Have you ever had a hangfire?
 

Inspired by the Stanley trial I am curious how often a hangfire occurs.
I have fired thousands of rounds of surplus ammo of various calibers the only problem I've had were some 303 British ball I bought in a sealed spam can, about 1 in 15 would go click a few seconds later discharge.

Has anybody else had a hangfire experience? how about with a 7.62 X 25 round.

ive had a few, with 303, and .22 long rifle,
And had two in a row, with the .222 Remington, pretty sure this was from damp ammo, as had been walking up a major river, dozens of crossings, for several hours, chest, waist, deep river crossings, and ammo was getting wet in pockets,
Haven't had one, in over 20 years, don't hear about it much anymore, When I took my firearms licence , they taught wait 30 seconds before opening action, so must, have been common enough years ago. likely old, poorly stored ammo from the war.

I've been a target shooter and hunter for close to 40 years now, and I've never experienced a hangfire. That's using what most people would call "modern" factory ammo, or my own handloads. I've had plenty of duds over the years, almost all rimfire, but none of been a "hangfire" situation. I've shot very little surplus ammo, and none that hasn't been reasonably stored.

I am not a high volume shooter, maybe a couple thousand rounds a year including .22. I have never experienced one. A few dudes with the .22, but never a hang fire.

I have only ever seen one hang fire. It was with a 10/22 and stingers. My brother was shooting, didn't wait the recommended 30 seconds and went to eject it, resulting in an out of battery detonation. He's really lucky it was just a 22lr and he had is eyes and ears on. After further inspection this was due to an improperly head spaced bolt and was replaced under warranty.

We had a couple while shooting skeet... learned to wait a minute before ejecting. Had a buddy who is a bit of an idiot... he was firing shells with his wife and a few bystanders around, that were rolling around his quad all summer. As I walked up, I noticed 1 in 5 weren't firing, and he was just ejecting them on the ground. I explained what could happen and he carried on as he was doing. I grabbed everyone else and we left the area. He continued and luckily didn't have an issue, but I don't shoot with him anymore... things could have gone sideways really fast and we were 1.5 hours drive to the nearest hospital with no cell service. To top it off, he came back to the campsite when he was done and called me an idiot because nothing happened.

I've had a few. Mostly rifle cartridges. Although I've had one in 9mm for a pistol.

Followed good safety rules and no issues.

I have only had one hangfire, and it was with my 20 gauge while hunting pheasants this fall .I was using a new gun for the first time at around -18, I swung on a bird and I heard a click, and after a slight delay , the gun fired. The dent in the primer was much more shallow than normal, so I took the stock off when I got home, and the firing pins were soaked in oil. I cleaned out the action, and sparingly lubed it with synthetic oil, and no issues since. The gun had sinply had too much oil that became thick in tbe cold, causing the firing pin to strike with much less force than normal, causing a delay in the primer igniting.

Hang fires were not all that uncommon years ago. Corditte powder was notorious for hang fires and the reason you see it fairly often on old 303 Military loads. You can also get them with modern powder using primers that are too weak for the load. For example a rifle primer in a 95 to 120 grain powder load in a 7 RUM or 460 Weatherby. They will often cause click booms or full on hang fires where you get a click and it fires 10-15 seconds later. Found this out trying less aggressive primers to see if groups improved. It is also why Federal developed the 215 Mag primer.

You can also get them from getting contamination or wet on a primer. Wetting a primer does not kill it but could easily cause it to be much weaker, resulting in a hang fire.

Ball powder requires much hotter primers, so large loads of ball powder with say a Rem large rifle primer will easily hang fire. That is why ball powder loads call for magnum primers.

If you follow the recipes religiously, or use properly stored modern ammo hang fires are rare. That said, they are VERY dangerous because most people do not keep the barrel pointed in the right direction or open the action too soon to see what happened.

