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Anatomy of a "hang fire"


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So if you get a "click" instead of a "bang", you're supposed to keep the muzzle pointed downrange for a little bit, and see if it's a "hang fire", right?

 

How exactly does a "hang fire" work? I don't get it.

 

With a normal shot: The firing pin explodes the primer, the primer ignites the powder; BANG. Bullet goes thattaway.

 

So if the primer doesn't go off when hit by the firing pin, how is it going to go off X amount of seconds later? :unsure:

 

School me. I don't understand it, and need/want to know how this works exactly.

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"Hang Fires" are usually caused by vintage ammo with powders that have "packed" up in them near the flashhole. :eek:

 

Remember, powder chemistry wasn't all that developed 70+ years ago. The didn't have the newer, modern powder grain coatings (that keep it from clumping up) because of moisture intrusion, chemical decompoisition due to temperature fluctuations, etc. (stuff that is thought to cause clumping) that we are blessed with today. :up:

 

Or so I remember reading somewhere awhile back...:unsure:

Edited by Gaddis
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I had always heard that you should wait up to a minute in the case of a hangfire.

 

Also, if this is happening frequently, without any eventual detonation, you may have a light strike situation which is likely a problem with the gun, not the ammo. My experience with light strikes is that you can just rechamber the round and give it another go, they usually go off the second time.

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I had always heard that you should wait up to a minute in the case of a hangfire.

 

Also, if this is happening frequently, without any eventual detonation, you may have a light strike situation which is likely a problem with the gun, not the ammo. My experience with light strikes is that you can just rechamber the round and give it another go, they usually go off the second time.

Please don't confuse the two.

They are entirely different.

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Hangfire in modern ammunition is almost imperseptable.

Short durations which occur in milliseconds.

It is more likely to happen in black powder firearms using flashpans.

Hang fire in modern weapons has more to do with timing, such as WWI aircraft which were timed to shoot through the spinning propeller.

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Most modern ammo is pretty well sealed, as well, to the point where some ammo has what looks like Loctite around the primer and casing end. They didn't do that back then, and it wouldn't normally matter because ammo made during wartime was shot about as quickly as it could be produced and delivered. But with some of that older ammo still floating around, a lot of it has heavily degraded at this point and is no longer reliable.

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OK, thanks for all the info.

 

Personally, the only time I remember having had a "click" instead of a "bang" was when using shitty Remington Thunderbolts :ded: in my .22.

 

The range it happened at has a "dud box" (not too sure what's in there. water, maybe?) to throw rounds in when this happens.

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Ugh, NEVER, EVER use Thunderbolts. They will RUIN your barrel. They're coated in WAX, and it sticks in the rifling. Solvent cannot dissolve the stuff. Once you've used them, your gun will never be the same unless you replace the barrel.

 

Yeah, I learned the hard way. When I was buying my .22 (it was my first gun, when I was 22 actually) and they had 500 round bricks for $10. So of course, not knowing better, I bought one.

 

I've since changed to CCI Minimags damn near exclusively for my .22. I haven't had any problems with the barrel from the Thunderbolts, that I notice anyway. Accuracy hasn't changed.

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Ugh, NEVER, EVER use Thunderbolts. They will RUIN your barrel. They're coated in WAX, and it sticks in the rifling. Solvent cannot dissolve the stuff. Once you've used them, your gun will never be the same unless you replace the barrel.

 

Shit, I use CCI ammo that is fucking dripping with wax.

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I had a whole batch of surplus 8mm that every round would go Click...........................bang! Dont know what caused it to do it but I was going to get my moneys worth out of it, so I finally got it all shot up. Only had a couple of duds out of the whole batch, the rest of them just delayed.

 

Saw some pics on surplusrifleforum.com where a guy shooting and Enfield with surplus ammo had a hangfire, and he waited 10 seconds and was opening the bolt to remove it and it went off just as he had the bolt unlocked. The bolt shot backwards, really tearing his thumb up.

 

I wait up to a minute, and then remove the round and since I dont reload, I take the round away from the shooting tables out into the deep grass and press it into the ground nose first all of the way to the primer and leave it.

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I had a whole batch of surplus 8mm that every round would go Click...........................bang! Dont know what caused it to do it but I was going to get my moneys worth out of it, so I finally got it all shot up. Only had a couple of duds out of the whole batch, the rest of them just delayed.

 

Saw some pics on surplusrifleforum.com where a guy shooting and Enfield with surplus ammo had a hangfire, and he waited 10 seconds and was opening the bolt to remove it and it went off just as he had the bolt unlocked. The bolt shot backwards, really tearing his thumb up.

 

I wait up to a minute, and then remove the round and since I dont reload, I take the round away from the shooting tables out into the deep grass and press it into the ground nose first all of the way to the primer and leave it.

I would like to read that could you post the url?

There is a difference in the action of the Enfield, It cocks on closing.

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I had a whole batch of surplus 8mm that every round would go Click...........................bang! Dont know what caused it to do it but I was going to get my moneys worth out of it, so I finally got it all shot up. Only had a couple of duds out of the whole batch, the rest of them just delayed.

 

Saw some pics on surplusrifleforum.com where a guy shooting and Enfield with surplus ammo had a hangfire, and he waited 10 seconds and was opening the bolt to remove it and it went off just as he had the bolt unlocked. The bolt shot backwards, really tearing his thumb up.

