Hang-Fires

Al ......

You're right about handfires being dangerous. Most of us have heard about the guy that had his bolt blown back into his shoulder. (Ouch ..... that's going to leave a mark ....).

The guy I'm talking about might have experienced the same thing if he continued storing primers in his garage. His hangfires were like those reported by Tod. Click ..... then bang after about a second or two. His shotgun seemed to experience the longest ignition delays, but the ignition delay with his rifles was very noticable.

The charactoristics of primer flash can vary quite a bit between different brands, (especially with black powder substitutes). I've fired magnum rifles with very large case capacity in the snow country, and I've found that sometimes not all of the powder gets burned "quickly enough". I've seen unburned powder granuals laying on the snow. Magnum primers are not always required, but sometimes they are. If you have a ton of slow burning powder to ignite, it needs to happen very fast.

- Innovative
 
First..the issue of to light of loads....yes...on day one, all of the 92 grain loads were hangfires, and the problem went away as the loads went up. BUT......on day two, the hangfires came back, and my STARTING load was 97 gr. 97 -100 gr. Chrono data......98 g. AV 3104 FPs. 100 G AV 3142. I hit slight psi at the 102 (AV 3211) and 104 (AV 3239). I was hardly in the "to light of load" catigory at 3100+ FPS with a 200 gr SMK. Even at the 92 grain loads I was at an AV of 2900 FPS....hardly a light load!!!


Second....kind of hard to eliminate the jump on a factory WBY They put a ton of freebore in there.....lots of jump......that's how, from what I understand, they get the velocitys they do W/O the psi problems......Or am I wrong about that....too....again....:eek:...I do know that the older "smaller" factory guns had lots of freebore in them. I always loaded them to just fit in the mag well. Maybe if I loaded a 210 or a 240 way, way ,WAY out there I might get there.......MAYBE. I have never tried it.
 
Tod

I was trying to figure out if the anvils on the primers were getting the proper crush. You've uniformed the pockets,so they should all be good. take a couple primers an(carefully ) mike the anvil to face of the primer and see if some of the anvils might be an inconsistant height. Which could give you improper preload of the anvil when seated. A short anvil to face height might not get the proper preload.
 
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Just for fun, have you ever asked one of these hunters if it's a problem when shooting one of these long range shoulder busters if it's a disappointment when they only get shots under that magical 1,000 yards or less? It must make for some really boring hunting stories?:D
 
Big Al said:
Just for fun, have you ever asked one of these hunters if it's a problem when shooting one of these long range shoulder busters if it's a disappointment when they only get shots under that magical 1,000 yards or less? It must make for some really boring hunting stories?:D
Click to expand...
I don't want to get into one of those long range hunting deals on this thread!!!! The last time we had 230+ posts with guys calling each other down.....lets not go there here!!!!!:eek:


Now, if you do want to start that baby up again, let me know.....I'm feelin kinda ornery!!!!!;)
 
usually hang fires are the result of firing pin spring weakness or incorrectly seated primers,or firing pin not being long enough. A benchrest gunsmith can determine cause or causes.
 
My wife's light gun acted like it was hang fireing, cleaned the trigger And re-adjusted it the problem went away then came right back. Found out later it was a weak spring in the trigger. If you have any indents in the neck area, this is an indication of a light load! But like everyone was saying make sure the fireing pin and bolt are clean. keep everything clean.

Joe Salt
 
Tod Soeby said:
I don't want to get into one of those long range hunting deals on this thread!!!! The last time we had 230+ posts with guys calling each other down.....lets not go there here!!!!!:eek:


Now, if you do want to start that baby up again, let me know.....I'm feelin kinda ornery!!!!!;)
Click to expand...


Do you really want to stick your toe back in the water? You might want to re-read the post, it was a question. No it as not addressed to you it was addressed to the original post.
 
Tod,

I have messed around with my 30-378 a good bit. Here's what I have found:

According to the latest Barnes manual, I started at 91.0 gr of RL22 and 180 gr. TTSX bullets. The accuracy was pretty good here (0.485" @ 100yds), but I noticed very slight hangfires on a few of the loads. I ran them on to the max (97.5gr per the manual) and never did get accuracy to suit me.

I then tried H1000. I loaded them at 96-102gr. Every load was under an inch, except one. I settled on 102gr. with a 0.502" group at 100 yds. Granted, it's not like shooting my 6x47, but this is a hunting gun....so I was pleased with the accuracy.

That H1000 load is somewhere around 92-94% load density. I think that's where you want to be on these big boomers. That 91gr. load of RL22 was somewhere around 87%. That case will hold somewhere around 120gr. of powder.......so the low 90's leaves a lot of void space.

Deburring and chamfering the flash hole may help with that load.....but 92gr. of RL25 seems sorta light.....even for a 200gr pill.

Also....I forgot to mention that I am shooting CCI 250 primers. I would prefer Federal Gold Match primers, but can't find them ANYWHERE!!
 
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