Thread: Why we have miss-fires

Yeah, if you want to see if you have a flinch a misfire will do it...

I am not sure if the anvil is just to direct flame or whether it is for the compound to be hit against...either way it's probably recommended to have one. Load it in a case and then bang it off with the muzzle in the neck of a 2 litre plastic coke bottle or similar. (Soft pop, not loud at all.) In the interest of science.

In the last twenty years I think the only misfire I could blame on the manufacturer was when I found there was no compound in the primer at all. Otherwise they are all my fault - a handful one day which I deduced were from oversized brass, combined with the primers not seated deep enough, with a rifle that gives light strikes. And more recently when shooting ammo with bullet lube which had leaked through the powder and primers over time.

Primers are actually pretty robust and reliable. I am a great one for disassembling cartridges and reusing components. I think I have loaded and unloaded some primers three times and they all still go bang.

I got some primers from a friend that were all still in CCI and Federal boxes from the 1960's and they all work perfectly fifty years later.