Had my first hangfire this morning...

[Apple a Day]

... several of them, actually. I don't mind admitting that it freaked me out.
There I was, trying out some new ammo through my CZ-52. I finally burned through the rest of the bad Serbian stuff I had bought several boxes of when I ran across them. I'd gotten a few loose stripper clips of some green-laquered, steel cased stuff of uncertain provenance and wanted to try them out.
Well, I cracked open my old edition of Jane's Infantry Small Arms, 1993-1994, and flicked open to the back where they show headstamps for manufacturers. I was pleased and encouraged to find out that the ugly rounds I'd bought were old Sellier and Belloit. Aha, said I, and AHA! This should be reputable stuff. Little did I know...
There was my target, and ugly, vivid orange shape dancing like a flat marionette downrange from me. The haze of gunsmoke from the last box of Serbian fodder I'd already blasted hung thick in the chilly air around me. I slapped a mag full of duck-crap green cased, Czech ammo into the reciever, released the slide with a quick flick, and sighted in on the not-quite-finished-off object dancing in front of me, mocking.
I'd had some hard primers before. Sometimes things just don't go the way you intended; that I can handle. Life is just like that, more like a box of old, surplus ammo than a box of chocolates. I'd had some rounds that just wouldn't work, no matter how much I tried to coax them along... some women like that, too. But, no, this time it was different- scarier, in a way I hadn't expected.
I squeezed the trigger.
Click! Then just enough of a pause for me to pull my eyes off the target, figuring I had another hard primer
then BLAM.

Okay, enough with the Mike Hammer routine. I had several round which actually went off about a half second after the hammer struck. The old S&B stuff was dirty, loud, and there were 2 duds out of 50. I had 3 or 4 hangfires. That was disconcerting when I had a hard primer and was thinking of pulling the hammer back to try again. I've heard about hangfires but never experienced one. I left with one mag of ammo unfired. I also checked the gun out and everthing seemed okay. I am about to clean everything and will check more thoroughly.
So, how many people out there have actually HAD a hangfire? What were you shooting at the time? Anyone else run across hangfires with old Czech 7.62 Tok ammo? It was my impression that they are very unusual.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Hardtarget]

I've only had one I can think of. I was a kid, shooting with my Dad. Click..!..nothing...then... BANG! Luck was my Dad was right on top of it. He was right behind me, put his hand on my shoulder, kept me pointing down range. The delay was hardly two seconds but made a real impression on me! Maybe I've just been lucky but thats the only one I can remember.
Mark.

 

[P95Carry]

Apple a day ......

Never (yet!!) had one with a handgun but .... real old milsurp .303 is good at this!!

I still have some 1945 vintage stuff .. cordite propellant and of course ...... berdan corrosive. I do not think I have yet had an FTF but ... now and again ........ there is a round that feels like a flinter.

Pull trigger ... ''click'' as firing pin is hit ... and impacts primer ... then a pause ..... equivalent I feel to the lock time and pan burn in a flinter .. and then BOOM!

Possibly all happens in about 3 to 4 hundred milliseconds but .... seems VERY slow!!

Trick is to ''follow thru'' the shot .. and then, sights still in right place, when round ''decides'' to go!

 

[BluesBear]

Only hangfires I have ever had was about 15 years ago. 8 or 9 out of a batch of 1000. Pre-WWII era, 45 acp ammo that was from someplace in South America, Chile I think.

Little square hard cardboard boxes of 25. Really small, laquered primers with 3 crimps. Bullets were brass coloured.

Guess I shouldn't expect much for 2¢ each.

 

[Hal]

So, how many people out there have actually HAD a hangfire? What were you shooting at the time?

I did. Scared the bejabbers outta me. It happened early on in my handloading experience using a mid range .44mag load and I'm fairly sure I contaminated the primers somehow. I pulled the trigger on the Virginia Dragoon I was using and only had a *click* when the hamer fell. SOP from a recent article I'd read about hang fires said to count to 10. Now to fully appreciate this, the Dragoon had a very light strike and had some problems setting off CCI magnum primers (which I was using), so a *click* wasn't all that unusual. I was pretty much la-de-da-ing my count to 10 when the damn thing went off.

