Just got back from shooting for first time(SKS)

[Rifter]

I've shot Romanian, Russian, Czech, and Chinese surplus, and have never had a light primer strike, or failure to fire...make sure the firing pin has proper protrusion, I guess, or maybe it was one in a few thousand...was the primer deeper than others, was the cartridge deformed in any way? weird...Also the sks is more accurate than a lot of people give it credit for...Supported, I can put 5 rounds in 8-10 inches at 100 yards with factory irons, with my 54 izzy. my 50 tula is so pretty i don't shoot it much, but i have taken it out to get the sights pretty close.

It looked identical to the fired casings, except the bullet was still in it. Primer was at same depth, primer had same firing pin mark as fired casing. It just plain didn't go off from the looks of it. Scared me a little when it happened but I thought putting it immediately in water after waiting few min was a good idea in case it did eventually go off.

 

[cranswick]

a bullet without a gun isn't terribly dangerous, I mean, it can be, but it's not going to fly true for any great distance, and won't be going very fast, but could potentially be dangerous in the immediate area. a hang fire is definitely concerning, but telling the different between that and a dud, initially can be difficult, I would normally wait for a while to be sure and just eject it manually, inspect the rifle quickly and try again, but ditching it into the brook is a good safety measure...if it keeps happening there may be a problem with the gun, or that batch of ammo...switch ammo and retry.