Odd, pull trigger, no fire, no primer indent....

[hornrocker]

Last Saturday at the range, after running a bunch of my regular Federal ammo, my buddy gave me a few of his hand loads.

I noticed on one round the rim was kind of scored up, but loaded it into the mag anyway.  When I got to that round it did not feed completely.  Pulled it out, went to the next round - pulled the trigger and nothing happened.  Waited a bit, then couldn't pull the slide back to eject the round (yes, I had pulled the mag out).  My buddy came over, and we eventually got the round out - when I looked at it, there was no mark on the primer.

I went back to my Federal ammo, and the first round did not fire (but it did not hang up the slide).  Again, there was no mark on the primer!  Now I'm concerned something has broken.  I stand around for a bit, then decided to just rack the slide a few times, quickly with no mag in.

Put a mag back in, load it, and bang - working fine.  Went through 3 more mags without a problem.

Strange problem, I'm pretty new to this sport, and wonder if this has happened to anyone else before?

[derweibhai]

My guess is that your friends reloads have an Ogive that is to far forward to feed in the shallow CZ Chamber. Plain English............. CZ's have tight chambers, and the rifling is closer to the front of the chamber than on most auto handguns. My guess is that his bullets are either set to far out of the case, or more likely the Ogive/fat part of the bullet is getting stuck in the rifling prior to the bullet fully chambering. The reason that it was very hard to extract the loaded bullet after your problem was that the bullet was wedged into the rifling and you had to work against that to pull it out. I think that the reason you didnt get a primer strike is that either the hammer hit the cocking block at the base of the slide, or the firing pin block was not fully engaged due to the slide being slightly out of battery. Take your barrel out of your gun and drop one of his rounds into the chamber, see if it goes all the way in so the base is flush with the chamber hood. If not that was your problem. 

[bang bang]

Chances are they werent sized enough or that the cases or LOA was too long. 

your slide was slightly out of battery which allowed you to pull the trigger and the hammer to fall, but not contact the primer.

i would think 2x about using anymore of your friends reloads.

[hornrocker]

Thanks for the input - don't plan on using any more reloads 

[derweibhai]

Please dont get the wrong idea, I never shoot any factory ammo in any of my guns. Reloads are perfectly safe, if you do them yourself for your gun and follow proper safety protocols. Reloading makes it possible to actually shoot your guns in this day in age. My cost is $1.25 per box of 50 rounds in .40 S&W, and it will rival anyones match ammo for accuracy and reliability.

[high pockets]

Ditto what derweibhai said.

I shoot almost exclusively reloads in my CZ85, with no problems.  With the cost difference being as great as it is, it is easier to find good reloads than it is to fine the funds to keep buying new ammunition.  By shooting reloads, I don't feel bad about shooting 200-300 rounds each time I go to the range.

[1SOW]

Ditto:  Don't shoot other folks' reloads in your pistol. 

[hornrocker]

Thanks again everyone.

Ran a hundred rounds (Federal) through it yesterday, absolutely no problems at all.