Got a real lesson today

['ol shooter]

I am a careful hand loader, and today I had two squibs in 14 rounds, that being two magazines of my .45 ACP reloads. I bought some Win LP primers from a fellow here, and they looked just fine, packaging and all. Well, the two squibs were both the Wins, where the CCI's I bought some time back were all fine. I will now be pulling several hundred rounds apart in the next few days. Lesson learned. Fortunately, they sqibbed right at the rifling, so a followup round would not chamber, both times. Glad I did not have to replace my sons barrel, but I sure was embarrassed, since I am so careful. Moral of the story, be careful and test ten or twenty before committing to a large reloading project. Not blaming the brand, just got some bad ones from the way they were stored, I guess.

[Pablo5959]

Soo..., your blaming the primers for you not making sure you charged your ammo?

A dud primer would not cause a squib.

['ol shooter]

Sorry that's all you got out of the post.

[bsumoba]

had the same question about a squib with a bad primer and powder in the case. if it had enough oomph to send the round into the rifling, it should have ignited all the powder, and assuming to ignited all the powder, then the primer would have been the ignition source.

i can see a dud primer not firing at all or maybe a hangfire, but not a squib.

please explain OP. did you just have a lot og unburnt powder as well?

[jericho89]

Well it sounds like the primers popped in order to get it out of the case. Only once did I use reloads that I did not load and there was no powder. I was pissed and he was embarrassed.
I agree that you should test a few if you are using different components before you load up a bunch of ammo.

But as stated by others I would say that you had something else go wrong rather than bad primers. If there was enough energy to push the slug into the barrel then the primer went off and there should have been enough to ignite the powder. If you had powder in your slide then it may have been contaminated powder. IF you had no powder in the slide then you probably had no powder in the case.

[SonofWWIIDI]

At least you didn't end up with any of these:

[klewan]

OP, if you have a digital scale, weigh all your rounds. You'll find out which ones don't have powder, which is why you got squibs....Don't bother with a balance beam scale, too slow.

[AandO]

Soo..., your blaming the primers for you not making sure you charged your ammo?

A dud primer would not cause a squib.

Hey OP, How is Pablo not correct?

I must be really tired or something. This thread makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever......

You are blaming primers for your mistake?

[slopoke]

Were these rounds made on a progressive or single stage? When you fired said rounds, did it do a muffled report with the slide not moving? I was always taught that if it kinda sounds funny and have to rack the slide and when you do, a cartridge gets ejected and it has no bullet, check for a squibb. Luckily I have not experienced one yet.

I agree with the others here, if the primer went off and caused the bullet to get lodged in the barrel, the primer did it's job. There was probably no powder charge.

[kcstott]

the only time I've ever had a squib is when i had a good primer and no powder. Did that twice when i was in a bit of a hurry reloading.

Bad primers don't fire, they do not not fire and yet through the bullet into the lands. and if it was a properly charged case... Where's you powder???

Powder should have dumped from the weapon if the primer didn't ignite as you suggest

[Divernhunter]

I had some bad, new from gun shop, Win primers(LRM) and they just did not fire.
I guess it is possible to get a squib because of a super weak primer, with certain powders like ball powders, but I also guess it was because of no powder or almost no powder.

[RandyD]

Based on what I read, OP, you most likely misdiagnosed the problem. An unfired primer would result in a dud round with no bullet movement from the case and into the barrel. Even a defective primer that fires but gives a weak ignition would still ignite the powder, pushing the bullet completely through the barrel.

[bandook]

Were you making 'very mild' loads. If so, does the powder meter well? If it doesn't, the variation between two charges could be enough to determine whether the bullet makes it out of the barrel or or not.

A powder check/cop die may be a worthwhile investment

[jericho89]

These look cool, but who would fire 5-6 rounds before they realize that things are not working right

At least you didn't end up with any of these:

[Voo]

I'd have to agree with "Pablo's" statement. How is it the fault of the primer? If there had been powder in the cartridge, the primer would've ignited it. If the primer had been a 'dud' nothing would've happened and the bullet would not have dislodged from the case.

I find that when people don't recognize the root cause of a problem, they tend to repeat them. Everyone makes mistakes but the real shame is when you don't learn from them..