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I went on a preserve Chukkar outing this weekend and had gun trouble. After firing the right barrel of my 75 year old German 16 ga. I was unable to break open the action. I was using Federal factory loads. And to make things more embarassing, I missed the bird. I then fired the left barrel to make the gun "safe".

This happened to me once before, on a 12 ga. Fox, again ,using Federals. I vaguely remember somrthing about my gunsmith 10 years ago, blaming the problem on firing pins getting stuck in "soft" Federal primers. The culprit at the time being the primer, not the pins. I've probably fired several cases of Fiocci factory and RST ammo with no problem.

I won't see my gunsmith for another week, and I don't know if thats my problem this time, but I was wondering if anyone else has had or heard of this situation before.

Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Posts: 76 Location: north Texas

P G G,

I've had one of those Winchester M/37 single shot .410s for many years and it's never "liked" Federal hulls - even back in paper cartridge days. It didn't happen every time, but occasionally I would have to leverage the gun over my knee to coax it open. A couple of times, I had to pop the fore-end off and remove the barrel to get at the spent case. I never had the problem with unfired shells, but you can tell that it breeches up tighter with Federal ammo than the other stuff I've shot.

I used to believe that it was the fact that Federal hulls had steel "brass" while the others had brass "brass", but now nearly all shotgun "brass" is steel and Federal hulls are still the only ones that ever want to stick. I now believe that it's a combination of something to do with the primer, a thicker fold in the rim area of the "brass" head of Federal hulls, and maybe a shallower rim cut in the chamber of this particular shotgun.

The Federal 209A primer is considered a hot, "magnum" strength primer, so no doubt about the possibility of one of these hanging up on a rough or small-sized firing pin tip.

xtm

If anything, I find the Federal primer cups usually harder than other brands. They really seem to have a hard time keeping them uniform, that is for sure! They also need to get rid of that archaic round primer cup! That alone would be easier on the gun in general! I had quite the conversation with CCI on the cup shape with CCI agreeing it needed re-designed... (Fed now makes CCI shotshell primers)

Bottom line, it could be primers but I would look deeper mechanically if the gun was mine..

Federal does keep rim dimensions right up there compared to other brands and that could be the culprit as well as you stated.

Slidehammer

I had the same thing happen with federal shells in my 100 year old LC Smith. These were the new lite loads from Midway. Winchester lit loads worked fine. The base expanded and stuck in the chamber. I took some federal shells that were shot in a automatic and they would not go into the chambers. Had the chambers measured. The left chamber was tighter then the right. Had it honed out aouple of thousands. Works good now.

Member Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 3438 Location: Illinois

Did the pins pierce the primers?????I would have it looked at just to be doublesure Wink

No the pins didn't pierce the primer. I still have the shells, as I give all my fired shells to a friend of mine who reloads. I have four of them in front of me right now. The indent is no deeper then any of my other empties.

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