My friend had to send his k 80 back because of the same issue. He had shot 40-50 flats of Rio shells. I have never had an issue with my k 80 (knock on wood) firing pins and only use Win 209 primers.

Thanks Goose2 for your information. I think most reloaders know that RIO primers used for the RIO shells are the largest primer to be found at this time. Interestly enough the RIO primers are slightly hotter than the WIN 209s and can be compared to Cheddites as far ignition "power." However if the the RIOs were not burning through due to the firing pin piercing thru the primer, then I wonder why his K80 firing pins were damaged with shooting the 40 - 50 flats of RIO shotgun shells.

Let's not get into the ways that primers are measured to determine ignition rate, power, etc.; I know something about how this is determined.

The reason that I use the REM STS and FIO 616 is because they are close as far as "power" with FIO 616 being slightly milder. I also like the Fiocchi primers because the primer area to be hit by the firing pin is completely flat for detination in an O/U that has firing pins not hitting in the exact center.

Let's see if someone can theorize why the RIO primers and some other primers destroy some K80 firing pins.

I had trouble with mine after shooting new Rio shells (about 20 flats). In talking with both ottsville and earnest marlatte, there seems to be a bunch of trouble lately with Rio, Gamebore, Cheddite and Fiocchi primers/shells and krieghoff firing pins (particularly the bottom barrel). Frustrating problem to say the least, but only premium shells/primers for me going forward.

Thanks jls7552 for your response.

I am sure KI at Ottsville knows of the problem with some primers, maybe shells also and I know they often recommend using only new ammo. But now they are finding problems with their firing pins for several or more new shotgun shells on the market?

You would think that they (KI) would use some great German knowledge and re-develop their firing pins to handle all newly manufactured ammo especially with competitive shooters trying to keep costs down are using less costly ammo than Federal, Remington and Winchester. Even Federal, Remington and Winchester primers really are much higher priced and are no longer many shooters choice because of cost.

My Remingtons, Charles Daley, and Weatherby shotguns don't have damaged firing pins from shooting reloads! I wonder whether or nor Perazzi, Kolar and Balser are having any firing pin problems, or is it just K80s?

In my opinion it sounds terrible to market a great gun and tell people to use only high quality ammo and/or primers to save your firing pins.

After I gather more information I will call KI to sound off, but first I really think someone out there has some good answers as to what is wrong with K80 firing pins and why lower cost ammo and primers are damaging their firing pins.

By the way I have shot Estates, RIO and lately some Top Gun in my 1100 and they are shoot and function flawlessly. I shoot these in the 1100 to let the hulls fly since I only reload AA and REM STS hulls for my K80.

You can use the best steel in the world, but if the primer is piercing, it will flame treat the end of the firing pin and it will become brittle and erode away. Blaming the mfgr. when that is happening is BS. If your gun is piercing a certain primer, change primers, or keep buying new pins. If you're piercing primers and the pins are eroding....then it's your fault.

If the bottom pin is dragging across the shell that can chip off the end also. You guys that pierce primers are lucky you do not make a habit of doing that with a rifle.

I didn't notice pierced primers in my case but admittedly didn't looks that closely as I was pitching the hulls. I do know over the last 5 years I have shot a bunch of rio and kemen shells out of a kolar and a 390 without any problem. Is something different with those guns or have they changed the primers? I am not sure of the answer. A 10k plus gun should be able to shoot everything that you put in it. That said it isn't worth the frustration to me so I am shooting premium only.

As for the reloaders (I used to be one), I cannot understand not springing for the premium primers. Even a $50 difference per 5k is only a quarter a box....

There must be some sort of permanent fix for this, as outside of the US, most of the rest of the world mfgs are using UEE components (RIO, gamebore, cheddite, ect). I haven't heard of any overseas shooters experiencing these problems, and some of their guns have never seen a Winchester Remington or Federal shell.

That being said, the worst one I've come across was Gun Club 20ga (I've shot thousands of Fiocchi and Cheddite primers with no damage to the pins). Ate a brand new set of pins in my kolar in about a flat of shells, chipped/dimpled the end, not bad enough to cause any issues, but they no longer look factory fresh. Will be ordering a replacement set of pins soon.

The price of a gun or truck or horse for that matter has nothing to do with it. A 50,000.00 truck should burn any garbage you put in it,,,,,,but good luck with that. Just like computers, garbage in...garbage out.

