Had my first FTF. v. G23/WWB

[AustinL911]

I've got about 1000 rounds through my Gen. 3 G23 now, mostly WWB, with about 100 165gr. Gold Dots mixed in for carry compatibility. Anyways, I had my first Fail-To-Fire at the range the other day. Maybe it's just me, but having the gun NOT go bang, is much more frightning than it actually going bang.

I cleared the faulty round, checked it out, and sure enough, it had a perfectly normal strike mark. Bad round, IMO, not the guns fault AFAIK.

Anybody else have this happen?

Also, how's the quote go? "The two loudest sound in the gun world are a gun that goes 'bang' when you're expecting a 'click', and a 'click' when you're expecting a 'bang'.

That definitely holds true.

Anyways, that's my story. :wavey:

[NickZac]

Was it the WWB that did this? I have seen them have issues on some striker fired guns, although the primers are not ridiculously hard on them. Just be sure to wait about 20 seconds before clearing the round, as it can (not that it will) still fire.

[MSgt Dotson]

I had at least one 'failure to ignite primer' syndrome malfunction out of both my 1st gen GLock 22 and 23 models back in 1991 or so, both with WInchester and/or factory Remington ammo...

I'd be curious to see what the difference is in the 'pencil launch' height test with a striker fired GLock22/23 vs. say, a Delta Elite or Kimber Govt variant chambered in .40S&W, just to see if the Glocks tend to suffer from inherently lighter primer hits than the 1911 design with a 23 lb mainspring....

(My own P14 and Officer's ACP models will launch a pencil about 3-4 feet high, using a flat erasor as the impact point)

[TNRonin]

FWIW, I had 5 FTF from some Remmy 40 S&W. It was a 100 rd box. I checked the strikes and they looked good, reloaded the ammo and it fired.

I was somewhat concerned since I had bought the gun used, but it fired all the other ammo fine.

[D25]

Originally posted by AustinL911

Anybody else have this happen?

Also, how's the quote go? "The two loudest sound in the gun world are a gun that goes 'bang' when you're expecting a 'click', and a 'click' when you're expecting a 'bang'.

That definitely holds true.

Anyways, that's my story. :wavey:

Yes. More than once. I had probably shot 5,000 rounds of WWB .40 S&W with a very rare hard primer, then, in the last 2 or 3 hundred rounds of WWB that I will ever shoot, I experienced several hard primers and a case failure in my H&K. It seems like their QC has gone down the drain, but their customer "service" is what will keep me from ever buying anything with Olin on it.

[fastbolt]

Over the years I've experienced it occur myself, and observed it occur when one of our folks were shooting, with ammunition from the 'low cost' lines of 3 major manufacturers. Not very often, but every once in a great while.

In those instances in which a normal firing pin impact was evident on the primer cup I wrote it off to a hard, inert or otherwise defective primer. (FWIW, I always take the time to strip and inspect any weapons which exhibit a seeming 'light hit', and often find fouled, grungy, debris-filled firing pin channels to have been involved in 'light hit' situations.) Sometimes I've had a round ignite on a subsequent hit, even when the first failed attempt had resulted in a visibly 'normal', seemingly 'deep' pin indentation in the primer cup. Other times they haven't ignited regardless of how may times I tried. I remember once when it took something like five 'normal, deep' hits before the round ignited.

I’ve also encountered instances where an apparent ‘light hit’ had occurred, but the (hammer-fired) gun’s firing pin channel were perfectly clean and dry when I inspected the pistol. The primers just seemed harder than ‘normal’ in those instances.

One interesting exception I remember occurred during one qualification session where we ended up with 3 different shooters encountering single rounds which didn't ignite with apparent 'normal' firing pin hits, in 3 different guns, and the ammunition being used was 'low cost LE contract bid' ammunition ... from two different major manufacturers (9mm in that instance). :shocked: What would the odds be of that happening at the same time?

Another time I encountered two .40 S&W cartridges which wouldn't allow the slide to go forward into proper battery while I was doing some training. Looking at the cases more closely I discovered that the cases apparently hadn't been trimmer properly, and were overly long. Not long enough to notice when they were being removed from the box, or 'stand out' as being too long to the casual eye when loading the magazines. It wasn't until I took them back to bench and carefully compared them to other cartridges that the extra length of the case was noticeable.

Now, while this happened with some standard contract bid line ammunition, I thought it was coincidental when I was skimming through a gun magazine shortly thereafter and read where an article's author reported he had encountered the same thing with another brand of ammunition, but this time with a single .45 cartridge from the 'premium line' of one of a major manufacturers (different company). He wrote that the cartridge case turned out to have been trimmed too long to allow proper chambering. Talk about synchronicity. ;)

It might not be a coincidence that a couple of the major manufacturers have advertised that their premium defensive ammunition uses 'more sensitive' primers ... with the implication seeming to be 'more sensitive' than their standard line ammunition, perhaps.

I just learned of a major LE agency returning a lot of duty rounds ('several pallets' was what I was told) from one of the major manufacturer's premium LE lines. The reason? An 'unacceptable' number of squib loads encountered during qualifications over a time period.

I remember another manufacturer pulling some LE ammunition because of 'potential primer sensitivity' issues and replacing it. As I recall, that pulled ammunition was then sold commercially but marked something along the lines of 'not for LE use'.

I could on.

Things happen.

I’ve read typical language in LE bid ammunition contracts that require manufacturers to take back and replace ammunition which fails to perform in some stated manner, with specifications listing examples, and last time I read one it listed a maximum number of failures within a certain number of rounds as the measurement of whether it met the required specifications. The major manufacturers reportedly spend a lot of money on QC, after all, and they’re often quick to address customer complaints. Especially LE customer complaints.

However, I wouldn't be too surprised to learn there might be more isolated instances of it occurring with one or another of the various manufacturer's 'low cost' product lines. Why would it be surprising that less expensive ammunition might cost less because of less expensive components, including primers?

One of the many reasons we train our folks to quickly and properly react to many potential functioning issues and appropriately address them. It’s the ones that may potentially render a weapon inoperable until it’s brought back to the bench that haunt my thoughts at times. ;)

Just my thoughts.

Funny how ear muffs don't seem to 'muffle' the loudness of a "CLICK", huh? :supergrin:

[dickdaney]

Had the same thing happen to me just last Sunday with the 9mm wwb. About 130 into shooting and "click" I couldn't believe it. I've shot 1000's of rounds of wwb, first time ever

[Rekced]

Originally posted by AustinL911
I've got about 1000 rounds through my Gen. 3 G23 now, mostly WWB, with about 100 165gr. Gold Dots mixed in for carry compatibility. Anyways, I had my first Fail-To-Fire at the range the other day. Maybe it's just me, but having the gun NOT go bang, is much more frightning than it actually going bang.

I cleared the faulty round, checked it out, and sure enough, it had a perfectly normal strike mark. Bad round, IMO, not the guns fault AFAIK.

Anybody else have this happen?

Also, how's the quote go? "The two loudest sound in the gun world are a gun that goes 'bang' when you're expecting a 'click', and a 'click' when you're expecting a 'bang'.

That definitely holds true.

Anyways, that's my story. :wavey:

when that happends you can just pull the slide far enough back to reset he trigger, then bang it again.