Duds...

[bltdonahue]

Several years back, I bought 450,000,000,000 rounds of 5.45x39, because it was super cheap.

I'm glad I did. It's no longer super cheap.

Recently, I cracked open another 1,080 round tin to feed the AK-74. Prior to this case, I'd had one dud in about 6,000 rounds. This is from former east-bloc military surplus (Bulgarian, specifically). For surplus ammo, one dud in 6,000 is superb.

This latest 1,080 tin has had 4 duds in about 500 rounds.

That concerns me.

The primer strikes have all been GOOD. I guess this tin may have been compromised somehow. I don't know. I'm not super concerned, as the AK-74 is just a practice tool for me, and in no way an important weapon in an important role.

That said, after this string of duds, I've been thinking about all the duds I've ever had.

I'll leave out .22 LR here, because I've probably had about 200 of them not fire on the first strike, and maybe 100 of those not fire on the second strike. It's just a 'feature' of .22 LR rimfire that their primers are less reliable...and some .22 LR firearms have less than reliable strikers/pins.

Anyhow, digging through my memory, I've had the following duds:

-A handful of ancient Remington 12 gauge ammo. We're talking like mid 1950s era stuff. Not stored in any sort of protection other than under a roof, and they were paper/cardboard, not plastic. No surprises there.
-A batch of 7.62x54R that looked like it was stored at the bottom of the Great Salt Lake, given the corrosion on them. No surprises there. Except it was fun that about 10% of the rounds had a 3+ second hang-fire. Crikey.
-A couple of .32 S&W that were older than my grampa. No surprises there.

And the surprising one:
-A Remington UMC 9mm target round. Struck hard. Total dud.

That's been the only modern, commercially sold round I've ever had fail to light off due to a problem with the round.

Anyhow. That's all. Discuss, share stories!

[MarshallDodge]

Once in a while I will get a dud when I have not seated a primer correctly. Maybe 1 in 5000.

I loaded some 223 last year that I had a couple duds in. The brass had been cleaned in a liquid solution and while I thought it was dry, it must of had a little moisture in it.

I have seen a lot of 7.62x39 duds but I don't ever recall having seen a dud in my spam can 5.45 ammo, limited experience however at maybe 1500 rounds.

Years ago a friend and I gotten big into varmint hunting. We both spent a bunch of time at the range tuning our guns and loads. Shooters would leave all kinds of duds laying on the ground from their rifles, mostly 8mm Mauser and 30-06. The target backers at 100 yards were basically rubber conveyor strips hung between two 2x4's and had a bunch of holes in them. We would take the dud ammo and put it bullet first into these holes, with the primers facing the firing line. The challenge was to hit the primer and make the dud go off. Many of them did and the surprising part is that the bullet and splayed case would stay in the rubber backer.

[dewittdj]

I've experienced my highest number of duds with the 7.62X39 mm as well (discounting .22LR). Turns out the problem was a bunch of them had recessed primers (1/8"). Wolf.

I've had a number of problems with Winchester white box 100 round count 9mm. Bullets seated backwards, bullets seated 1/2 down into the case, no primers, no powder, no bullet, but always at least 100 cases, to the point that I refuse to buy Winchester ammo any more.

[dewittdj]

... Many of them did and the surprising part is that the bullet and splayed case would stay in the rubber backer.

That just goes to show that the chemical reaction caused by the primer firing into the powder travels at a velocity much faster than the striking round, causing the case to explode under the high pressure gas before the bullet can knock the stuck bullet out of the rubber. A crude but analogous example of applique armor. The force of the exploding armor deflects the round attempting to penetrate it.

[FrankenHollow]

I had the occasional reject cartridge with Turkish 8x57mm ammo. ...Be it bad primers, moisture getting into the powder through cracked necks, or oily powder.

With Wolf 7.62x39mm, I ran into a failure to fire in 500-1,000 rounds, with the early production ammo. As it became more "standard", stocked everywhere, more commercialized, lower quality, and more watered down, that failure rate kept climbing until it was about 1 failure per 150-200 rounds.
--In contrast, I NEVER had a failure of any kind with the true Russian surplus ammo that we were able to get in the early- and mid-'90s. (Referred to as "Gulag ammo" in my family. ) That stuff was fantastic. It smelled like a broken truck stop toilet, but ran GREAT and was very consistent.


Since then, I've had two failures of Winchester .30-30 factory ammo. It was of recent production (at the time), but not purchased by me. I suspect that storage conditions may have been a wooden box in the uncovered bed of the original purchaser's truck.... (seriously - the guy was a moron and that's how he stored the rest of his ammo, so it's not difficult to connect some dots and make assumptions...).

I have had multiple failures of Federal .243 Win, .270 Win, and 8x57mm. --Not just failures to fire, but truly dangerous head space issues.

And, on the reloading side, I had a bunch of .243 Win hang-fire on me, a few years ago. It was, however, loaded in 1962 and stored in a garage for 40+ years.
I also had some .380 Auto ammo given to me by my father, because he decided not to shoot reloads in his .380s any more. The load was safe and sane, so I tried it in my .380s, only to find that none of the primers were seated properly. Depending upon the pistol in question, it took 3 to 10(!) strikes to set the primers off.



....I don't think I've ever had a failure to fire with 7.62x54R, but I have had issues with factory ammo piercing primers. Surplus ammo and reloads have never done it, but several low grade brands of factory ammo have had 50% to 90% of the primers pierce. "Hot Shots" brand was the worst, with 18 of 20 primers piercing in my M38 or my brother's M44.

[James]

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