Al Wilson. Here is what I think. Either the metal on the Rio primers are of a softer metal causing the pin to pierce it easier or the primer itself does not sit as deep in it's own case. I certainly do not want an argument (because to tell you the truth, I don't much care)I was just telling you a situation I know about hoping it mite help someone out.

Shoot a $15,000 gun but must save pennies on cheap primers-trapshooter logic!!

Firing pins drive straight in on an Auto, and come in from an angle on an O/U. that is part of the difference. Most of the problems in K and P guns are also with the Bottom barrel only. Ernest said its from hard primers used in low budget ammo.

The Remington Gun Clubs were the primers I have heard more about having problems in Krieghoffs than any other.

Hi everyone: Finally getting some good feedback, however haven't heard much about firing pin chipping in Perrazi guns, but a person with a Kolar has had a firing pin problem.

Some shooters are relating firing pin chipping primarily due to piercing primers and therefore burning the firing pin tips. I can fully agree with this happening with regular piercing of primers, but I don't have primer piercing for sure. I either would see this upon extracting the shells or when I check my fired shells to be reloaded. Primer piercing is not happen with REM primers or FIO 616 primers in my gun.

Skeet Man brought up a very good point. Outside of the U.S. he hasn't heard of any firing pin chipping problems with their ammo and they don't shoot Federal, Remington or Winchester. I don't know Skeet Man, but have seen his input on this site often and I think he is associated with Kolar therefore he may have a lot of knowledge about shotguns.

Now Fly may have an excellent point that semi-autos firing pins hit the primer straight-on whereas O/U shotguns hit the primer at an angle. Hitting the primer at an angle could very likely make that firing pin susceptable to chipping more easily.

Fly also says Ernest Marlette suggests chipping primers is caused from shooting hard primers with the low budget ammo. I know that Mr. Marlette is one of the best, if not the best K80 repairman in the U.S. However Goose2 says firing pin damage might be caused from RIO primers with softer metal piercing more easily and/or the primer might be sitting high in the RIO shell to cause piercing. (I appreciate your suggestions Goose2 and hope nobody argues them at this point. There is no argument from me! Let's just try to solve a problem.)

So far I know that I don't use RIO primers and never will shoot RIO primers in any of my guns - just don't want to deal with the large primer size screwing up my hulls to reload with other primers in the future. Also not only has my bottom firing pin chipped, but also my top firing pin as well. When I sent my K80 for servicing about 5 years ago for servicing, they replaced both firing pins because they were chipped; not just the bottom firing pin that comes in with more of an angle.

Is this just a K80 problem? Are other high quality guns having the same problem with lower priced primers and ammo? If this is just primarily a K80 problem, then we might be able to have KI solve the problem.

Lastly I agree with JLS. All high quality guns should be able to shoot the lower quality primers and ammo especially if we find out that other high quality guns are not having a problem.

Is the problem with the primer? The primer in a center fire rifle routinely handles over 40,000 units of pressure and with a shotgun we are talking about 10,000 units. It would seem that a shotgun primer should be able to easily handle that. HMB

The manufacturers of the culprit primers need to revisit their manufacturing processes, including metallurgy.

You HMB now have brought out an ecellent comment about rifle firing pins handling much more pressure than the shotgun firing pin and rifle firing pins are not damaged. Furthermore centerfire rifle firing pins generally are smaller in diameter at the firing pin tip than shotgun pins therefore more force is place onto a smaller area of the centerfire firing pin tip. Yet they do not generally chip. Years ago I would occasionally have firing pin piercing with small rifle primers when working up loads - never saw any firing pin damage either.

Scooterbum, I don't believe that we have received enough credible information to definitely blame the primers or there manufacturers thereof at this time. Maybe if you and others can have non-K80 owners of quality O/U shotguns tell us whether or not they are having problems with their primers and/or new cheaper ammo, this would point more to the primers rather than the firing pins.

Looking forward to hearing comments that will help us in this matter.

Not a pierced primer in the flat of gun clubs that ate my kolar pins. I occasionally had a pierced primer w/ the cheddites, but that never caused any damage on either of my kolars. Never a pierced primer w/ Fiocchis.

Federal/CCI have dropped their primer price to within a couple bucks a case of the cheapies (and I think we have the cheapies to thanks for that), so it doesn't make sense anymore. When they were 30,40,50 bucks a case cheaper, it was worth it, but I'll shoot name brand for $5/case more.

