Kel-Tec disaster

Oh relax, wash the sand out of your ######, your original post gave very little info. Glad your fine, glad wolverine will fix your gun. I too own one and have out less than 40 rounds on it, I'm interested to see what will happen to mine after a few more rounds.
 
25g Benchmark is a light load, if it was infact 25g. Double check your scale. Prove it with a known good just to be sure. Pull a few rounds that you had left in that mag and make sure they are in fact 25g as well. If everything checks out you may want to start from scratch on your recipe. Start on the low end and work up, would suck to blow up 2 rifles.
 
looks like the firing pin is protruding from the bolt face too far, or mabye the end of the firing pin is square cut and not rounded. If the loads were too hot, the primer should look flattened or squished and the headstamp slightly deformed.
 
MagnumPeanut said:
25g Benchmark is a light load, if it was infact 25g. Double check your scale. Prove it with a known good just to be sure. Pull a few rounds that you had left in that mag and make sure they are in fact 25g as well. If everything checks out you may want to start from scratch on your recipe. Start on the low end and work up, would suck to blow up 2 rifles.
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Thats a good idea and will follow up on that. Ive had probably 70 some rifles in my hands in the past 10 years and have handloaded for all of them and am pretty anal. I weigh each charge before it goes into the case.

Cheers!!
 
The only time I got a pierced primer on my SU16 was with a beyond maximum, 5.56mm level of 26gr of H335, didn't hurt anything but I could tell right away from the sound and some smoke around the bolt handle cut-out.
Only got 1 pierced primer out of 20 with that load. And I have about 800 rounds through her mostly near max loads of Reloader 15, and H4895 along with a bunch of PMC SS109/M855.

Maybe it was soft Win primers or maybe its the firing pin shape, either way I stuck with 25.5gr which had a much tighter group anyway.

I think that if I was going to push Mil-spec M193 or M855 loads from Handloads I'd spring for some CCI 41 Mil-spec Hardened cup primers.

Not that this pertains to your situation but it's just my 2c
 
I've heard that some primer manufacturers are garbage, namely Federal, not sure what the issues were. I've only ever used CCI and have never had a problem. Maybe its time to change brands?
 
The first questions that came to my mind are: Are you crimping? If so, is your crimp over tight? If you are not crimping, is recoil/feeding causing the bullet to move in the case neck? Did you make a dummy round (no primer and powder) to check your overall length?
 
Those primers are either too soft or the firing pin is way too long or sharp. Did you get any slam fires closing the bolt? I don't know the action on that rifle. Is it a free floating firing pin? It doesn't look like over pressure in the pictures. Pistol primers?
 
I haven't shot any reloads out of my SU16 but ditching the stock mags made a big difference for the failure-to-feed/extract jamming I was having. LAR-15 metal mags and Thermold 5/20s work perfect in mine. Shot 80 rounds between 3 of each, 0 failures. The LAR mags leave long shallow scratches on the sides of the brass.

I will say that the firing pin socket on the bolt face does leave indentations on factory ammo primers (rounds that I've chambered then unloaded unfired). Next warm shootin' day I'll put up some pics.

@epic: The firing pin on mine is rounded and free floating.

Mine also had machining leftovers (wire burrs) inside the pin chamber so make sure you clean/inspect everything important out of the box.

@scott_r: How did the polymer receiver hold up in the disaster? It may be a bit touchy, but to get a fresh report of a failure like this in a non-metal frame is kind of a rare event.
 
What your seeing is called "blanking" it is caused by weak primer strikes that can not support the primer during ignition. You can rule out overpressure by examining the casings, is there ejector marks on the head? Loose primer pockets? Head swell? If none of those signs, I'd bet my left nut something is causing weak strikes. Broken hammer spring, gunk, or burrs like some one else mentioned and I have experimented myself and damn near scientifically proven that viscous drag (too thick of oil/grease) can cause weak strikes. There is a reason many striker fired guns say "DO NOT OIL STRIKER CHANNEL" some others say "DO NOT OIL FIRING PIN CHANNEL" and why cold climate hunters run their guns dry.
 
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