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Firing pin not hitting hard enough?


digerup

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Shot a match this weekend and I had about 5 rounds not go off. Primers seem to have a pretty good dent in them. Pulled everything apart during the match and cleaned again, firing pin wasnt very dirty. The gun has about 5k rounds through it, could it be the firing pin spring? Firing pin looks good, no wear. I used Rem primers for these loads, had been using cci primers and had similar results. I will clean everything again, possible a little piece of crud was rubbing on the pin in the small hole. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jason.

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What is your trigger pull? Very light one often means lighter strike.

I have guns with trigger pull from less than 1lb to about 3lb. The heavier trigger guns digest the CCI's with no issues. The one with a 1lb gives me several bad strikes per 1000 with CCI's, but none with Winchester.

Why not simply switch to Winchester? In my case it totally eliminated the problem.

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I used Rem primers for these loads,

theres your problem... i used to load with those and had an extra strenght mainspring and an extra long firing pin and a few i punched right through and they didnt go off... rem primmer, imo, are terrible primers.

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I used Rem primers for these loads,

theres your problem... i used to load with those and had an extra strenght mainspring and an extra long firing pin and a few i punched right through and they didnt go off... rem primmer, imo, are terrible primers.

Never seen a problem with Remingtons, used several thousand of them with no issues at all. The only ones too hard in their line was Small Rifle Benchrest, these were a total disaster, but the regular Small Rifle worked in all of my open guns without problems.

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Primers seem to have a pretty good dent in them.

It certainly wouldn't hurt to make sure things are clean, etc - but this statement right here suggests it's not a problem with the gun, but rather with the primers...

High primers won't typically show a solid strike, FWIW, and neither will primers struck by a gun having a problem w/ the FP.

I've run CCI small rifle primers in my Brazos gun with no issues. Never bothered trying Remington primers after reading feedback from people having problems with spotty ignition, even with XL firing pins, etc.

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Never seen a problem with Remingtons, used several thousand of them with no issues at all. The only ones too hard in their line was Small Rifle Benchrest, these were a total disaster, but the regular Small Rifle worked in all of my open guns without problems.

only primers i've ever had issues with were the rem small rifle. i now use tula/wolf small rifle's w/o any issues

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High primers won't typically show a solid strike, FWIW,

But it's worth checking right? I am with others who think it is probably not the gun, so anything ammo related is worth checking.

Edited by Kevin Sanders
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Sorry Singlestack but that is not necessarily true. If the FP Spring gets too weak it will not return the FP far enough to the rear to get a good strike from the hammer. I have seen and repaired this with a new spring on more than one occasion.

Brian

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Sorry Singlestack but that is not necessarily true. If the FP Spring gets too weak it will not return the FP far enough to the rear to get a good strike from the hammer. I have seen and repaired this with a new spring on more than one occasion.

Brian

Thanks, Brian. I'm no smith but i had seen this problem twice in my shooting lifetime(Open div, particularly).

I'm not sure how much primers the OP has purchased but FP spring might be a cheaper route. You can even borrow one from another shooter and compare their lengths.

I did the same on previous occasions and the bad fp springs were always 1/8 of an inch shorter.

If it's not the FP then get another brand of primer. Good Luck.

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Hello: You could instal the firing pin spring from the Para. One other thing may be that the recoil spring is a little on the light side and coming out of battery a little causing a little bit of a light strike. Does it do it under slow fire or rapid fire? Hope this helps. Thanks, Eric

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Drop a #2 pencil (eraser end first) down the bore of your unloaded pistol. Cock the hammer, hold the gun so the bore is vertical and pull the trigger. If the pencil hits the ceiling or shoots at least 3 feet straight up, the problem is with the primers or primer seating. If it just barely makes it out of the barrel, the problem is with the gun.

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I will give that a try, thanks everyone for the help, should be able to figure it out with all the suggestions. The worst part is I can shoot a hundred rounds or more at my home range and as soon as I'm at a match the problems show up. I'm sure everyone has experienced murphys law.

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High primers won't typically show a solid strike, FWIW,

But it's worth checking right?

Sure. Check, it won't hurt anything. Usually, with a high primer situation, you'll find a light strike on the primer, and the primer will be seated about flush with the case head. The FP usually won't seat the primer deep like the press will. The light strike is from the FP burning energy trying to seat the primer not leaving it enough to fully dent the primer cup. I haven't yet seen a high primer situation where there ended up being a full dent in the primer, but I suppose it could happen.

Tilt an ammo box over so you're looking across the heads - you should be able to visually determine if all the primers are below flush or not. If not, start seating primers deeper first...

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I will give that a try, thanks everyone for the help, should be able to figure it out with all the suggestions. The worst part is I can shoot a hundred rounds or more at my home range and as soon as I'm at a match the problems show up. I'm sure everyone has experienced murphys law.

The match is the only time problems show up, man cheers.gif

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