my first misfire... (what were you thinking of?)
I've been loading 30-06 for a while and never ever had a misfire... until today that is. And it was not a true misfire.
Things went like this: I've had the mags loaded with ammo from the same batch. I weigh all my charges and crimp the cases. The grouping is usually sub moa. The rifle kicks back really bad. But I've developed a technique to reduce the perceived recoil.
Today, the very first bullet felt like a misfire. No recoil, no sound (or maybe a faint whoosh, can't really tell since the range was pretty busy and I was wearing ear-muffs).
Sometimes I don't cycle the bolt all the way and don't get a feed. That's what I first thought so I dropped the mag and counted the rounds: well, there was a round in the chamber all right.
Then I thought it was a misfire so I waited 2 minutes before ejecting the casing. The bullet was definitely gone.
Next I assumed a stuck bullet and I pulled out the bolt to have a look down the bore. The bore was clear except for some powder equally distributed all along to the muzzle, like the bullet poured it on it's way out.
I know how the bore looks like after firing, scattered burnt powder flakes here and there, but this time there was quite a lot of powder on the bottom of the bore.
Next I blew into the action, from about 4 inches away, and checked again. The powder was gone letting me think it was semi-burned powder because it blew away too easy.
All the following rounds shot great.
I know this can happen from time to time but I'm curious of what triggered it.
I've been loading 30-06 for a while and never ever had a misfire... until today that is. And it was not a true misfire.
Things went like this: I've had the mags loaded with ammo from the same batch. I weigh all my charges and crimp the cases. The grouping is usually sub moa. The rifle kicks back really bad. But I've developed a technique to reduce the perceived recoil.
Today, the very first bullet felt like a misfire. No recoil, no sound (or maybe a faint whoosh, can't really tell since the range was pretty busy and I was wearing ear-muffs).
Sometimes I don't cycle the bolt all the way and don't get a feed. That's what I first thought so I dropped the mag and counted the rounds: well, there was a round in the chamber all right.
Then I thought it was a misfire so I waited 2 minutes before ejecting the casing. The bullet was definitely gone.
Next I assumed a stuck bullet and I pulled out the bolt to have a look down the bore. The bore was clear except for some powder equally distributed all along to the muzzle, like the bullet poured it on it's way out.
I know how the bore looks like after firing, scattered burnt powder flakes here and there, but this time there was quite a lot of powder on the bottom of the bore.
Next I blew into the action, from about 4 inches away, and checked again. The powder was gone letting me think it was semi-burned powder because it blew away too easy.
All the following rounds shot great.
I know this can happen from time to time but I'm curious of what triggered it.
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, I looked at my gun, held it downrange, and said outloud "WHAT THE F___ DO YOU MEAN CLICK????" They weren't hangfires, they just never ignited at all, despite having primer hits that look like all the rest. I'm going to assume they were caused by my not wearing gloves back when I started loading. Some oils must have gotten from my hands to the primers. I started wearing gloves right after I made those ones, and I've never had a problem with any one the rounds I made after those, so all is well. I'm gonna pull all those lot, and then reprime and start over. I see it as a fairly inexpensive lesson to be more careful. I don't have any idea what happened to yours, is there any chance of powder/primer contamination?
