Help on 9mm ammo not firing

[1371JarHead]

Hey Guys, so I was at the rifle range on sat and i had about (12) 9mm cartridges not fire, you can clearly see where the striker hit the primer, but it did not fire. The ammo is SAA 9mm 115/124 GR FMJ. I then loaded some Winchester 124 GR FMJ, shot flawlessly. I loaded some Buffalo Bore +P 147 GR hard cast, again no issues, I also loaded some low end plinking ammo from a bulk ammo seller in Utah, and it was great stuff, as well as i shot about 400 round of some speer gold dot +P 147 GR JHP. The RSO thought at first it was the mag, but it shot all the other ammo fine, and my friend shot about 300 rounds of the SAA ammo out of his Beretta 9mm with no issues, as well out of his Glock. please see link on info on the ammo...

9mm 124 Grain FMJ SAA - 1000 Rounds, Bulk

It does say made in America but I also found out that it might be made in Turkey? WTF?... the pistol is a FNS 9C with about 2500 rounds through it with no issues at all and I clean it after every range day, I have fired about 300 plus rounds of the SAA 9mm a few months back with no issues only one stovepipe....any insight would be great cheers Robert

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[Joe13]

Did you try and re fire the 12 a second time?

Bulk ammo, idk?

 

[daved20319]

Is the ammo from the same lot you previously shot? Could just be a bad lot. The other thought is how long has it been since you cleaned the firing pin channel? Seems unlikely since you had no issues with other ammo, but a little gunk could be slowing it down enough to cause problems. Good luck.

Dave

 

[1371JarHead]

Is the ammo from the same lot you previously shot? Could just be a bad lot. The other thought is how long has it been since you cleaned the firing pin channel? Seems unlikely since you had no issues with other ammo, but a little gunk could be slowing it down enough to cause problems. Good luck.

Dave

I bought 2 cases (1000 rounds each) so yes it is part of one of those 2 cases.

 

[Pops1911]

That's a real head scratcher. Someone will come up with a helpful answer.

 

[DuneHopper]

Take a Micro to the ammo and see where the differences are?

I doubt it, but could be a headspace issue.

 

[titsonritz]

Maybe they use the same primers as Winchester.

Sounds like good training ammo, hope you got it cheap.

 

[DizzyJ]

My buddy had issues with that ammo at a recent Northern Red class last month.

I've also had issues with it in the past as well.

 

[P7M13]

That's why I don't use striker fired guns. They sometimes don't provide a good hit on the primer to ignite it. Leaves a dent that doesn't look much different than the ones that did fire. Ran into that problem with my Steyr M40, the last striker fired gun I've owned.
Try them with a hammer fired gun.

 

[DizzyJ]

That's why I don't use striker fired guns. They sometimes don't provide a good hit on the primer to ignite it. Leaves a dent that doesn't look much different than the ones that did fire. Ran into that problem with my Steyr M40, the last striker fired gun I've owned.
Try them with a hammer fired gun.

Although I cannot disregard your personal experience, striker fired pistols should have no problem hitting a primer hard enough to ignite it.

 

[Joe13]

You gotta pull the trigger harder maybe?




Seriously though, I'd check your bolt and make sure that firing pin channel is clean just to double check it.

 

[Tankjr]

Primers seated too deep?

 

[ageingstudent]

Could be lots of different reasons with surplus vs your particular pistol. Besides issues listed above it could be that particular ammo might have a slightly less sensitive primer and your FN might just strike a tad lighter than your buddy's glock. Or it could be piss-poor QC and primers not seated properly...try shooting the struck rounds again and see if some of them light off...this often indicates a primer seating issue. Try shooting them in your buddy's gun and see if they light.

Or it could be that your FN has a generous chamber length and the surplus rounds you bought are a bit short (to fit the most 9mm platforms possible) at the mouth allowing the case to move forward a hair too far when struck by the firing pin on your FN. This doesn't mean there is anything wrong with your FN, it just might be that your FN doesn't fit that brand of ammo well. You need to do a lot of troubleshooting and measuring if you want to figure it out.

