Thread: Firing pin striking primer when chambering

As the title says, I chambered a round the other day in my Ruger SR556 and when I ejected it I noticed that the primer had what looked like a firing pin strike on it? It's only very faint, but I haven't been able to test it again since I'm not going to chamber a round in the middle of Auckland if it could potentially slam fire (suppressors aren't that good).

Possible issues?
Too much oil/lube on the firing pin?

I've also noticed that soft point rounds get really dinged up on the tip when chambering so is this going to affect accuracy of my goat rounds?

Ammo is PPU 55gr soft points (soft primer?)

Cheers

Its normal. Floating firing pin.

Yep, inertia takes over after BCG is home. Firing pin keeps moving. I found any large lead tip gets a bit munted, PPU & PMC do the same in mine.

Test it at the range to see if the munted tips make a difference.

Carefully single load a few for a group then once its cooled try the same from the mag

If shooting goats at very long range the munted point may affect accuracy a little probable not enough to miss a goat it could alter the B C a little,
just swap to HP or plastic tipped bullets, if you are worried do some range testing to see what if any affect there is.

Yep happens in all AR15's that i've seen. Primer mark is one of the reasons why 5.56 ammo have hard primers, would be interested to see if pistol primers would go off if used

I just thought that the lead tip being deformed to one side might throw off the balance of the rotation blah blah blah. Guess I'll behave to give it a try when I get to the range.

Yep both of your issues are normal AR15 functioning.
Damaged soft points look bad but don't seem to affect accuracy much, at least for hunting use.

Niether points raised are issues. I run soft point projectiles exclusively for hunting and never have problems. The primer mark is normal, and the BCG is designed to not allow the firing pin to protrude enough to cause a slam fire as the bolt is camming into battery. Slam fires are extremely rare in AR15's. I personally know of one which totalled the upper receiver, but it was due to primers not being seated properly.

I used to run Hornady interlocks (good bullets) and as the were seated out a fair way the tips would get flattened after a few trips in the magazine. I tested them on the range and it made no discernable change to accuracy at 100m but at 500 the badly flattened ones inmpacted low enough to miss a large gong underneath everytime.

Sent from my SM-G800Y using Tapatalk

Well covered above, both normal issues.

On the munted soft points, I've experimented by purposely damaging .223 ammo and shooting it at 200m. It had minimal effect on accuracy, not enough to worry about for hunting, i.e. still easily got 3" groups using factory ammo, all deformed from mild to extreme.

I wouldn't do it to my long range ammo on purpose, but for normal .223 hunting ranges its not an issue.

Kj

Cheers for the information and replies guys.

The dented tip won't hurt your accuracy. But if you reload just try a slight scratch to the base of a bullet head and see what happens.
Now this really will affect accuracy.