question and picture of light primer strikes

[nonseven]

Just bought a R9s a week ago.  

Today I shot some Speer 124 gold dots, and some winchester silvertips.  All rounds fed and fired, but upon examining the spent casings, I found a few primer strikes that look very light.  

The first picture represent the light strikes, the bottom picture represents most of the other casings.

http://gallery.me.com/tom_hill#100344/IMG_0165&bgcolor=black

http://gallery.me.com/tom_hill#100344/IMG_0168&bgcolor=black

On the two light strikes, there is no indentation of the primer, just a discolored area.  This makes me nervous, because this was what I was seeing with all the Remington rounds I fired last week when a encountered a few that failed to ignite.  

[yankee2500]

The only time i have seen primers that looked like the two in the first group, was when reloading and the load was too hot, too much pressure will flatten the primer out around the firing pin indent.  John

[sslater]

nonseven,
I had primer strikes like that last week with Remington Green Box ammo I had lying around, and wanted to use up.  (I mostly use Winchester White Box or Blazer Brass for practice.)  The rounds fired, but I didn't like the look of those primers.  So I fired a couple of those Remington rounds in my Ruger SR9.  They fired but looked strange too.  There was a small indentation in the primer, but not near as deep as my Winchester ammo.

I then fired a couple of rounds of my carry ammo, 124 gr. Speer GDHP thru my R9s.  The resulting primer strikes looked okay like your second photo.

The only other time I've seen flat primer strikes like your photos was when a little shaving of brass got stuck in the firing pin hole of my R9s.  
You might want to pull the slide off your R9 and manually push the firing pin forward to make sure there is nothing stuck in the hole or to the firing pin.

Steve

[nonseven]

Couldn't find anything in the firing pin hole.  Those two shots were towards the end of a string of 13 shots.  I'm wondering if a little dirt on the face of the slide keeps it from closing all the way.

[sslater]

I've never had enough dirt accumulate on the breech face to stop the slide from going into battery.  80 is the max number of rounds I've fired in my R9S before cleaning / lube.  There was just a smear of carbon to be scrubbed off.  Not enough to feel with the fingertip.
(I've fired several hundred rounds in one session thru other, full size,  pistols without a problem.

Maybe you just encountered a couple of hard primers??

Steve

[nonseven]

Perhaps just hard primers.  I don't know how common these are.  I've shot it 39 times, and had 5 hard primers?

[tracker]

I don't want to state the obvious but this may be worth a call
to the factory.

[nonseven]

The only 3 that failed to fire were Remingtons.  100% of the 32 or so winchester silvertips and speer gold dots fired, but I started collecting the spend casings and found two primer strikes that I didn't like the look of.  Perhaps I'm just being anal.

[sslater]

+1 what Tracker said.  
If you want to be scientific, make one more trip to the range and try Silver Tips and Gold Dots from different batches.   (WWB and Blazers  have the same primers as the ST's and GDHP's respectively, for a lot less money!)
Any more issues = a call to Rohrbaugh.

Steve

[RickP]

Remmington primers are somewhat notorious around here for not working well in the R9. For me its Speer 115 GDHPs, with Winchester WWB for the range. Winchester STHPs also have had great results. Bottom line, find what works well with your Pup and stick with it. If you want to maximize your chances for a great first range trip, start with Speer and Winchester.

Rick

[BytorJr]

sslater,

That's a very good point you make about the primers!

[nonseven]

Well I can't very well have another first range session, but I'm using Winchester and Speer ammo and watching the primer indents.

[Quiet1]

Well I can't very well have another first range session, but I'm using Winchester and Speer ammo and watching the primer indents.

Please let us know how it goes your next time out.  This is an interesting thread.

[tracker]

It is an interesting thread and started me to think that I
couldn't have told anything about a light primer strike as
long as it goes bang. This will probably prompt me to check
once in awhile. It could definitely affect one's choice of ammo.

[DTM_39]

Another thought?    Perhaps these are not light hits but excessive pressure.  Gun goes bang but pressure pushes the dimple out.  I don't know?  Just throwing it iut there. Dan