I couldn't resist the Lipsey's NRA P365 today -- never go to a gun show if you don't want to buy a gun.

I read the manual (I know, I'm dating myself) and noticed an interesting section (ALL CAPS in the source material):

WARNING COOK-OFF

IF YOUR PISTOL STOPS FIRING WITH A LIVE ROUND IN THE CHAMBER OF A HOT BARREL (A MISFIRE OR STOPPAGE), REMOVE THE ROUND IMMEDIATELY. IF YOU CANNOT REMOVE THE ROUND WITHIN 10 SECONDS, REMOVE THE MAGAZINE AND WAIT AT LEAST 15 MINUTES WITH THE PISTOL POINTING IN A SAFE DIRECTION. THIS WAY, NEITHER THE USER NOR ANY OTHER PERSON WOULD BE INJURED BY THE POSSIBILITY OF A ROUND "COOKING-OFF" (A ROUND DETONATING DUE TO THE HEAT OF THE BARREL). KEEP YOUR FACE AWAY FROM THE EJECTION PORT WHILE CLEARING A HOT CHAMBER.

This seems a bit odd to me. My early training was in small bore match shooting (basement of the old NRA building on Rhode Island Avenue in Washington DC). With rimfires, the rule was to leave the muzzle pointed down range for 30 seconds before ejecting the cartridge. I do remember a few rimfire rounds discharging on a delayed basis after depressing the trigger. I don't remember any more than a few seconds later.

I've heard of rounds cooking-off in submachine / machine guns, but not in self-defense pistols.

Here is an excerpt from NRA Webpage (search for hangfire safety):

"Even rarer, but potentially more dangerous if proper safety rules aren't observed, is the "hangfire." A hangfire is defined as a delay in the detonation of the propellant (gunpowder), which in turn results in a delay in the firing of the cartridge. The delay can be as long as seconds, but is often almost undetectable. It's evidenced by a "click," instead of a bang, but can also occur when you hear a much-lighter-than-normal sound upon on the firing of your handgun. Like squib loads, hangfires are often blamed on sloppy reloading habits, but can occur amongst any type of ammunition, including factory manufactured rounds.

The safest way to get past a hangfire is to keep your muzzle pointed on target (safe direction), wait for several seconds, and execute your "tap-rack-roll" move. How long do you wait? Opinions vary widely, and I've heard everything from five to 60 seconds prescribed. Then, there are those who insist that you should not wait, and should go ahead and conduct the "tap-rack-roll" action to clear the bad round and chamber a new one. The latter group (to which I belong) generally bases this advice on the ideas that:

A) If training for self-defense, waiting to reload the chamber could be far more dangerous than extracting the bad round, even if it detonates.

B) If the cartridge does eventually "go off," but is outside the firearm, the chances of injury are minimal.

C) If the round is a hangfire, it's impossible to know when it will detonate-or how long to wait. And, see item B)."

The self-defense training point is a good one. For other types of shooting, some delay makes sense, I'm not sure how long - 10, 15 or 30 seconds.

The most recent time I had a misfire problem with a centerfire firearm was with the last Taurus handgun I will ever buy - a 738 in .380 ACP. You would depress the trigger and it sometimes fire a second later. That will get your attention.

I'd appreciate the thoughts of the SigForum crew on the best way to handle hangfires.

Actual hang fired are very rare.

Tap rack bang anytime the pistol fails to function. As soon as it fails to function.

That sounds right for centerfire semi-automatics.

The problem I had with the Taurus was not a round that had the primer struck and no powder ignition, it was a problem in the trigger / striker mechanism that delayed the release of the striker.

For rimfires, the problem most of the time is a failure to ignite the powder because of no primer compound where the firing pin struck the case rim.

Thinking about it, the worst hangfire might be in a revolver. I wouldn't want a delayed ignition (however rare) in any chamber other than the one aligned with the barrel.

quote:

WARNING COOK-OFF

That was written at the behest of their lawyers as CYA. It takes in the neighborhood of 500-550° to self-ignite a cartridge from chamber heat. There is no way a semi-automatic pistol in normal use gets that hot.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:

quote:

WARNING COOK-OFF

That was written at the behest of their lawyers as CYA.

Yup.

You are not gonna cook off anything this side of belt fed.

The LONGEST hang fire I have ever had was with WW1 era, crappy ammo and it was probably 3 seconds. An eternity on the range but still.

I will typically count to 20 Mississippi or so if I have an inkling the ammo could hang fire. I am certainly not gonna make a sammich and grab Starbucks.

For modern ammo it’s immediate action drills.

I grew up as a kid waiting, with the .22. I taught my kids the same way.

Today I do a malfunction clearance without thinking about it.

I never have a problem with CCI primers. Recently I've had a series of issues with Remington primers, however. After examining them, all but one was put back in the pistol and fired successfully. Why they're not discharging, I'm not sure; the primer is dented as one would expect, but they don't go off the first time.