 

I wait up to a minute, and then remove the round and since I dont reload, I take the round away from the shooting tables out into the deep grass and press it into the ground nose first all of the way to the primer and leave it.

I would like to read that could you post the url?

There is a difference in the action of the Enfield, It cocks on closing.

 

I will see if I can find it. It wasnt a matter of cocking, it was the round going off just as he opened the bolt to remove what he thought was a safe to remove dud which turned out to be a hangfire.

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Typical of the internet, there is now someone that is claiming it is a hoax, that has happened since I read the post. Read it and reach your own conclusions. Personally I think if you lifted the bolt and unlocked it and then the round fired, the bolt would fly back with a lot of force and any body part in contact could be severely injured.

 

http://www.surplusrifleforum.com/viewtopic...;hilit=hangfire

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On a "cock on opening" bolt gun, the firing pin is engaged and remove from the back of the primer.

A cock on closing, such as the Enfield does not remove the firing pin from the primer.

The modern cartridges ability to "hangfire" after greater than 10 seconds is unheard of.

Most hangfires are in the less than 1 second and more than likely in the micro to milli second range.

I would surmise the firing pin failed to advance upon pulling the trigger. When the bolt was moved to eject the round, the pin moved forward and fired the cartridge.

If he had left it for an hour it may have done the same thing.

The pictures clearly show the rifle was fired with the bolt not locked.

Just my opinion from 50+ years of shooting and reloading.

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The guy was using fourty something year old POF ammo, which is corrosive surplus. I have a couple thousand rounds of it myself.

 

Like I said, I had a couple of hundred rounds of 8mm that except for a couple of duds hangfired for up to a second after I pulled the trigger. Every time. And in my case it was not the firing pin, as I had two types of ammo, easily distinguished as the good rounds were the silver projectile and the crappy ones were copper projectiles, and I mixed them together and the coppers were the only ones to hangfire. I knew in advance which ones would not fire promptly.

 

It was turk surplus.

 

It doesnt hurt to wait a few more seconds if you have a hang or misfire, good habit to get into, especially if you mess with surplus ammo. JMO

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The guy was using fourty something year old POF ammo, which is corrosive surplus. I have a couple thousand rounds of it myself.

 

Like I said, I had a couple of hundred rounds of 8mm that except for a couple of duds hangfired for up to a second after I pulled the trigger. Every time. And in my case it was not the firing pin, as I had two types of ammo, easily distinguished as the good rounds were the silver projectile and the crappy ones were copper projectiles, and I mixed them together and the coppers were the only ones to hangfire. I knew in advance which ones would not fire promptly.

 

It was turk surplus.

 

It doesnt hurt to wait a few more seconds if you have a hang or misfire, good habit to get into, especially if you mess with surplus ammo. JMO

Extra time is a must if a hangfire happens.

The original post saying 1 minute, leads me to another conclusion.

By your own standard a second was guessed not measured accurately.

Beyond my original 10 second waiting period, it is not a hangfire if the firearm discharges.

With the exception being black powder firearms.

Edited by gunnysmith
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Fix bayonet before loading firearm, if it goes click stick the bayonet in the ground with rifle attached, come back in a year should be safe then.

Sounds safe to me LOL

I explained that in previous posts Arc, bolt manipulation of the Enfield "cock on closing" style action caused the discharge. Post #21

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I've been paying attention, I guess I just didn't buy it.

 

I find it hard to understand how a firing pin could advance on its own with enough force to touch off a primer. My Enfield is in a safe at another location right now so I can't take a look at it to verify the possibility of this sort of malfunction, so I defer to your experience.

 

I think we agree that its important to know the difference between a malfunction of the firearm vs. the ammunition. I had just thought that the one minute was the standard and until now I hadn't heard anyone say that 10 seconds was enough of a safety margin.

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Let me explain briefly. On firearms with free-floating firing pins (those that are not inherently spring-loaded, like an AK action where the bolt is inert and requires a striker to move the pin), or cock-on-closing designs, the firing pin may protrude from the bolt face prior to cocking. On a cock-on-close design, this can occur if the firing pin is expected to free-float a certain distance before contacting the spring, or if the spring is long enough to keep it constantly protruding.

 

A problem can occur when a free-floating firing pin gets dirty and cannot move as easily, or when an always-forward design manages to contact the primer before the bolt is sufficiently closed to cock. Effectively, the firing pin can go into the primer and set it off prior to the action being fully closed, causing what's known as a slam-fire. You do NOT want a slam-fire. It invariably severely damages the gun, and can injure or kill its operator.

 

The solution to this problem is simple: a little piece called a sprung spring. This is a small, weak spring placed in front of the striker inside the bolt. It ensures that the striker will always retract behind the bolt face after the gun has fired. The main striker spring has no problem overpowering it, but the sprung spring serves its purpose to prevent slam-fires. Saigas and some upgraded SKS rifles have a sprung spring, as do a number of other designs. Most foreign AKs do not, however.

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How bout that pistol round (.40 S&W, I think?) that that guy ejected that subsequently went off in his hand after catching it? :unsure:

 

Seems round not firing and then ejecting it should conceivably take more than a second.

 

Pictures were on the Internet about a year and a half ago.

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