I think firing pins are a balancing act. Too hard and they can damage the hammers and become brittle and can break. Too soft, and the hammer will damage the pin, and the tip will easily deform.

I am excited about Marcello's new 3 piece firing pin that he's making for the perazzi. I plan on sending him a kolar pin to replicate when I have a spare to send.

"However, ductility of a work-hardened material is decreased. Ductility is the extent to which a material can undergo plastic deformation, that is, it is how far a material can be plastically deformed before fracture. A cold-worked material is, in effect, a normal (brittle) material that has already been extended through part of its allowed plastic deformation. If dislocation motion and plastic deformation have been hindered enough by dislocation accumulation, and stretching of electronic bonds and elastic deformation have reached their limit, a third mode of deformation occurs: fracture."

Skeet Man indicates that a flat of Gun Clubs "ate his Kolar pins." Occasionally he had some primer piercing with cheddites, but none with Fiocchi primers.

One of the problems that I have seen with Gun Clubs is that sometimes they are using different primers. I have seen different fired primers in the Gun Club that I picked up and reloaded; quite evident in the primer catch tray on my PW press. I think they use whatever primer they can get the cheapest to load for those shells. Never used gun clubs in my K80, however I occasionally reloaded them one time only to shoot through the 1100.

Now we get into material terms engineers use frequently and that some of us incorrect interchange. Skeet Man refers to hardness and brittleness of the firing pins and Scooterbum refers to another metal property of ductility. Well ductility or lack of thereof indicates little, if any, elongation under tension or tensile force. Maybe during manufacture the pins are made with little ductility which basically indicates that the metal is also brittle.

I'll buy the lack of ductility (high brittleness) of the metal. Also the metal now being more brittle than it should be also loses its mallability. Low mallability is most likely seen as chips on the firing pin tip that I am complaining about.

If high quality guns other than the K80 that are used for competition are not commonly having the firing pin chipping problem, then K80 firing are not being manufactured correctly to stand up to marketed lower costing ammo and primers. However one might say that most of the users of other high quality guns are only using Federal, Remington and Winchester ammo or primers when reloading and shooting (which I doubt).

Okay shooters, if primer piercing is not happening with new or reloaded ammo and firing chipping occurs often with K80 firing pins and not with or possibly much less with other firing pins in Kolars and P guns would you be ready to draw a conclusion?

Coming from the back of my head I would like more information on the hardness of each primer because this compression at the firing strike is when mallability comes into the picture. Does anyone have information on primer hardness?

Scooterbum was talking of the ductility of the metal used in the PRIMER, not the firing pin. If you read SBs first post, he is talking about the primers being problematic.

I imagine Krieghoff knows this, but they are not in the business to correct the primer problems. Not only that, but perhaps it increases their shop revenue, when peeps destroy portions of their guns, with cheap components.

Blaming the gun might be blaming the SYMPTOM, where blaming the primer might be blaming the PROBLEM. Or not, who knows.

Many will admit to one thing; changing primers cures the problem.

I should clarify that my problems w/ gun clubs were w/ 20ga. The 12ga use the STS primer (and has for a few years now, it didn't use to though, it used the same primer as the 20ga still does) and shouldn't cause any issues, the 20ga use their field load primer which is much harder.

Gosh darn it! Scooterbum probably hit it on the nose with primer hardness early in this discussion because this would affect the mallability force given to the firing pin. My apology - please accept.

1)Does anyone have any measurements on shotgun primer hardness? 2)Does anyone have any subjective comments on shotgun primer hardness?

Objective measurements (1) would certainly be preferred than subjective comments(2).

I personally have never deduced anything that relates to shotgun primer hardness in the shotgun shooting that I have done. Years ago I did some testing of primer hardness with custom-tuned actions on revolvers. As you know even different shotgun load pressure recipes will affect the depth of primer hit so that primer hardness can not be determined this way.

Someone must have the apparatus to do primer hardness testing. I would expect that primer companies do have quality control on shotgun primer hardness and therefore have a standard test apparatus. However it is not likely that they would report primer hardness comparisons between different primers for each company.

