Rimfire hang-fire?

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jimd441

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Can rimfire rounds experience hang-fires like center fire rounds?

Given that both have primers I'm guessing yes, but I have never experienced it. I have been shooting up some bad ammo and am experiencing about a 2% dud rate, but no hang-fires. Thinking about it, I have never experienced a rimfire hang-fire during 50+ years of .22 shooting. My thought has been that rimfire duds are caused by incomplete distribution of primer around the circumference of the base. What I don't know is whether hang-fires are also possible.

Thanks,

Jim
 

Snake45

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I've never had a .22 hangfire either.

Your 2% dud rate interests me. When I was shooting a lot of Remington Golden Bullets, I found they had a very consistent dud rate of 1-2% (5 to 10 in every box of 500). Were your duds RGBs? Also, while other .22 duds would almost always fire if struck a second time on a different part of the rim, the Rem GBs never would, even if tried several different places. I concluded that RGB duds have NO primer in them at all. :shock:
 
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I would not rule out that it cannot happen, but your knowledge of the priming compound is correct and is a cause of a round not to fire. So is a gun that has not been maintained.
I have fired cases of higher end match .22lr and never had a dud or ever seen/heard someone at a match or practice saying that a dud happened. I bet it has somewhere at some point. In low end cheap ammo I have had duds, been with others that had duds. I never attempted to fire that round again, just left the round in the dirt or tossed it. Others I have been with pick them up, clean them off and try again. Seems most fire at that point.
 
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yes, can just be a question of the gun, chamber, hammer fall, etc., BUT also the handling of the ammo, past storage, mishandling, and of course the fact the primer ( fulminate) in the base inside , is "supposed" to go all around, it can dry out, become cracked, like said above years ago I recall all too often in our pistol matches shooters using Rem. in the "plastic" cases, and hearing they had a issue with shipping handling dropping cases, and the plastic case being hard, josttled the
primer material, causing cracks, thus a "misfire" ( I call it a dud, BUT still treat it like a hangfire, have seen them go "bang" after a few seconds)......remove the case, rotate it 180 degrees and it fired fine......ohwell,,,,again SAFETY FIRST !!!!

as the Ruger ads always use to say "Firearms Responsibility".. 8) :roll: :wink:
 

AzShooter1

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Funny you should ask, I had 4 handguns using Blazer and CCI Action Plus ammo over the past few months. Blazers are my go-to ammo so I was real surprised.

I was shooting a Steel Challenge Match and the Range Officer heard the now powered rounds. We used a range rod to get rid of the projectile and I was able to continue.

So, it does happen.
 

jimd441

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Thanks all

Snake45 - you are exactly right - bad old RGBs, bought about 10 years ago during/after the Obama era ammo shortage when they were all I could find. I understand Remington updated their manufacturing lines after that and folks reported better performance but I never bought any so I can't speak from experience.

Regarding the comments about the gun being the issue I should state that I don't have the issue with other ammo (CCI mini-mag, Federal bulk). I have been shooting the bad ammo through revolvers at 10 yards to minimize the impact of the ammo inconsistency on my shooting.

Given rugerguy's experience, I'll continue to treat duds as hang-fires in the interest of safety. Actually it shouldn't be an issue as I think I'll put burning through the old RGBs on hold and shoot other ammo for a while.

Jim
 

Snake45

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jimd441 said:
Snake45 - you are exactly right - bad old RGBs, bought about 10 years ago during/after the Obama era ammo shortage when they were all I could find. I understand Remington updated their manufacturing lines after that and folks reported better performance but I never bought any so I can't speak from experience.

I think I'll put burning through the old RGBs on hold and shoot other ammo for a while.

Jim
Yeah, that's about when I was buying the bad RGBs. I hadn't heard they ever improved them. Oddly enough, they were VERY accurate in several of my guns, despite producing at least four distinctly different sound levels. :shock:

I'd go ahead and "burn through" them now. You might NEED your more reliable ammo sometime in the future. Just sayin'. :wink:
 

woodsy

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Back in the 70's I competed weekly in local (NRA sanctioned) indoor pistol matches. Ruger Mark 1. Had about one hang-fire for every other brick's worth of target ammo.
 
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I shot competition with my Cavalry Squadron team for years. I couldn't even guess how many rounds of practice and competition I, and the team went through. Had some duds but never a hangfire. Not saying they don't happen, just my experience.
 

jimd441

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Yeah, you are right Snake 45, as long as I'm shooting revolvers at 10 yards I should go ahead and use the bad ammo. It seems to me that this type of shooting minimizes the overall impact of poor ammo in that the close range minimizes impact on accuracy, and revolver use negates would be impact of a weak round on cycling.

Jim
 

gjgalligan

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I have found several hundred "22 duds" at the club I belong to over the past 15 yrs. I save them up to try in my guns. Some fail in my semi-autos but I would guess 95% or more have fired just fine in my S&W 617.
 

jimd441

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Interesting comment about the 617 as it is one the two revolvers I was referring to (along with an SP-101) that have produced the duds. As mentioned previously, I think the duds are attributable to the ammo.

Jim
 

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