Apple a Day
Member
... 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.
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.
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