CCI SV no fire

Recent case of CCI Standard Velocity, Lot# F10ZA08, having multiple fail-to-fire issues.
Sent 100 rds back to CCI, and they analyzed that they were light strikes from my Hammerli 215. "Ammo is fine."

Still getting ftf's from that lot, so I opened them up, only to find either missing primer, or primer chips floating in the powder. Appears the brittle primer had chipped away from the rim, and mixed in with the powder. Suggest doing this along with questioning firing pin/spring, etc. when fail-to-fire issues arise.

I don't like the sound of CCI's response, with the caveat that if the ammo in question shoots well in other guns than maybe they have something but from what you have experienced it sounds like a questionable lot of ammo.  Good luck.

Well. In the ammo makers defense they can only do a drop test and see if it fires.  They drop a weight on the ammo, in a fixture obviously, and see how sensitive the primer is.  If it passes, it passes.  Whether your gun is giving light hits or not MIGHT be determined by switching ammo makers?  Dunno.

I've heard missing primer material stories on every manufacturer including Eley. 
In the last 2 cases of CCI-SV I had one failure to fire and a 2nd attempt fired the round.  In 2 cases of Wolf Match I had 4 FTF, 2 fired on 2nd attempt and one of the one's that didn't fire I took apart had only a tiny amount of primer in it.
- Dave

most of the time when 22s don't fire its the gun not the ammo.

Some time back, a new hammer spring solved 208s misfires

General rule was test fire the case.  If you get missfires that entire case is practice only.  Tale I was told is that the cartridge gets jarred hard along the way and damages the primer.  Can happen to any of it that is poorly handled.

Double post.

I have heard that shipping/handling roughly can cause the primer to loose adhesion to the rim. That's why I was hoping others disassemble (carefully!) no fires to see if the primer integrity is the cause before questioning the gun.

On the other hand, I had a round with too much primer paste and it blew up my 41.
I prefer the F2F.

KB2MBC wrote:On the other hand, I had a round with too much primer paste and it blew up my 41.
I prefer the F2F.

Was this independently corroborated??

KB2MBC wrote:On the other hand, I had a round with too much primer paste and it blew up my 41.
I prefer the F2F.

Wow, I have never heard of this.  How could they possible get enough primer in the case to do that.  I have never heard of a .22 round blowing up a gun but I would suspect to much powder before to much primer but I'm not ballistics expert .

james r chapman wrote:

KB2MBC wrote:On the other hand, I had a round with too much primer paste and it blew up my 41.
I prefer the F2F.

Was this independently corroborated??

I sent the gun to Smith & Wesson for evaluation and sent the leftover ammo to the manufacturer.
S&W placed blame on the ammo, the ammo manufacturer gave me a new 41.
It blew the grips away from the frame, snapped the extractor and embedded the case in the chamber. The rim of the cartridge was completely off, flush with the barrel chamber.
At first, it was very difficult to see that the case was stuck in the chamber. Only after I tried to drop a cartridge into the chamber, it wouldn't even start to go in.

Wow!

People like to say "it's only a .22" and I like to point out how much mass there is in the slide & material around the chamber.

james r chapman wrote:Wow!

Yeah, I shot like crap after that!

KB2MBC wrote:On the other hand, I had a round with too much primer paste and it blew up my 41.
I prefer the F2F.

Would you share the manufacturer of said ammo, and when this occurred?

I have shot over 10,000 rounds of CCI Standard Velocity ammo and never had a failure to fire. Cant' say that about other brands of ammo.

I've had some FTF troubles with CCI long ago.  I don't remember the full details.  They might be in the old BE Archive.  Anyway, the picture shows what I found when I cut some of the remaining untried rounds down.  DON'T DO THIS AT HOME!  I cut more rounds than are shown.  Some fired the primer during the cutting.  These were cut without powder or bullets, with safety equipment and an expectation of possible primer compound ignition.

