Am I overthinking this?

[Flipper Dude]

I‘ve never been one to worry at all, but don’t wanna be irresponsible. I have an elephant Safari coming up 37 days out. Last practice session with my Enfield 404 I had a Hornady round fail to fire. Primer appeared to be sufficiently dented. Never had a fail to fire before or after. Tried the round several times over the course of the session with same result. Can’t imagine a worse outcome on an elephant hunt in a tight moment than a loud “click“. Also had two Hornady rounds fail to fire in a practice session with my Ruger 9.3 x 62. All others fired with no issues. Weak spring is a known issue with the Ruger, so I dropped it off for replacement on the way home. I’ve shot 100s of rounds through the Enfield with the one failure only. That said, I don’t have any reason to think that the Enfield spring is not still the original and over 100 years old.

I’m not getting a warm fuzzy here. What say yee?

 

[AimSmall]

Not much to overthink. You must have confidence in your DG rifle. Is another rifle available to test that round?

 

[Flipper Dude]

I don’t know anyone with a 404J. Forgot to mention that I do not hunt with the Hornady ammo. Practice only. Not sure that makes a difference. I did just order a Wolf spring after posting. Any info. on their products? Their website stated original Enfield spring was 16#. Ordered 24# replacement spring. They offered up to 27#. Any issues with that?

 

[JimP]

If you shoot enough you will find that any ammo can have a miss fire. Checking the spring and even the headspace is two things that can be done. One the headspace the firing pin may just be pushing the cartridge further into the chamber to not fire, we are talking just fractions here as far as movement.

This is also where a person needs to practice getting another round chambered as fast as one can possible if something like this happens.

 

[mdwest]

Put 40 more rounds through the rifle before you go on your hunt. Use both the hornday practice ammo and the ammo you intend on hunting with.

If you have no more FTF's, chances are very high that the problem was with the round, and not the rifle.. If you have another FTF with the hornady.. its possible you have a box(es) of ammo from a bad lot where there are some bad primers.. or its possible you have a rifle problem... If you have another FTF with a one of your hunting rounds.. it is highly likely you have a rifle problem..

Wolf springs are excellent.. Although I dont know that I'd go switching out rifle parts with just 37 days to go unless I 100% knew the problem was the rifle.. If you do swap out the spring, youre still going to need to go through the drill described above to know that your gun and ammo combo are absolutely reliable..

 

[Ontario Hunter]

My WWII Springfield was rarely also inexplicably misfiring the first trip to Africa 2019. Turned out to be accumulated crud in the firing pin housing. I used a wire small caliber brush and gun bore solvent to clean it out. I've been told brake cleaner solvent works excellent.

 

[mdwest]

Turned out to be accumulated crud in the firing pin housing. I used a wire small caliber brush and gun bore solvent to clean it out.

This would probably be my 1st step...

Strip the rifle down to the springs.. and clean the hell out of everything.. closely inspect every part.. look for any signs of corrosion, breakage, deformity, etc.. Once satisfied that everything is good to go, oil it up and put some rounds down range and see how it does..

If something is overly corroded, broken, deformed, etc.. then replace that part.. oil it up.. and put some rounds down range and see how it does..

 

[DSchmidt]

My WWII Springfield was rarely also inexplicably misfiring the first trip to Africa 2019. Turned out to be accumulated crud in the firing pin housing. I used a wire small caliber brush and gun bore solvent to clean it out. I've been told brake cleaner solvent works excellent.

+1 for the brake cleaner. Works wonders on built up carbon.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

My WWII Springfield was rarely also inexplicably misfiring the first trip to Africa 2019. Turned out to be accumulated crud in the firing pin housing. I used a wire small caliber brush and gun bore solvent to clean it out. I've been told brake cleaner solvent works excellent.

I think what was happening is the buildup of carbon on the walls at the end of the striker chamber was causing the spring to squeeze against the firing pin when fired. Not sure if that was the problem, but I haven't had a single misfire through hundreds of rounds after cleaning it.

 

[Dewald]

Please put a photo of that primer on here, as well as a photo from a spent primer of one of the rounds that fired first time around. As @mdwest mentioned Wolf springs are great. I wouldn’t go to heavy with the spring though as you can risk piercing the primer.

 

[Flipper Dude]

Will do. It’ll be next week though. Out of town for the weekend. Officiating the marriage of youngest daughter in Austin

 

[Doug Hamilton]

I‘ve never been one to worry at all, but don’t wanna be irresponsible. I have an elephant Safari coming up 37 days out. Last practice session with my Enfield 404 I had a Hornady round fail to fire. Primer appeared to be sufficiently dented. Never had a fail to fire before or after. Tried the round several times over the course of the session with same result. Can’t imagine a worse outcome on an elephant hunt in a tight moment than a loud “click“. Also had two Hornady rounds fail to fire in a practice session with my Ruger 9.3 x 62. All others fired with no issues. Weak spring is a known issue with the Ruger, so I dropped it off for replacement on the way home. I’ve shot 100s of rounds through the Enfield with the one failure only. That said, I don’t have any reason to think that the Enfield spring is not still the original and over 100 years old.

I’m not getting a warm fuzzy here. What say yee?

