.223 no bang

[Sir Toast]

What did the ones that fired look like?

Great question.

[five.five-six]

Progressives make for fast ammo production...and faster mistakes.

Sure..

I make lots of straight-wall ammo really fast with few problems. (.357sig too)

I've made plenty of rifle cartridges, fairly slow, single stage with great results.

I want to make zombie ammo.

[PaperTarget]

To narrow down cause(s), you may try comparing these primer strikes to other (factory) ammunition.

[five.five-six]

What did the ones that fired look like?

They look like I dumped them my spent .223 bucket already


They may not be the deepest strikes but the light strikes I have seen with other guns in the past were much more shallow than these.

[Bumslie]

Put them in a pistol case and see if they will go off from the pistol strike.

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[five.five-six]

Primer strikes look pretty light. I'd check headspace. #41 primers are pretty hard.

I'm almost out of #41's I have a case of Wolf hardened LRP. I had experienced slam fires in the past when I was using Winchester SRP on my BBL gun.

[bsumoba]

I'm almost out of #41's I have a case of Wolf hardened LRP. I had experienced slam fires in the past when I was using Winchester SRP on my BBL gun.

Couple things that others did not mention to try:


Check the firing pin to see if there is any damage to that.

Debris in the firing pin hole or in the bolt itself could lead to lighter strikes. Might want to check if anything got in there.

[five.five-six]

Put them in a pistol case and see if they will go off from the pistol strike.

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Hey Bumslie, had Peter on the phone last night for 3 hours. You came up and we all need to go shooting together.

I ran 3 of them through my .357, none went bang and that hammer will send a Bic pen across the room!

[Bumslie]

Hey Bumslie, had Peter on the phone last night for 3 hours. You came up and we all need to go shooting together.



I ran 3 of them through my .357, none went bang and that hammer will send a Bic pen across the room!

Just tell me when!

Sounds like they were bad primers then.

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[nedro]

I'm sure it's just an optical illusion, but your primers all look like they are set too deep.

[five.five-six]

Couple things that others did not mention to try:


Check the firing pin to see if there is any damage to that.

Debris in the firing pin hole or in the bolt itself could lead to lighter strikes. Might want to check if anything got in there.

firing pin moves freely inside the bolt and it's as clean as you can expect after 53 rounds fired. OAL on the FP is 3.2785 I don't know what spec is

[five.five-six]

Just tell me when!

Sounds like they were bad primers then.

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I have a friend that's very high up in the ATFA and he thinks it's because I was lazy and didn't swage the crimped brass and the primers were damaged when I jammed them in.

I just ordered 1k possessed brass (in lieu of buying a swager and doing more work) I'll see if that works.

[ar15barrels]

I loaded up 60 rounds .223 on my 550 and I had 12% not go bang and I don't know why. Primers were CCI 41 and fired with an AR pattern rifle.

I have been successfully loading match .223 on my rockchucker for years but on the 550 I want to stock up on bulk ammo for zombies and things like that.

In the event it needs to be used in a zombie apocalypse, this ammo needs to be 100% reliable. Before I make another trial batch, I need some assistance in figuring out why my previous run did so poorly

Most common cause of light strikes with reloads in an AR is long case shoulders.
The long causes cause the bolt to not fully lock.
Then, when you fire, the hammer drops and closes the carrier the rest of the way and makes a dent that is not deep/strong enough to set the primer off.

This all assumes that factory ammo is running fine in that same gun.
If factory ammo also has light strikes, then you need to look at the location of the buffer detent as a possible cause.
If the buffer detent is located too far to the rear, the buffer will not hold contact with the carrier and the carrier can bounce off the barrel extension and come to rest on the slightly retracted buffer.
Again, when the hammer drops, it wastes energy into the bolt carrier and you get light strikes.

The test for a buffer detent problem is to remove the buffer detent and run the gun without it and see if the problem goes away.

[ar15barrels]

Progressive presses are not as strong as your rockchucker so you have to put the die down a little harder to account for press frame stretch during sizing.

[five.five-six]

Most common cause of light strikes with reloads in an AR is long case shoulders.
The long causes cause the bolt to not fully lock.
Then, when you fire, the hammer drops and closes the carrier the rest of the way and makes a dent that is not deep/strong enough to set the primer off.

This all assumes that factory ammo is running fine in that same gun.
If factory ammo also has light strikes, then you need to look at the location of the buffer detent as a possible cause.
If the buffer detent is located too far to the rear, the buffer will not hold contact with the carrier and the carrier can bounce off the barrel extension and come to rest on the slightly retracted buffer.
Again, when the hammer drops, it wastes energy into the bolt carrier and you get light strikes.

The test for a buffer detent problem is to remove the buffer detent and run the gun without it and see if the problem goes away.

I should have checked them with my case gauge before I took them apart.

I did hand chamber with the BCG and my fingers the first 10 rounds of this run in my RRA NM upper. And those were smooth as silk. The 7 that failed still could have been the longest of the batch.