A real eye at range this week end.

Went to my regular indoor range this week end .

I had not ran many rounds threw my .380 Kel Tek lately (been about two months )

So thats the one I took this time .

I brought 100 rounds with me .

My .380 is in a rotation that I carry I usally change my rotation weekley.

This Gun has about 1500 rounds threw it pretty much flawless.

I decided to shoot my winchester hollow points that I had in mag .

Note I always had use to pull these out the mag and shoot just regular ball ammo on range.

After the trip I would clean gun and re install the hollow points.

They where about a year old something told me shoot these today and refill with fresh ones later.

Well that plan did not work five of the 7 rounds would not fire . The two that did sounded light.

Lesson learned the hard way how often should you swap them out??.

And is that for wheel guns to as I have a 442 in my rotation too.

I know it was ammo problem because the 100 rounds all went as planed .

Sounds like something got into the cases. Age should not make a difference, especially one year.

Usually once a month I will shoot the mag of ammo in my carry gun and rotate the mags in my double mag pouch,first mag in gun,second mag in #1 slot,fresh ammo in #2 spot,so every 6 months I go thru a box of gold dot.

These were commercial, so they should not be a primer problem, but, just in case, do the primers look like they got solid strikes?

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Originally Posted by Phillep Harding

These were commercial, so they should not be a primer problem, but, just in case, do the primers look like they got solid strikes?

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Not so. I've had eaxctly 2 misfires due to primers in my reloads since '75. I've had a buttload more with commercial rounds in that same timeframe.

Could just be a bad batch. They should be good for a lot longer than a year. Shelf life should be able to be measured in decades.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SmokinFool

Could just be a bad batch. They should be good for a lot longer than a year. Shelf life should be able to be measured in decades.

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Thats what I thought too:blink:

I thought it might be due to me always takeing them out each time and the puting them back in mag .

I would suggest you have a gun smith look at your gun. The 100 rounds that did fire correctly may use a different brand of primer. If your going to continue to carry the same self defense ammo you need to make sure your gun will reliably fire it. I would also bite the bullet so to speak and buy another new box of the same ammo and see if it works reliably before I decided to carry it in this gun.

Unless your gun and ammo went through the laundry I doubt it was a contamination issue. Modern ammo can take a lot of abuse.

See this test soaking the primers in liquids for weeks at a time:

The Box O' Truth #39 - Oil Vs. Primers - Page 1