Factory Ammo Popped Primer Follow Up

[PeteS]

So I posted back in June/July, check that post to see the long story, but it was about a issue I was having with Factory Hornady 108 ELDM and having some Popped Primers in my Savage Axis ll in 6ARC. What I noticed is there is 2 different "Types" of factory ammo 1 with Silver primers that are "softer" and were the ones Poppin and the Gold primers that are "harder" and I never popped those. After contacting Hornady and them basically saying it was a Carbon Ring cause'n over pressure...even though I told them my rifle was clean and even sent them borescope pics of a clean chamber and bore. Hornady said it had to be the rifle and not their ammo. I sent what they said and everything to Wade over at Ally Munitions/Texas Predator Hunting and we came to the conclusion that after seeing that the Savage barrels rifling was Garbage, even though the accuracy was great, that mabye the chamber was cut like Garbage and not to spec which was cause'n the Ammo to start out at max pressure for the get go. The crazy thing is Hornady loads the Factory ammo to spec of AR's which is lower PSI then what can be handloaded to bolt action specs. So I decided instead of contacting Savage, cause I changed Bolt Handles to a Glades Armory one and them sayin somethin "I did" causing the problem, and sellin it to give somebody else the headache. I just rebarreled it. I switched it to a E.R.Shaw 26inch 1.0 Bull Barrel it's a 1:7 twist instead of the Savage 1:7.5 twist. And it shoots great! No popped primers yet and just as good or better accuracy. The Silver primers gave me 50-60 fps faster then the Gold ones and the accuracy with the Silver is better which is what I have the most of being that Rural King sells them for $21.99 a box. But I have noticed I get about 2-4 flyers with each box of 108 ELDM's, like mabye cause of the extreme spread? but not sure yet. So far so good.                

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Here's some 200 Yard Groups. Silver vs Gold Primers.                    

[PeteS]

Here's some Garmin chronograph results.
Silver Primer    
Gold Primer    

[grayfox]

I have some 108's where some are gold and some silver, also some of the 103's I think. And they do seem to behave differently on accuracy and MV...

I was thinking just as I started reading this thread, that maybe there was something wrong with that savage chamber, like maybe too short or something; would make primers and pressure go ^^^ possibly.
Regardless glad to hear that you have a better barrel that's doing well for you.

Flyers could be due to ES, that means the MV varies a lot, which can cause two things: barrel exit off of the node, so different launch angle and thrust on the bullet, and/or the different speed causing vertical speed-spread downrange. Or it could be the "nut behind the trigger" lol! (describes me sometimes btw, a flinch or blink or something...)

[corpsman8483]

Headspace??

[Rickhem]

Those are dynamite groups, so that Shaw barrel sure is working for you. Hearing lots of good things about Shaw barrels.

Just curious, I have seen plenty of popped primers in AR rifles through the years. Most are people pushing limits with the single load cartridges used for the SF stages in Highpower. The primer gets pushed out, and then finds it's way down into the trigger parts and has to be removed to continue. But I've never heard of a popped primer in a bolt gun.

Is the primer pierced, but still in the case, and I'm just mis-understanding what you mean here?

[PeteS]

Those are dynamite groups, so that Shaw barrel sure is working for you.  Hearing lots of good things about Shaw barrels.

Just curious, I have seen plenty of popped primers in AR rifles through the years.  Most are people pushing limits with the single load cartridges used for the SF stages in Highpower.  The primer gets pushed out, and then finds it's way down into the trigger parts and has to be removed to continue.  But I've never heard of a popped primer in a bolt gun. 

Is the primer pierced, but still in the case, and I'm just mis-understanding what you mean here?

The primers aren't popped all the way through where u can see daylight but the "smoke" has blew out in the trigger area and turned my finger black and messed up the accutrigger.    

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Headspace??

I still need to measure the  difference in headspace but my go gauge closed fine in the Factory Savage set up...but my No go gauge also closed fine how Savage had it set up, Yikes. Which was my first sign somethin was wrong.

[Rickhem]

OK, I see the pics and that's definitely a pierced primer.

One thing to be aware of, is that a pierced primer sends a little jet of hot gas back into your bolt through that hole, and very often changes the shape of the tip of the firing pin, since that's the first thing those hot gasses encounter. I know guys that had to change their firing pin after a couple pierced primers, because the flame cut tips got sharper and would then pierce everything. That's a 30 second job on an AR, as long as you have a spare firing pin.

Take a look at primers from cases fired when this wasn't a problem, and more recently fired primers, and compare them to make sure that the tip of your firing pin hasn't been changed by those pierced primers.

[300BLK]

The top primer looks to be cratered, but could be as simple as a poor firing pin/hole fit. The other two appear punctured and burned through, so could have been as simple as too much protrusion for those primers . Unless the primer pockets are loose, it wasn't high pessure.