Usually I would suspect the bulk ammo, but since it was 100% in your friend's guns I suspect it might just be a poor match for your FN.

 

[po18guy]

Good suggestions above - all of them. A second pull on these duds might have fired them, indicating that light strike "might" be the problem. Priming mixture might be low, shallow or off to the side in the cup. Do you have another 9mm pistol to try it in? Hard primers are another possibility, but that should have caused more than 12 misfires. Can you pull the bullets, deaden the primers with WD40 and pop them out for a look? Careful there though! Lots of things. The best knowledge is that this is borderline ammo in your particular gun. Who knows who actually made it? Good for plinking, jam-clearance drills and magazine/feeding reliability stuff. Email the distributor and flame them. Their reaction will tell you all you need to know about their business practices. They might be "good Americans" and NRA benefactors, but that does not mean they are good businessmen.

 

[thorborg]

Cheap ammo, is what it is. flaws go without saying and to be expected.
It is not worth the effort sweating over the reason for failure. Likely all you will come up with are guesses and possibly some good camp fire conversation. Could be something as simple as someone sweating like a pig (my apologies to any pigs reading this) when they filled the primer tube in the progressive press.
Burn as much as you can in your pistol, dump the rest. Then move on to another brand. If you experience it with another brand then I'd get serious about your striker condition and springs albeit if you are @ 2500 rounds on a plastic gun, that may time for a parts tune up anyway.

 

[Kruel J]

Yeah, since the other ammo ran fine, it's definitely just cheap ammo. I've seen it before. Use it for drills, you'll get lots of practice in of tap rack and go.

 

[Certaindeaf]

.you can clearly see where the striker hit the primer,.

no I can't

 

[Alexx1401]

If they are showing a good hit then it's not the pistol, you got some bad ammo. As to why? who knows. Since it's just range use I would just burn it up at this point. Since I do not roll 9mm any more but use a lot of it I was buying that Win. USA Steel cased stuff. Loved it. Then one day a couple of them "sounded off" and the next one did a hang fire. Felt almost like shooting a flintlock. I stopped checked the rest, all looked fine. Started shooting again and same thing, one or two would not fire and then a hang fire. Sadly I had a couple boxes still at home (150 rounds each) and close to one box at the range. Problem was the one at the range had been dumped into a large container and I had tossed the box. So at this point I was scared to even shoot it and just tossed all of it in the trash and never bought it again. If I still had the boxes I would have wanted to check the lot #s to see if they were the same.

 

[Alexx1401]

no I can't

Always the comedian

 

[DirectDrive]

Hey Guys, so I was at the rifle range on sat and i had about (12) 9mm cartridges not fire, you can clearly see where the striker hit the primer, but it did not fire. The ammo is SAA 9mm 115/124 GR FMJ. I then loaded some Winchester 124 GR FMJ, shot flawlessly. I loaded some Buffalo Bore +P 147 GR hard cast, again no issues, I also loaded some low end plinking ammo from a bulk ammo seller in Utah, and it was great stuff, as well as i shot about 400 round of some speer gold dot +P 147 GR JHP. The RSO thought at first it was the mag, but it shot all the other ammo fine, and my friend shot about 300 rounds of the SAA ammo out of his Beretta 9mm with no issues, as well out of his Glock. please see link on info on the ammo...

9mm 124 Grain FMJ SAA - 1000 Rounds, Bulk

It does say made in America but I also found out that it might be made in Turkey? WTF?... the pistol is a FNS 9C with about 2500 rounds through it with no issues at all and I clean it after every range day, I have fired about 300 plus rounds of the SAA 9mm a few months back with no issues only one stovepipe....any insight would be great cheers Robert

1) SAA = Bottom of the barrel ammo
2) Very likely that they are using the cheapest primer that they can find which is a Tula primer
3) Tula uses one of the hardest primer cups = difficult to ignite

If you need cheap range ammo use Blazer Brass.
Don't go lower than that.