Failure to Fire Issue

Hakaman · Post by **Hakaman** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 4:03 pm

My S&W 686 is one of my favorite guns, but lately was having some failure to fire issues. This past saturday I was shooting some 357 mag rounds that I loaded. One out of the 50 rounds failed to fire, and upon inspection I found a light primer strike. On other occasions I have had as many as 5 rounds out of 50 failing to fire. All these rounds have been my reloads. I haven't shot any factory loads thru it to see if they would fail. This revolver has had a trigger job done to it by a gun smith, but he has moved a distance away and is hard to meet up with. The strain screw was loose some time back and was causing even more of this same problem. Any suggestions to help this situation?
haka

Post by **Bullseye** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 5:32 pm

There's a few areas to look at here, one would be the actions for grit intrusion slowing down the internal components through friction and causing the light strikes. Another would be the springs for loss of tension possibly related to the trigger job. Some revolver smiths lessen the mainspring as part of the trigger reduction process. Springs can lose tension over time making the mainspring reduction technique a risky process for reliability in a revolver trigger job. If cleaning doesn't clear up the light strikes then replacing the mainspring with a new full tension one would be a prudent step or perhaps having the smith revisit his trigger work to check for reliability.

R,
Bullseye

blue68f100 · Post by **blue68f100** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 8:12 pm

I do not know who's primers your using in your reloads but switching to Federal may help, they have the softest caps of all mfg.

bearandoldman · Post by **bearandoldman** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 11:47 pm

blue68f100 wrote:I do not know who's primers your using in your reloads but switching to Federal may help, they have the softest caps of all mfg.

I was going to suggest the same thing that the problem may be in the primers but was not sure if Federals were the softest. Have heard of a lot of bullseye shooter with custom Smiths with altered triggers and that is what they have to use to get the gun to go BANG consistently. Have shot a couple of those guns and they do have a geat double action triggger.

Hakaman · Post by **Hakaman** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 6:46 pm

I probably should talk to the gunsmith that did the trigger job. I also was
thinking of giving it a good clean up and inspection. I don't have much experience
with revolvers inre of cleaning, and suggestions? Would a Wolf mainspring purchase be a good idea?

http://www.gunsprings.com/index.cfm?pag ... D=3&mID=58

btw, I'm using winchester primers.

haka

Post by **Bullseye** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 7:35 pm

First, I'm really not a big fan of working on revolvers. Everybody has their specialties and mine is not with revolvers. If you're not experienced with disassembly then taking it back to the original smith who did the trigger job is a good option. That being said I do work on them, just not my top preference.

S&W revolvers need care when disassembling, having the right tools and know how is part of it. Sideplate screws must be carefully returned to their original places and the cover plate should be indirectly tapped off not pried from the frame. You would need a good set of gunsmith screwdrivers to prevent damage to the screw slots. Randomly replacing the mainspring is probably not the best solution in this case,more than likely some dirt or grit is interfering with the action. If you decide to take it apart use a digital camera to document where everything goes, otherwise you could have issues with how things go back into the frame.

R,
Bullseye

Hakaman · Post by **Hakaman** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 10:50 pm

Thanks for the advice, especially the camera part. I have had the screws out and the cover plate off before, but that is as far as I have went. I'll have to think about how I want to approach this.
thanks, haka

Hakaman · Post by **Hakaman** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 11:56 pm

I haven't cleaned the revolver yet, but I did check out the primer strikes on
the spent brass that included the failure. All the indentations were plenty deep
and consistent, and what I would consider the appearance of of "fine shooting gun".
The failure to fire round was quite different then the rest.
It being a visible "light strike". I suspect this is and indication that something
is going on every once in a while, consistent with dirty/gritty contaminates.
When I put the round back in the cylinder for a second firing try, it works fine.
It's tolerable right now, but the gun needs a professional cleaning.
haka

Post by **Bullseye** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 8:43 am

How do the individual cylinders look?

R,
Bullseye

blue68f100 · Post by **blue68f100** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 8:53 am

When I put the round back in the cylinder for a second firing try, it works fine.

This is normally a indication of a primer not being set properly. The 1st hit seats the primer the rest of the way, and the 2nd time it goes off. If the anvil is not supported on the bottom, primers will not go off. On heavy hammer sprung guns they have enough power to do it in 1 strike. I see this quite a bit on persons starting out with progressive presses and beginners to the world of reloading.

Hakaman · Post by **Hakaman** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 5:46 pm

How do the individual cylinders look?

This is normally a indication of a primer not being set properly. The 1st hit seats the primer the rest of the way, and the 2nd time it goes off. If the anvil is not supported on the bottom, primers will not go off. On heavy hammer sprung guns they have enough power to do it in 1 strike. I see this quite a bit on persons starting out with progressive presses and beginners to the world of reloading.

I did some brief maintenance on the revolver and found the cylinders to be very clean. I re-sized a piece of .357 mag brass and slid it in and out of each cylinder without any hangups whatsoever. Basically, smooth as glass. I also took the firing pin out and it also was very clean and easily movable, without any hitches present. I did notice a slight gap, 1/64" between the primed head of the brass and the firing pin bushing. I am sure this is normal. Maybe the concussion of firing backs the next found out of the cylinder slightly? I can't say I'm an experienced reloader, but I haven't had a FTF in any of my other firearms. I have loaded about 10,000 rounds to date, and the only problems I have had are with the revolver. I have had some failures with my Ruger BH 45, but that was from dirty cylinder(like BE suggested). I have some store bought 357's I am going to shoot next time out to see what happens then, and I'll check the primer strikes on them too.

bgreenea3 · Post by **bgreenea3** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 6:10 pm

haka, what you are explaining souds a lot like a hard primer. I've had sime lots that were harder than others or that took a little more motivation to go off.... a second strike firing isn't that uncommon....

we had a couple cases of 9mm ammo when I was in the academy that had a lot of fail to fires in the glock 17s we were using, but fired fine in the instructors sig p226's. we got really good at imediate action drills (tap rack bang). you can think of it as a "ball and dummy" excercise if you want, and see if you are anticipating the recoil......

Post by **Bullseye** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 6:40 pm

After all the responses I'm siding with Bgreena, sounds like it could have been a defective primer.

R,
Bullseye

blue68f100 · Post by **blue68f100** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 7:07 pm

Not defective if it goes off on the second try. Were talking about reloads, not factory ammo.

Either not enough hammer, or was not seated fully. I've loaded over 20k rounds with in the last 3 yrs. I still get one in 5000 that will not go off on the first try. But this has been with Wolf primers which have a history of being hard, maybe more than CCI's. If your going with light hammer springs use Federal Primers.

Hakaman · Post by **Hakaman** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 7:23 pm

haka, what you are explaining souds a lot like a hard primer. I've had sime lots that were harder than others or that took a little more motivation to go off.... a second strike firing isn't that uncommon....

After all the responses I'm siding with Bgreena, sounds like it could have been a defective primer.

Either not enough hammer, or was not seated fully.

Those sound like the best answers because the primer strikes of the other 49 primers are as solid as you could want. I held my finger over the firing pin while test firing and it gave a pretty good poke (not that that means too much). The bottom line is that I think the revolver is functioning properly, and reminds us to keep a well cleaned firearm!
Haka