Why oh why do I reload some days?

[Rez Exelon]

Couple years ago when I was buying every rifle I ran into with a caliber starting with a "4" I picked up a super cool Ruger No 1 for an absolute sweetheart deal. Like, enough of a deal I thought the Effa Bee Eyes might come tell me I robbed the dude, but I just paid what he asked. Anyways, I was excited and whipped up 20 rounds for it. Only problem came when I went to the range to test, and got a "click" instead of the resounding "boom" of a 416 Rem going off.

Gave it second love tap of the trigger annnnd "click" again. Hrmmmm. Moved to the next round.... "click". After saying some choice words and muttering under my breath about not bringing factory rounds to try in case this happened, I went home and the project got tabled for something like the last two years because life happens and it wasn't high priority.

The last two days I've been running on a bit of a motivation bender and got a lot of my piles of odd brass sorted, bench cleaned, and started looking at old projects. And there was the box of rounds waiting to be disassembled and dealt with.

Now, in the meantime (like the day I got home from the range) I did some investigating as to what could be the cause of my FTF. The top culprits were maybe weak firing pin spring, and the fact that I used CCI250's which are a rather hard primer cup. So my thought was before ordering springs in what I think was a perfectly working rifle when I got it, I had decided to rebuild the rounds with different primers. And today was the day.

But life being cruel, I came upon a twist. I pulled the bullets, emptied the powder, and was staring at a row of primed and empty cases and I thought "hrmmmm....I wonder if I try to fire some". And wouldn't you know, EVERY DUMB ONE WENT OFF.

So color me frustrated. Why on earth would they not fire two years ago at the range (with atmospherics almost the same as my garage was today IIRC) but they would light off now? I dunno. I decided to just re-prep the brass, and do 10 with fresh CCI250's and 10 with Federal GM215Ms. I guess maybe I'll know more when I get to test those (and have some factory loads on hand this time).

 

[Nhoro]

Maybe your firing pin has some grease or gunk in the mechanics. Maybe also a cold day at the range. Then a couple of years in warm dry conditions allowed the pin to free up or whatever was blocking it came loose? I would clean the firing pin and spring and the hole that it sits in thoroughly, oil and check.

 

[Grumpy gumpy]

Maybe your firing pin has some grease or gunk in the mechanics. Maybe also a cold day at the range. Then a couple of years in warm dry conditions allowed the pin to free up or whatever was blocking it came loose? I would clean the firing pin and spring and the hole that it sits in thoroughly, oil and check.

This^^^
Gumpy

 

[Ze209]

Sounds like classic Ruger No.1 CCI 250 combo gremlins those magnum primers are notoriously hard thick cupped, and the No. 1's hammer spring firing pin setup is on the lighter side for big bores like the 416 Rem Mag. Back then, your handloads probably had the primers seated a hair high or inconsistent, or the brass wasn't fully resized, so the case head wasn't fully supported against the breech face firing pin energy gets wasted shoving the whole round forward instead of denting the primer hard enough. That explains the consistent clicks at the range.
Two years later in the garage? Primers aged a tiny bit compound settles migrates slightly, or more likely the cases relaxed or you bumped them around enough that they seated fully when you tried 'em dry. They went bang because now the primer was properly backed up.

 

[Rez Exelon]

Sounds like classic Ruger No.1 CCI 250 combo gremlins those magnum primers are notoriously hard thick cupped, and the No. 1's hammer spring firing pin setup is on the lighter side for big bores like the 416 Rem Mag. Back then, your handloads probably had the primers seated a hair high or inconsistent, or the brass wasn't fully resized, so the case head wasn't fully supported against the breech face firing pin energy gets wasted shoving the whole round forward instead of denting the primer hard enough. That explains the consistent clicks at the range.
Two years later in the garage? Primers aged a tiny bit compound settles migrates slightly, or more likely the cases relaxed or you bumped them around enough that they seated fully when you tried 'em dry. They went bang because now the primer was properly backed up.

I'm going to wind up testing this....I remade the batch of them, this time with 10 using fresh CCI250's and 10 using Federal GM215Ms. If I get to the range and the CCI's don't go off but the Federals do, it'll be a fairly solid bit of data methinks.

 

[AimSmall]

Long ago, had a #1 that was picky about brand of brass. It also headspaced off the belt.

Does not explain your current data set....

 

[Ontario Hunter]

How did the primer dents compare between firing range duds and garage denotinations?

 

[Rez Exelon]

How did the primer dents compare between firing range duds and garage denotinations?

No telling for sure --- I didn't think to take a pic of the originals to compare them. Current ones looked solid at least (which makes since considering they did go off )