I am also personally aware of other .22s sustaining catastrophic damage. One was, I think a S&W A22, the other was, I think, another S&W 41.  The A22 broke some internal plastic parts firing Aguilla, but the M41 broke and flattened the left slide rail back against the rear side of the slide.  I don't know what that ammo was.

Over the years I have worked on many .22’s that have fired out of battery and blown out the cases. Have yet to see anything break because of it. I have intentionally fired some out of battery in controlled surroundings. So based on my personal experience I would think that an over charge of powder was necessary to do that kind of damage. I was standing with my back to a Sig .40 S&W that blew up. The extractor hit me between the shoulder blades and penetrated into my back. Didn’t feel to good. If you shoot long enough you will probably experience something negative. 
Jon

I only needed to pull the bullet out of the case, dump powder on white paper, and with an intense light, look down in the case to see primer presence and distribution.

I will say this about CCI SV.  I had 3 instances of over pressure in the same lot in a Ruger Mark 3 a few months back.  The over pressure bent the loaded chamber indicator fillers I had installed. Otherwise it didn't do any damage that I could tell as the design is robust.  The suspect ammo was sent to CCI and they confirmed the over pressure and replaced the ammo I sent.  However, I never could get them to refund me for the LCI fillers I had to replace since I could not find the receipts. If anyone else has signs of over pressure let me know and I can dig up the lot # for reference.

I'm  sure all makers will have primer issues at some time.. had a CCI std fail to fire in my wifes trailside a few weeks back.  Re cocked  the action and left the bullet in place . Failed to fire again.  Pulled the round and rotated it a bit and it fired.  Obviously a bad spot with no primer..  with quality ammo its pretty rare given the number of 22s mass produced.

Primer cake varies by sensitivity. Primer cake is a mix, the composition varies by percentage, the constituents vary in purity, and since it is a mix, it is never completely homogeneous.


The current  Military small arms primer mix is the FA 956 mix,

PATR 2700 Encyclopedia of Explosives Vol 8 gives the composition



 FA 956


Lead Styphanate  37.7 +/- 5%
Tetracene             4.0 +/- 1%
Barium Nitrate      32.0 +/-   5%
Antimony Sulfide  15.0 +/- 2%
Aluminum Powder 7.0 +/- 1%
PETN                    5.0 +/- 1%
Gum Arabic           0.2%



There are plenty of primer compositions for there are many applications for primers other than small arms. This is a list of military priming mixtures, FA 70 is the old corrosive primer, I was able to identify PA101 as a fuse primer composition. All of the compositions to the right of FA90 are more sensitive than rifle primer compositions, so these are probably used on a variety of explosive or propellant devices.
 
 

 
Also, there are probabilities of ignition, given a fixed energy input
 

 
You did not state the age of your ammunition. Gunpowder has an unpredictable lifetime, it  does deteriorate, when it  breaks down it releases NOx, a highly oxidizing mix of chemicals, and based on my experience with duded primers in old ammunition, I am of the opinion that old deteriorated gunpowder will dud a primer.



I have been having fails to fire with certain brands of good rifle match ammunition in my match 22lr's. Specially my SK STD plus and RWS Rifle target. I have had lots of failures to fire, failures to eject, stove pipes, with ammunition that I believe was made for rifle mechanisms with rifle ignition systems. Rifles can have much more powerful mainsprings. Now this same ammunition, that misfires in my M41, is pretty reliable in my Ruger MKII. The primary difference is that the Ruger MKII has a more powerful ignition system than my M41. So given the same level of primer insensitivity, ignition in the Ruger is more positive. I have changed out mainsprings in my M41, and that helped things. Also, removing all oil from the firing pin channel.



Anyway the first thing I would do is find a new mainspring. If anyone is experiences misfires, fails to eject, etc, in an auto pistol, I think the first thing to do is replace the mainspring. Mainsprings weaken over time, you might as well replace them regularly. Don't be a Pollyanna and act as though mechanical devices are self healing. They are not. Clean the firing pin channels, get all the oil and crud out. Then, replace the ammunition.