Since I was pretty poor at the time, having to destroy ~ 30 rounds of loaded ammo and throw away the primers left in the package was a pretty expensive lesson to learn. (I know- cheaper than the alternative).

I also had a sort of hang fire once using my High Standard. Ignoring the "best practice" of cleaning a gun which had been in storage for,,,IIRC close to 8 years, I took the HS straight out to the range, loaded it and took aim. I felt the hammer fall,,,,and ,,,nothing for a split second. As I started to lower the gun to start the "count", it went off. I ejected the chambered round after dropping the mag, and field stripped it right there at the range. A couple of seconds worth of looking this over revealed that the firing pin was "gummed up" and not sliding freely. (WD40 users take note). I had a small spray can of computer diskette cleaner (alcohol) that I sprayed it down with, and worked it a few times.

Overall, I honestly have mixed feelings about HF's as oppsed to AD/ND's. Since a HF can occur for a variety of reasons - many of which are beyond the control of the operator - I'd almost like to see everyone experience one.(provided of course that all other safety rules are followed). I know in my case, with the Dragoon, I was far too nonchalant about it and just going through the motions - - - till it went off. Since then, when taking a new shooter out I always strees that if they pull the trigger - and nothing happens - count to 10 - lay the gun down w/it pointed downrange and call me.

 

[wally]

I think when addressing new shooters the advice needs to depend on if they are learning for fun or for defense.

If for defence, no reloads or old or surplus ammo should be allowed near a newbie, and the training needs to be: pull the trigger again for a revolver or true DA auto, or tap-rack-bang for a SA or Glock type auto if the weapon fails to fire.

I've seen newbies fail to fully insert the mag, or pick up and empty and load it along with live ammo. Under pressure you'll fall back on what you were trained to do, even if you only did it once! Military crash training has saved countless aircrew lives even though you can't practice real crashes, survivors tell the same tale -- fell back upon their training and it saved their life!

Before one graduates to reloading or shooting surplus guns/ammo the advice about hangfires must be fully understood, no doubt about it!

--wally.

 

[1911Tuner]

Hangfires

Unsettling, for sure. I've had a few that ranged from a half-second delay to
almost a minute. Now that one made me understand why the advice is
NOT to open the breech for 60 seconds...
Bad primer is the best guess.

Much more interesting is the cookoff...ASK me how I know.

 

[P95Carry]

Much more interesting is the cookoff...ASK me how I know.

HEY!!! Come on Tuner - you can't leave it there!!

So ....... what's the ''cook-off'' deal then eh? tell ole P95 ....

 

[1911Tuner]

Cookoffs and other Fun Stuff

Sometimes, a weapon that fires from a closed breech...M-14...M-16, etc.
can get so hot that the powder in a chambered round will ingite, sometimes more than once or twice, at the rate of about one round per second, and all you can do about it is drop the magazine, assuming that
you're aware that it's happening. That's why the maximum rate of fire for
those rifles is about 150-200 rounds per minute with a cyclic rate of 750.
Pushed much beyond that limit, and they'll start to cook'em off.

The lower figure is the sustained maximum rate, and the higher one is
absolute. Above those numbers can damage the weapons and cooking off
is pretty much a given. The figures for the M-16s with the 1 in 9 rifling
pitch may be lower. I quoted for the M-16A1 and XM177E2.

Keep a cool tool now...Hear?

 

[P95Carry]

Thx Tuner ... I in fact on re-reading, phrased my question incorrectly .. I am aware of the principles of cook-off as an entity - no probs there but .. from the way you put ''ASK me how I know'' ..... I felt there was a juicy anecdote lurking under the surface!! I wanted to free it!

Sorta ..... ''Tuner only just escapes a premature haircut''!!

 

[1911Tuner]

Toon Tales

P95 said:

I felt there was a juicy anecdote lurking under the surface!! I wanted to free it!

