bad start to the day...

[Labrat198]

Using CCI450 primer, H335 powder in 4th fired Hornady case.

5th Shot of the day was a squib. Hammer fell, felt like a dry fire. Pulled the charging hammer back and unburnt powder fell everywhere. Found the bullet jammed about a 1/8 inch down the pipe. Solid primer strike, soot all over the case so I assume the primer went off and gave just enough oomph to push the bullet out but did not ignite the powder.

anyone experienced this before?

Was able to knock the bullet out and clean most of the power out of the chamber. Had about 100 rounds down the pipe the rest of the day with zero issues. Same primer lot, powder, and case fire count.

[NugginFutz]

Labrat - never in my experience has that happened to me. I've had a squib with a primer that fired on an otherwise empty case (no charge), but have not had one where the powder simply failed to ignite. It takes quite a bit of contamination to cause smokeless powder to become that inert. What I find especially curious, is that you had four shots, prior to the squib, that ostensibly fired without issue.

The very first thing I would do is discard that powder. I wouldn't trust it to be consistent, and I would certainly hate to see it behave in the opposite fashion, meaning a faster than normal burn.

Second, I would examine my reloading bench and the surrounding area to ensure:
a) Cleanliness
b) Neat and orderly
c) Free from foreign materials, lubricants and solvents, such as WD40, acetone, alcohol, etc.
d) powder is stored in cool dry environment, with all lids tightly sealed.

Third, I would review my reloading practices. My routine begins with putting everything away that is not related to the current cartridge / load. (Powders, primers, etc. Everything.) When I begin, there is only one powder on the bench, one type of primer, and one lot of a specific bullet, and one lot of cases. Each and every case is hand primed (unless I am using the progressive), primers are inspected to ensure they are fully seated (no proud primers), and every charge is checked to ensure no double charge or empty case gets a bullet seated. Lastly, I always put any powder left over in the measure back into the canister (I learned that the hard way, when I had to toss about 500 grains of powder I couldn't positively identify).

Other than that, lab rat, I have nothing else to offer. I am terribly thankful you didn't have anything worse than that happen.

[lazyengineer]

I've had this happen. Reloading 5.56 ammo using an excessively light charge of H335, and a non-magnum primer. An experimental load using 40 gr 223 bullets and extremely light charges for a no-recoil 3-gun load; because I got the components for darned near free, and was curious if: hmmm... can I game this? Turns out, didn't really work, as a light charge of military ball powder with a standard primer, doesn't build enough pressure and energy to light. Fixed by switching to a magnum primer, and eventually also upped my charge, but didn't need to once I switched to CCI41's.

My best guess is you have a light load, either by design, or maybe that round got a light charge somehow. What was your target charge of the H335? Alternatively, how do you prepare your brass - wet tumble? Sure it was fully dry?

For what it's worth, H335 is OK, but for ball powder I tend to prefer TAC, and really, I tend to prefer 8208 over both for most things. I'm also running CFE223 a lot more now; though I'm not sure if it's the best Grendel powder, since in my experience it runs best at high pressure, which isn't the life of the Grendel. But I'm still experimenting and learning on all of this myself.

I also am sitting on a batch of foreign primers, that all hangfire. There's literally a 1/10th to 1/4th second ignition delay when I run that batch. Tried numerous loads, and numerous runs, and they do it every time. Manufacturer replaced them, but I still have the bad one, that I'm not sure how to even get rid of!

[snarkscarbine]

A short case could also have this effect if the shoulder was bumped too far. Ran into that when fireforming dasher brass.

[Labrat198]

My reloading area is in my basement, which keeps the dehumidifier busy but is also the coolest and driest part of the house. I remove old primer, ultrasonic clean, rinse and dry in the oven at a low heat on an old cookie tray, just over 200F. Once they cool they go into a old ammo can until I am ready to resize, prime and load. Resizing lube is Hornady One Shot, which is laid out on a flat surface and sprayed. I don't go to any extra effort to make sure the inside of the neck is coated, or clean once the resizing in finished so that is a possible contaminant. I will give the mouth a turn with a deburring tool, which is done with the case upside down so filings fall away and not into the case. Everything is primed by hand. Powder is charged with Hornadys lock and load auto charge scale with whatever jug of powder I am using sitting next to it, all other powders are put away. This particular 1 Lbs bottle was 95% used up by the time I finished reloading that day, so tossing it isn't a big loss. All other bullets reloaded that day have been shot with zero issues.

I was running some ladders and this occurred during the lowest powder charge stage. Noslers website listed 28.5 as max so I started a 25.8 and worked my way up in .3 grain intervals. I am thinking the light load theory could be the cause.

I am also testing TAC and 8208.

I knew I had one in the chamber so held it on target for at least 5 seconds before extracting just in case of hang fire. I do have some CCI41's but have way more CCI450's.