembly. I have never seen a weak hammer spring in a blr but anything is possible.
 
Had to change one in a Browning rimfire lever-gun for whatever that's worth. Occasional misfires eventually turned in constant misfires. Looking back, I should have spent the 9 bucks sooner, the spring was probably a dog from the beginning.
 
I had a similar problem with my 308 BLR. I thought perhaps it was striking too light.

It would sometimes misfire, and sometimes fire on the second strike. The chamber on mine is extremely tight, so that even a box of factory ammo I bought one time wouldn't chamber, even though it did chamber in another BLR. What was happening with mine was sometimes the resized brass would chamber enough to close the lever and release the hammer, but when you looked at the bolt it was just slightly not fully closed. Those are the ones that would misfire. Even some factory ammo would do this.

Even using small base dies, I always check all the empty brass now in the chamber to be sure it fully closes the bolt, not just the lever. Look at the back of the bolt as it sits in relation to the receiver. If too tight it will be out just a fraction. It should close without practically any force on the lever at all, almost like it falls into place. Problem seems to be fixed for me then, as I've never had a misfire since doing this.

I'm not a gunsmith so I can't explain why this worked for mine, or why that would perhaps cause misfires. If someone could explain it I would be interested to know why. I just know it has solved the problem so far, and I've put quite few through it to test it out, as I was starting to lose faith in the thing for hunting.
 
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I don't know about Federal rifle primers but their pistol primers are certainly thinner or softer than other brands. Even to the point that my Dillon manual recommends not using them in the vertical primer tube due to the risk of the primers dropping on each other firing and causing the one to set of a chain reaction. If the Federal rifle primers share this same delicate nature then it's no mystery why your rifle works with Federal ammo but is giving you trouble with other primers.

If the issue was head spacing and a slightly too short firing pin to reach the primer with a good strike I would think that it would continue to misfire. The fact that the rounds fire on the second try more often than not suggests to me that you're simply not seating the primers firmly enough so they seat fully. As mentioned the primer needs to be below flush by an easily seen and felt amount. A little extra pressure then minimum won't hurt anything. It's not pressure that sets them off, it's the fast snappy impact of the firing pin. So you're safe to use somewhat more pressure than the minimum.

Of course it sure doesn't hurt to check the other things too. And if your primers ARE well seated then to look at changing out the mainspring. I'd also suggest you check the firing pin for grunge buildup or something that may be limiting its travel. If it's not free moving or it's motion is being blocked so it doesn't extend far enough that could be part of the issue.
 
The primers were definitely seated to depth. As pastway suggested I still believe it has something to do with lockup, I read on an American forum like semiautos if the C.O.L is too long the bullet engages the rifling which wont allow the bolt head to cam into place so the firing pin light strikes. The initial jar from the first strike knocks the bolt ahead into battery and it fires the second time. This would also explain why the gun will fire primed brass without issue.
 
pastway said:
I had a similar problem with my 308 BLR. I thought perhaps it was striking too light.

It would sometimes misfire, and sometimes fire on the second strike. The chamber on mine is extremely tight, so that even a box of factory ammo I bought one time wouldn't chamber, even though it did chamber in another BLR. What was happening with mine was sometimes the resized brass would chamber enough to close the lever and release the hammer, but when you looked at the bolt it was just slightly not fully closed. Those are the ones that would misfire. Even some factory ammo would do this.

Even using small base dies, I always check all the empty brass now in the chamber to be sure it fully closes the bolt, not just the lever. Look at the back of the bolt as it sits in relation to the receiver. If too tight it will be out just a fraction. It should close without practically any force on the lever at all, almost like it falls into place. Problem seems to be fixed for me then, as I've never had a misfire since doing this.

I'm not a gunsmith so I can't explain why this worked for mine, or why that would perhaps cause misfires. If someone could explain it I would be interested to know why. I just know it has solved the problem so far, and I've put quite few through it to test it out, as I was starting to lose faith in the thing for hunting.
Click to expand...

I had the same thing happen with mine in 358 Win, be very watchful when reloading and trim the brass.
 
spooksar said:
I had the same thing happen with mine in 358 Win, be very watchful when reloading and trim the brass.
Click to expand...

I had all my brass trimmed to length with the Lee trimmer tool. My problem was that even with the small base dies, they have to be set so that the press cams over quite hard, or the brass is not resized to fit. Any gap at all and the brass won't fit. Any brass not fired in my own BLR now, I run it into the die twice, rotating it a bit the second time. I don't pull it all the way out past the neck expander though, as I don't like working the neck brass any extra than I have to. It seems to have cured the problem for me.
 
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