Hangfire Accident

[wdr2]

An accident occurred last week at our local gun range involving a hangfire. The event was described in detail tonight at our annual club meeting. An experienced handloader and handgun silhouette competitor was at the range by himself shooting a Ruger 44 Mag revolver using his own loads which consisted of a cast bullet and a “heavy crimp.” One round failed to fire. As he unloaded, the offending round fell onto the ground near the shooting bench. He finished unloading then bent over to pick up the round when it “exploded” severely damaging his thumb and first two fingers. He was able to get help by driving himself to the hospital. A good friend of mine had the privilege of cleaning up the range after this accident.

The consensus is that the round went off about 30 sec after the misfire. The likely cause is – he primed these cases using a hand primer (perhaps a Lee Auto Prime or similar) and one primer went in “cockeyed.” He then forced the primer home. The primer apparently showed visible damage due to the primer seating process.

Has anyone had an experience like this? I wish I knew more about the components, revolver, etc. If I learn more, I’ll post here.

Thanks,
Bill
Idaho

[fortyshooter1]

Wow that is very scary! I reload and had a primer get seated sideways. This was in my Dillon 550B press and noticed something wasn't right when the shell holder would not rotate after the primer operation. I took case out and soaked it in WD40 and put it away from anything else.

Now I wonder why he didn't catch this at some point during the reload/inspection or even notice it while loading the gun?

I always give all my reloads a final inspection and weigh them before putting them in the box.

[dmize]

My only bitch about the Lee hand prime is the ability for primers to flip or to get fed sideways or "cockeyed". the cockeyed ones are easily felt and I have gotten in the habit of putting the cases in the tray upside down after priming so I can see the primers way before loading.
Im sorry but after 30 years of reloading (including dealing with a box of 1,000 jacked up CCI small rifle magnum primers in 454 Casull cases that every once in a while one would not go off) I have no explanation.
But my Grandpa taught me a long time ago if you got a click instead of a bang....count slowly to 10 and try to shoot it again,if it still went click walk away and eject the round away from yourself.
Bottom line..what happened to the guy you are talking about defies years of reading and actual range experiences.

[rgp]

When I was in high school I had a primer seat crooked a couple of times with a hand primer but both times caught it and threw out the piece of brass and the primer that was stuck in it. Both occasions I forced it and on both occasions the defective equipment had to be my fingers, eyes, and brain, because it was a "one at a time" hand primer without a primer feeding tray.

[bradshaw]

Bill.... thanks for the information. It would help to have as much detail as possible. Evidently, the damaged primer set up a greatly delayed ignition. The longest hangfire I have seen was 8-seconds, an exceedingly long time. The delay of a hangfire usually is less than one second. Containment in the cylinder would have made it worse, especially had the shooter lined up the misfired round with the loading gate and been staring at the case head when it touched off.

By your account, trouble started with the crushed primer. Remaining rounds warrant inspection.
David Bradshaw

[nolongcolt]

I have had primers get seated cockeyed quite a few times over the years, but I always know it when it happens and knock it out. I don't use a progressive press and I manually flip each primed pc of brass over in my hand automatically to feel the primer and that would catch a weird one that got by. I load on the press despite having read many times that a hand primer gives better feel, I never bought into that and still don't.

[majorKAP]

I'm skeptical of the guy's story, for several reasons.

[bradshaw]

majorKAP's skepticism is warranted. Without more detail, more evidence, photographic documentation, the extreme delay of 30 seconds sounds outlandish. Also, crushing a primer usually deactivates it. Who hasn't mangled a primer? Mashed my share, with all sorts of presses and priming tools. Like the unintended discharge, who hasn't experienced that? Another reason MUZZLE CONTROL is the mother of all firearms safety.

A misfire must be handled as an incipient hangfire.

We await follow-up report,
David Bradshaw

[AxeHandle]

30 seconds in the gun lined up with the barrel is what the NRA tells us to teach. Personally never saw more than what could be called a stumble in a hang fire. In two years working as a RSO I have seen quite a few primers loaded sideways in commercial ammo. The ones that get struck with the firing pin general don't light the powder. Did see one 9mm handload that did light the powder. It took a chunk out of the case head and took the extractor out of a slide on a Walther PPX. I'll add "never say never." Be careful.

