.444S Marlin misfires

sbtennex

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Getting the odd (read too many, more than one) misfire. Primer indent looks normal, normal depth. Same lot and box of primers are no trouble in a number of other rifles. Weak spring or something like that? Powder change doesn't seem to make difference either...
 
I owned one of the early 1895 Marlins not long after they hit the market and the hammer spring was underpowered resulting in misfires with CCI primers. I resolved the problem with some flat washers to shim the spring.
 
Is the lever closing all the way up and tripping the safety properly? If not there may be a slight variation in the thickness of the rim of the brass. From the problem I'd almost bet that you're using Hornady Leverrevolution ammo.
 
They are CCI 200 LR primers, but as mentioned it's only in this gun. Lever locks up nice and snug, no slop. If it were simply bad primers I think I'd see it in other applications, but I've never had a FTF using then in any other gun. Maybe I'll switch to a 250 and back off the charge? These are handloads, not LRev factories, not even Hornady brass - all Win brass, new, once or twice fired.
 
CCI primers are good primers, but the cups are a bit thicker than the other brands, so it takes a little more firing pin energy to ignite them. If you have a strong firing pin spring in your other guns you probably wouldn't notice any difference from other brands except that they tend to seat a bit tighter.
 
Longshot

This might be a longshot but I had a similar problem once and it turned out that the tip of the firing pin had broken off. It was a very short piece. I started getting more and more misfires as the broken tip wore down. I went through the whole thing of primers, primer brands, etc. It wasn't until I noticed the indentations on the primers were becoming shallower and shallower that I realized the source of the problem.

You say your primer indents seem the same so it probably isn't the same problem as mine but I thought I would mention it just in case.
 
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