I had about 10 all in the same day with some reloads I made. It started with a few very quick ones where I could barely notice something wrong because the hangfire was so fast that I said to my friend it seemed like I was getting a small delay, it was so fast that I would pull the trigger and hear and hear and immediate click boom. Finally the first big one came and I said to my buddy I knew something wasn’t right I just kept the rifle in a safe direction for about 45 seconds and the round went off. Very scary . If I knew how to post videos here it’s all recorded on video.

Informative thread thanks guys.

I've experienced a few with .22 LR

The hangfire was only a fraction of a second after the trigger pull. But enough to notice that something wasn't right.

Just once for me on a rifle out hunting. I blamed it on the cold weather and wondered if my firing pin was frozen.

You do notice the difference though.

I saw one on a trap range many years ago. Competition shooters are instructed to not eject a dud until examined by an official. The puller was on his way to examine the firearm when it went off. Lucky firearm was pointed in a safe direction and only blew a hole in the grass.

I've experience a few duds. But after waiting the prescribed safety margin, none of them turned out to be hangfires.

I have had a few
Due to using standard primer with ball powder
Due to using standard primer in large case and slow burning powder.
One mechanical due to cold weather and slow releasing trigger/ firing pin

Unfortunately I created my hang fires.
Lesson learned about powder speeds and reduced loads. I wanted a 45-70 cast bullet to do sub sonic speed. I reduced the powder below the recommend starting point.
With out enough powder I created a round that was a hang fire. And unfortunately 100 of them.
There was a serious delay 1, 2, 3 Or more seconds and then BOOM!
There is a reason why it's a suggested starting point lol

I have only had a squib load out of a .22LR and that was due to the cartridge getting wet on the table, the projectile was easily spun while in the casing, the whole lot was like that, the primer was enough to push the round right to the muzzle, just enough hanging out that a pair of fine needle nose pliers could grab it and pull it out of the barrel.

Pretty scary as my 6year old son was shooting at the time. Thankfully I was right there and used it to teach him how to always be attentive as that one did not sound the same as the rest, for him to make safe the rife and check everything over.


V

In 10 years of shooting I've had one.

None in 35 years but I've always used good modern ammo and components.

We tried Fed 210m primers with H1000 in a 30-338 lapua AI and would get almost a 2 second delay. That’s the only problem I’ve ever encountered.

Although I haven't had a hang fire I did have a few rounds not go off in the cold weather -30 ish while deer hunting. I proceeded to clean firing pin, a guy had mentioned to spray dry graphite on firing pin so I did. Shot the gun all summer long and when a 5x5 buck came along... click.. click..click, I was ready to wrap that rifle around a tree.

I cleaned the firing pin again and left it dry..no problems since. I recall the Russians using diesel fuel in cold weather conditions.

Still to date I am unsure if it was a bad batch of primers or the firing pin. Maybe both..

Ive had many hangfires. I could count on them using bcl2 in 223 in cold weather and h380 in 6.5 x 55 in normal weather and both over book minimum charge. Sometimes it was obvious, sight picture gone and firing maybe a quarter second late, usually just so i could hear the firing pin drop just as it went bang

Also american eagle 223 at minus 35 they pop, fizzle, hit the target sideways... well maybe not fizzle but almost

memories
 

Of using 777 instead of real BP in a .54 Renegade and getting a hangfire with a steel butt plate.

I have either seen or experienced hang fires, misfires, doubles, slam fires and catastrophic failures as well, usually due to improperly adjusted or worn fire arms, but have also seen it due to ammo.
Cat

I have Only had it on a damp day with a flinter.

Yup and with the ol'hawkens rifle would occasionally burp and fart well after the hammer was dropped...hang on.

I had a few with a 270 win with handloads using win 780 supreme and fed 210 primers,I was doing load developement in the fall, but not very cold out.I did some reading up on it and switched to mag primers and never had a problem again.They would take about a second to go off.I now use mag primers in any of the ball powders.

Same and only with rimfire.