Oh...There is. It involved me and this other fool from Baton Rouge, a six-foot-4 Cajun who didn't care if the sun didn't rise. Saturday on the range...More ammo checked out than we could use...A wager was struck as to who could dump 500 rounds the quickest, and the racket drew the attention of one First Lieutenant and one badass Master Gunnery Sargeant. Can't rightly recall his name just now. Of course by the time they got to us, the cookin' had begun, and when we stood at port arms, both rifles fired a four-gun salute before we could get the mags out. As you can
well imagine, Master Gunny was not pleased. Many latrines were scrubbed and many potatoes peeled. It was actually a much more serious matter at the time than in retrospect.

HOOAH! God bless ya Chesty, wherever you are...

Tuner

 

[P95Carry]

Thank you my friend! ''HOOAH! ''. Knew you had something to tell!

I found my fertile imagination was producing a very ''colorful'' image of the whole event!! Guess you guys sure were NOT flavor of the month that day!

 

[1911Tuner]

Flavors

P95 said:

Guess you guys sure were NOT flavor of the month that day!

HUH! You'da thought we was chocolate covered with tutti-frutti
sprinkles the way Gunny chewed on our azzez. Took a month
for the marks to go away...

 

[krept]

Sounds like a hangfire might be a bad thing if your first instinct is tap-rack-bang?

 

[Highland Ranger]

Standing next to a guy at the range with a revolver. One round doesn't go bang - he just motors on through without delay.

Wonder what would have happened if the round went off when the chamber was no longer aligned with the barrell because he was firing his next shot. Kaboom I guess.

Pointed it out to him, he didn't seem impressed.

 

[Jim K]

I have tried to tell folks not to apply "immediate action" or "tap, rack" on the range, especially with dubious ammo. I have been flamed as "not understanding" that it is necessary to act at all times as if in deadly combat, and that there is an ABSOLUTE NEED to take out those paper targets with no delay.

Yes, hangfires do happen, and should not be confused with rounds "cooking off" in a hot chamber. In a handgun, the main danger of a hangfire is that the shooter will point the gun in an unsafe direction (or even look down the barrel!) to see why the round didn't fire. But immediate action can eject the round and have it go off in the action of the gun or in the air, with potentially dangerous results.

I know of a fellow whose nice Remington 760 was ruined when a round of surplus .30-'06 went off in the action after being extracted because it did not fire.

Jim

 

[1911Tuner]

Tap/Rack/Kaboom

Jim said:

I have tried to tell folks not to apply "immediate action" or "tap, rack" on the range, especially with dubious ammo.
-----------------------------

Amen and AMEN! I wondered if I was the only one who could see the
king's new clothes! Practice clearance drills with random magazines
loaded with Ball and Dummy and good quality live ammo.

Highland Ranger...Just so happens that I almost had that happen once.

A friend who I don't shoot with any more...long story...had just gotten
himself a new progressive loader...been a few years. He had loaded
up a 200 round lot of .357 Magnum ammo with a heavy dose of 296
and 125 grain hollowpoints. He pulled the trigger and the L-frame went
"click"...or so he thought. I heard the primer fire, and yelled at him to stop as the cylinder was indexing. We swung it out, and the base of the bullet
was inside the forcing cone just far enough to let the cylinder turn.

When we got back here to punch the bullet out, we unloaded the rest of
that lot. He had fired about 20 rounds...and found empty cases about 1 round in 10.

He and I have always attributed that to an act of God, since I had headphones on, and I don't hear very well anyway. That I heard the
primer's "plunk" was nothing short of a miracle.

As to why I don't shoot with him any more...He's got a bad habit of pointing a gun at parts of my body. The same day that the misfire happened, he had covered me twice...and that was his third time in all. He's also shot himself. I figgered that he'd had all the chances to shoot me that he was gonna get.

Whew! Sometimes it causes me to tremble...

 

[twoblink]

The only one in my life was shooting my friend's 380...

It had been a gun that belonged to his dad, one that his dad used as the "bedroom" gun..

His dad rotated the loaded magazine every week, but one thing he didn't rotate was the round in the chamber...

So with the gun at the range, I pulled it out and checked it (of course) and found a round in the chamber.. popped it out, it looked a bit weathered..

shoved it back in, click...1..2... BANG! Scared the daylights out of me.. Good thing I still had it pointed down range!!

lesson to be learned... rotate the round too!!