Each one of those got treated the same. Click and no bang. Tap, rack, try again.

The pistol does get quite warm with Titegroup after a few magazines in quick succession. Not 500 degrees hot, but still quite warm.

OP, you are reading and posting the warning about cook-off, but then ask about hang-fire. They are two different things. Which are you asking about?

quote:

Originally posted by BuddyChryst:
OP, you are reading and posting the warning about cook-off, but then ask about hang-fire. They are two different things. Which are you asking about?

He's talking about both. The owner manual dictates that with a "misfire or stoppage," the offending round be removed immediately, rather than waiting for a period of time (how soon do we leave a potential hangfire in the chamber?) because of the potential of a "cookoff."

Of course, if a round is actually going to "cookoff," then the safest place for it to be is in the chamber, pointed downrange.

Catch that 22.

Hopefully, what seems to be a hang-fire isn't actually a squib (primer goes off but doesn't ignite the powder, usually because there is no powder) that left a bullet stuck in the barrel.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:

quote:

Originally posted by BuddyChryst:
OP, you are reading and posting the warning about cook-off, but then ask about hang-fire. They are two different things. Which are you asking about?

He's talking about both. The owner manual dictates that with a "misfire or stoppage," the offending round be removed immediately, rather than waiting for a period of time (how soon do we leave a potential hangfire in the chamber?) because of the potential of a "cookoff."

Of course, if a round is actually going to "cookoff," then the safest place for it to be is in the chamber, pointed downrange.

Catch that 22.

Frankly, if you had no prior experience with firearms and just read the manual, you’d get the feeling it should never be chambered until just before you aim and pull the trigger.

The section cited is talking about the danger of unintentional discharge from cook-off and only applies to a hot (read: very hot) barrel. If you get a pistol barrel that hot, you’re gonna have a hard time holding it. I don’t read that section as relating to hangfires. I understand your “misfire” quote but the stars really have to align to get a pistol barrel hot enough to cook off and then have a hangfire happen. So as said before, it’s all lawyerspeak.

As for hangfires, it depends on the ammo. Some .303 Brit? I might stand there a whole minute. Quality, modern 9mm? I’ll give it 5 seconds.

Oh, and this side of beltfed? Well most sub and regular machine guns tend to fire from open bolt, so cook off shouldn’t be much of a concern. Now the AR/AK...that’s another story. But we know what you meant, it takes a LOT of rounds in rapid succession to get hot enough.

OP: stop fretting and go shoot!

Agree with the just go shoot sentiment. I recognize it as legal CYA (WARNING: Do NOT use this microwave to dry a wet puppy).

On pistol barrel temperature, there is that video of a Glock being fired to destruction. It may have approached the necessary temperature.

When I first started shooting I had a hangfire in the S&W 66 357 Magnum. I had counted to 25 went it went off - safely pointed downrange.
That has never happened again in the 37 years since, but after it does you don't forget it.

When I am an RSO at matches the scariest thing I normally see is a revolver running reloads that has a misfire and the operator just keeps pulling the trigger and shooting till the 'bad' round comes under the hammer again. But in a semi tap rack bang you are never going to have the round in there long enough no matter the circumstances for a cookoff. As we discussed in another thread about fires a cooking off round out of the chamber is absolutely not a serious safety issue. One in the chamber is depending on where its pointed. get it out of there...

quote:

Originally posted by BuddyChryst:

Frankly, if you had no prior experience with firearms and just read the manual, you’d get the feeling it should never be chambered until just before you aim and pull the trigger.

At an NRA convention a number of years ago, an HK factory representative told me directly that their magazines and weapons were not to be loaded until just before firing, and then should be immediately unloaded and stored unloaded. This was in response to the magazine spring failure in each of my P2000SK magazines. When I enquired as to why they'd all failed, he said it was my fault for keeping ammunition in them. That was HK hating me, and as expected, I sucked.

It's not just Sig. Globally, cigarettes come with warnings and pictures on cartons of tumors. Drano comes with warnings that drinking could cause harm. Every product that passes through california causes cancer, and they make sure everyone knows it. And Firearm manufacutrers make sure they let us know that we could get paper cuts on the owners manual and that really bad things could happen if their products are actually touched, or owned, or looked at for more than 5 seconds in a 24 hour period.

quote:

Originally posted by BuddyChryst:
So as said before, it’s all lawyerspeak

I went to check the SIG website to check a different product manual for this language ...and sure enough, the P320 manual they have online has it there, verbatim, on page 34. Not model-specific, just lawyerese, copied and pasted.

I was one a night fire exercise at Bragg in the summer where we fired more tracer ammo in a few minutes than I thought possible. The gas tubes on the A2s were glowing bright orange and the barrels were smoking but I didn’t see a single runaway. I didn’t count but it seems like it was 10-12 30 rd mags full auto shooting at a convey down range.