Anything made by humans can fail. That includes primers. One time I had a loaded Norma round fail to fire. It never happened again with that box or any rounds after that.
I like the idea of shooting a couple of boxes ammo and see if it happens again. Others here have very good ideas on how to proceed if it turns out to be a firearm problem.

 

[fourfive8]

First thing... Take the bolt apart and clean all the parts with solvent including the interior of the bolt barrel. Lube the internals with powdered graphite only. Lube the rear edges of the lugs with a small dab of grease. Also, changing the main firing pin spring can't hurt and the smith should check for correct firing pin protrusion after replacing the spring.

The other bugger is there is always a possibility the ammo had some variability in headspace dimension. The 404 has very limited positive headspace control with the long sloping shoulder. If you had a minimum-maximum situation between the headspace in your gun and a particular round, the firing pin strike force may have been partially absorbed by the loose headspace coupled with the necessary clearance in the extractor purchase of the rim.

But I hear ya, you are not overthinking it! Loss of confidence in a DG rifle can be haunting.

 

[mikecatt13]

I don’t know anyone with a 404J. Forgot to mention that I do not hunt with the Hornady ammo. Practice only. Not sure that makes a difference. I did just order a Wolf spring after posting. Any info. on their products? Their website stated original Enfield spring was 16#. Ordered 24# replacement spring. They offered up to 27#. Any issues with that?

Wolf springs are well known to be great. I've used them for all types of competition guns and magazines.

I think the cleaning advice is along the right track but also think having the firing pin spring properly replaced and sufficiently testing is the route I'd go in addition.

I disagree with "all ammo will eventually have a failure", especially with certain brands. I've fired hundred of thousands of rounds and witnessed million fired. Some brands I've never seen fail and others with regularity. Hornady failing to FIRE (yes, I'm aware of the non bonded DGX issues), would be cause to look into a gun related issue for me.

The theory that something is weak or dirty and "harder" primers may be showing the start of an issue sounds plausible, and we all know when that spring will finally get too weak to fire at all, or that piece of carbon will break loose and jam the firing pin...12 yards from an elephant

Hope you get it figured out!

 

[Philip Glass]

I‘ve never been one to worry at all, but don’t wanna be irresponsible. I have an elephant Safari coming up 37 days out. Last practice session with my Enfield 404 I had a Hornady round fail to fire. Primer appeared to be sufficiently dented. Never had a fail to fire before or after. Tried the round several times over the course of the session with same result. Can’t imagine a worse outcome on an elephant hunt in a tight moment than a loud “click“. Also had two Hornady rounds fail to fire in a practice session with my Ruger 9.3 x 62. All others fired with no issues. Weak spring is a known issue with the Ruger, so I dropped it off for replacement on the way home. I’ve shot 100s of rounds through the Enfield with the one failure only. That said, I don’t have any reason to think that the Enfield spring is not still the original and over 100 years old.

I’m not getting a warm fuzzy here. What say yee?

Definitely go to the smith before a DG hunt if there is any question.

 

[Dinsdale]

Fwiw I have a 375 that has a bunch of trips behind it including dg a couple times.

Also have some factory Remington safari a- frames where 8 out of 20 in a box never went bang. Never had a custom made load or my own loads fail ever. Full dent in primers too.

I'm super confident in the rifle, not so much on factory ammo.

 

[Flipper Dude]

Called John La Sala who loads my safari ammo to get another 40 rounds on the way. Said he had just got off the phone with a guy that had a FTF on 3 of the first 5 rounds out of a box of Hornady ammo. IDK if it was rifle or ammo error. Guess it’s not as uncommon as I thought. All of the ammo John ever put together for me has gone bang and accurately as well.

 

[fourfive8]

Don’t assume your FTF can only be caused by the ammo. If your rifle’s headspace control is on the long side coupled with ammo on the short side the firing pin strike
force is going to be compromised. If your firing pin spring is a tad weak the strike force can be compromised. If the firing pin protrusion is insufficient the strike force effectiveness can be compromised. If the firing pin and spring movement is impeded by years of accumulated oil soaked crud within the bolt body the strike force can be compromised. Add all those possibilities to the less than 100% positive headspace control of the 404 cartridge shoulder design to begin with aaaand…. there are obviously more than a few combinations of possibilities for the real cause(s). IMO, get it to a good, experienced gunsmith who knows Enfield bolt actions and explain, “this is a DG rifle that needs to be 100% reliable”.

 

[Aussie_Hunter]

Put 40 more rounds through the rifle before you go on your hunt. Use both the hornday practice ammo and the ammo you intend on hunting with.

If you have no more FTF's, chances are very high that the problem was with the round, and not the rifle.. If you have another FTF with the hornady.. its possible you have a box(es) of ammo from a bad lot where there are some bad primers.. or its possible you have a rifle problem... If you have another FTF with a one of your hunting rounds.. it is highly likely you have a rifle problem..

Wolf springs are excellent.. Although I dont know that I'd go switching out rifle parts with just 37 days to go unless I 100% knew the problem was the rifle.. If you do swap out the spring, youre still going to need to go through the drill described above to know that your gun and ammo combo are absolutely reliable..

This is solid advice

 

[Luvthunt]

Nothing worse then an intermittent issue.