Savage uses a barrel nut system to adjust headspace, so shame on Savage for allowing such to escape their factory, BUT, if you had excellent accuracy, I wouldn't blame the barrel or chamber. I WOULD be taking a seriously hard look at the boltface, firing pin, and protrusion.

I HAVE a Marlin 1894c 357Mag that suffers from the sloppy firing pin fit (cratered primers). I've had primers burn through like you've pictured, and switching primers made that go away. I've had primers that burned through at the edge that was a primer issue (split cups). I HAD a Ruger #1 in 22 Hornet that BLEW primers with different lots of factory ammo, sometimes the primers fell out when the action was opened, and THAT was a bad barrel (too tight bore).

[PeteS]

The top primer looks to be cratered, but could be as simple as a poor firing pin/hole fit.  The other two appear punctured and  burned through, so could have been as simple as too much protrusion for those primers .  Unless the primer pockets are loose, it wasn't high pessure.

Savage uses a barrel nut system to adjust headspace, so shame on Savage for allowing such to escape their factory, BUT, if you had excellent accuracy, I wouldn't  blame the barrel or chamber.  I WOULD be taking a seriously hard look at the boltface, firing pin, and protrusion.

I HAVE a Marlin 1894c 357Mag that suffers from the sloppy firing pin fit (cratered primers).  I've had primers burn through like you've pictured, and switching primers made that go away.  I've had primers that burned through at the edge that was a primer issue (split cups).  I HAD a Ruger #1 in 22 Hornet that BLEW primers with different lots of factory ammo, sometimes the primers fell out when the action was opened, and THAT was a bad barrel (too tight bore).

I know the Savage firing pin hole is to big cause the primers do smush into the firing pin hole so definetly to much room around the firing pin. But I guess thats just the slopiness of a quick made gun and not custom.    

[pavementends]

Normally cratered\pierced primers which is what you pic shows are caused by firing pin bolt fit. Flat, primers actually blown out of the case are headspace, or presser issues. With small rifle primers you have the additional issue of some primers designed for lower pressure i.e. CCI 400 or Rem 6 1/2. Bushing the firing pin and or switching to CCi450's or Rem 7 1/2 will cure most issues. With factory loads Bushing the firing pin is your best option.

[300BLK]

I purchased the brass from the OP, and sized it this morning. What I should have done was recorded the lot numbers from the boxes, assuming that it went back into the original boxes...but examined the primers knowing that the brass had been fired in two or three chambers. I noticed that ONE case fired in a gas gun had a pierced primer, and one particular box fired from a boltgun seemed to be more pierced than not. There were both brass and silver primers, and MOST were flat. There was a box or two with brass primers that had rounded shoulders, so appeared as I would have expected if loaded to gas gun pressures. NONE of the cases sized hard or showed ejector plunger marks.

I've chrono'd different lots of Hornady Black side by side and saw ~100fps difference between boxes. IMO, Hornady's 6mm ARC ammo seems to vary considerably, and I suspect that the flat primers were literally thin cups, and the round shouldered primers were AR spec primers with thicker cups. Too, I've heard that Hornady is switching powders and not just different lots of the same powder, so would also contribute to velocity variations from ammo lots.

[PeteS]

I purchased the brass from the OP, and sized it this morning.  What I should have done was recorded the lot numbers from the boxes, assuming that it went back into the original boxes...but examined the primers knowing that the brass had been fired in two or three chambers.  I noticed that ONE case fired in a gas gun had a pierced primer, and one particular box fired from a boltgun seemed to be more pierced than not.  There were both brass and silver primers, and MOST were flat.  There was a box or two with brass primers that had rounded shoulders, so appeared as I would have expected if loaded to gas gun pressures.  NONE of the cases sized hard or showed ejector plunger marks.

I've chrono'd different lots of Hornady Black side by side and saw ~100fps difference between boxes.  IMO, Hornady's 6mm ARC ammo seems to vary considerably, and I suspect that the flat primers were literally thin cups, and the round shouldered primers were AR spec primers with thicker cups.  Too, I've heard that Hornady is switching powders and not just different lots of the same powder, so would also contribute to velocity variations from ammo lots.

All the brass fired that was sold to u from me were factory rounds and were fired in a Savage Axis 2 so no gas gun. And they were the same original boxes and brass together to keep lot # together. There may have been only 1-2 boxes fired from my new Shaw Barrel, the rest were from the factory savage barrel. Not sure which lot numbers for each barrel, but I already sold all the brass shot from my AR years ago but none to u. But what was weird to me is Hornady factory loads should be loaded to AR pressure specs but look like they were hot like from the Bolt gun specs. But Hornady couldn't, or shouldn't, do that without lettin people know. Thanks, Happy New Year.

[cuttingedge]

In my AR, Hornady Precision Hunter 103gr ELD-X smash the primers pretty flat. The gun shoots great and I've shot at least 4 boxes through it with no issues. But in my Ruger Gen 2 Predator, the same ammo has normal looking primers.

Should I be concerned over this? The AR cycles well and doesn't seem to be over gassed.