[wdr2]

I will ask for more information. As I said, the guy was alone at the range so perhaps there is more to this story. The 30 sec was of course not timed, just an estimate based on his activity of unloading the revolver. Sorry, but I don't know is this was a single action or perhaps a Redhawk. The only hangfire I have experienced was only about 1/2 sec in a 45/90 with a small charge of Reloader 7. I disassembled the remaining rounds after my experiment. I check every primer to be sure they are properly seated. My policy is to double check every step of the reloading process and discard any round I am not sure is safe.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Bill

[kaytod]

As many have stated above, there are many details to this story that we don't have.

In recent years I've had to hone a more skeptical view of such things. The only thing I could think of right off hand, would be the following scenario.
If the case had a bit of tumbling media wedged in the flash hole, it could account for a mis-seated/marred primer. A primer not crushed sideways as we may think, but mashed in. When the primer was struck the flash would have been greatly diminished with only a minor amount reaching the charge of powder. ( more likely ball powder )
This may have made enough heat to start the powder to smolder. It would be the only thing I can think of offhand that would account for such a delay in the misfire. A little time and continuing heat finally causing the powder to ignite resulting in a case rupture.

I've seen a case similar to this with the 7,62x54R and H414. A piece of walnut tumbling media was wedged in the flash hole. When the case was fired, there was enough pressure to unseat the bullet just enough to stick in the leade. The misfire was noticed by the shooter and ejected the round somewhat promptly ( I was there but don't remember the time as it was years ago ), but the bullet was pulled from the neck and remained in the gun. Case was ejected and the powder was strewn through the action. Some of the powder was stinking, yellow and the semi-lit retardants had amalgamated some of the powder. Perhaps if the bullet hadn't been pulled upon ejection, a similar situation may have resulted.

Don't know, just a guess without having all the facts, a firsthand witness, or video/pictorial documentation.

[Fowler]

Todd's theory sound plausible but when things go haywire finding the real reason for it is darn near impossible without a forensics lab who really knows their gun stuff.

I took he top half of a cylinder off a 45 colt Bisley years ago, the odds on reason was that the round had a double charge of HS-6 in it, low volume powder very easy to do. But even today the charged round to the left of the fired round also ruptured and burned when the cylinder came appart. I have always wondered if in fact a tall primer actually went off against a seam left on the frame window during casting at Ruger when the main round fired detonating the whole mess.

In the end it is impossible to say what happened, the top half of the cylinder was never located, the top strap was stretched up in a rainbow but never failed. It is more of a testimate to the strength of Blackhawks that anything else, I was spooked but not hurt by the events and I have doubled down on my carefulness during the reloading steps.

[dougader]

I'd like to see pictures of the "exploded" case. If it's still intact and only swollen to fit the chamber of the gun then I'd hazard a guess about a hangfire that went off as the gent was beginning to unload the gun... the damage to the thumb and forefinger explained by gas escaping from the barrel-to-cylinder gap.

[sheriff]

Loaded some .45 Colt into some cases that apparently had 'something' inside them. That bunch of cases produced a 'primer only', and 4 'hangfires'. The 'primer only' stuck the bullet just past the forcing cone. The 'hangfires' consisted of a 'pop', slight pause then ignition, sometimes weak, but enough that I had no bullets stick. No pause was longer than half a second (guess as I wasn't timing it). I have crushed primers over the years and they either go bang or they don't, provided I didn't catch them at the reloading bench. As to your friend's mishap, Quien Sabe?

[kaytod]

Feb 7, 2015 11:17:02 GMT -5 Fowler said:

Todd's theory sound plausible but when things go haywire finding the real reason for it is darn near impossible without a forensics lab who really knows their gun stuff.

I took he top half of a cylinder off a 45 colt Bisley years ago, the odds on reason was that the round had a double charge of HS-6 in it, low volume powder very easy to do. But even today the charged round to the left of the fired round also ruptured and burned when the cylinder came appart. I have always wondered if in fact a tall primer actually went off against a seam left on the frame window during casting at Ruger when the main round fired detonating the whole mess.

In the end it is impossible to say what happened, the top half of the cylinder was never located, the top strap was stretched up in a rainbow but never failed. It is more of a testimate to the strength of Blackhawks that anything else, I was spooked but not hurt by the events and I have doubled down on my carefulness during the reloading steps.

Reminds me of this incident. I was there when it happened. Story is here on the forum.

31 of HS-6