I have picked up thousands of Remington Gun Clubs and have never seen one with a pierced primer. These were once fired factory loads with the brass colored primer. HMB

The cheaper primers are steel. The cheaper primers that are brass colored are brass washed steel. Using steel components in primers is going to have an effect on the life of the firing pins. Blaming Krieghoff is a bit of a cheap shot. you can use what they suggest or you should buy an idiot proof 1100. 1100's were built with the premise that any caveman could make one work, forever. Krieghoffs were created with the customer in mind, that appreciated fine firearms. If you insist on feeding it the cheapest crap you can find, give up expecting sympathy for your actions. I'm hearing the insinuation that k, may be cutting corners on their firing pins......that's absurd.

I.M ON MY 6TH SLEEVE (30,000) OF CHEDDITE PRIMERS AND NARY A PROBLEM-CITORI, KRIEGOFF, REMINGTON, SUPER-X1 AND CYNERGY.-RICK ZINO

I have berettas and benellis. I use cheddites and have never had a problem. sounds like a kreighoff problem. maybe they are made TOO good?

Al,

If you believe that your problem begins and ends with the firing pin quality, then I would suggest that you have the previous repair job warrantied. That would require communication and action with the repair facility. Please come back and let us all know how things proceeded. Perhaps we will be able to put some of these speculative threads to rest.

Hi Scooterbum: My original intent to initiate this thread was to determine what is causing firing chipping with my K80 and to find out if someone offers firing pins for the K80 that do not chip. Evidently KI has not solved the problem.

If other high quality O/Us don't have this problem, then why not? If these guns have the same problem to the same extent then KI doesn't have a problem. Haven't received enough feedback on these other high quality guns, so I can't blame anything on KI.

Now I am trying to determine the differences in primer hardness to alert myself and others to stay away from certain primers so as not to chip firing pins, especially in K80s. I think this is a reasonable attempt for me to "save my firing pins" in the future in my K80 after I have them replaced again. Don't you?

Really looking for an objective assessment of primer hardness by some people who know how to determine primer hardness and may have done this at one time or another.

Hi 221. Your way off base! If you had read previous threads you would have seen that I never shoot anything but reloads in my K80 with STS and Fiocchi primers in AA and STS hulls. This is not crap being fed into my K80 especially when I follow recipes for 7/8 and 1 ounce reloaded shells only in the O/U.

If I had any new Gun Clubs (never did) I would still have shot them out of the 1100. I don't put junk through my K80!

Incidently the 1100 "caveman gun" has won more events in trap and skeet than you can shake a stick at. Now you knocking Remington for no good reason.

You have blamed KI. How do you know KI is the source of the problem?

Quit talking in circles.

Scooterbum. Don't know if it is KI's fault or the fault of certain primers.

Can anybody supply technical information on primer hardness which probably relates to firing pin chipping?

If my STS primers and Fiocchi primers turn out not to rated as hard, then it is KI's fault!.

Reloads?

Of course they are reloads. I shoot enough every week to reload. Don't blame it on my reloads. I use AA hulls, STS hulls, AA wads and Remington wads respectively, Alliant Red Dot with recipes for 7/8 and 1 ounce loads. Don't shoot 1 1/8 ounce - no need to. Load on my Spolar and sometimes a PW press.

Some respondents are having problems with new shells so don't blame reloads.

I think I'll start a new thread just to find out about primer hardness because this is my concern now that my have a direct relationship as to chipping firing pins. I'll bet you very few people can supply objective assessments of primer hardness.

By the way, isn't it wonderful that you pay in excess of $10,000 for a gun and the company says shoot only new ammo. But now some of this new ammo has fiocchi or Rio primers, or whatever primers so you may damage your firing pins. Let's get real as to solving a problem.

I have had firing pins to deteriorate on both of my K80's and it's annoying but I assumed that the firing pin is an expendable part to take the wear and tear of the hammer meets firing pin, like brake pads on a car--they replace them when needed.

I also use Cheddite primers. Originally I bought them because they were cheap, but I now think they are an excellent product-- 55,000 to date, with only 1 failure to fire. When I disassembled that one, the flash hole end had been creased? I have thought that they are softer because I have never had a hard primer like "premium" brands.

To confuse things further, I had no problem with Cheddites burning through until I tried them on a light 1 oz load (low pressure) that I was testing. Then I found out that they burn through quite often on 410 and 28 ( high pressure), but not on my 1200 fps 12 ga. 1.125 load. I use another primer for those loads. I hate to see the primers burn through and smoke up the receiver and erode the firing pins, but the firing pins last longer than the springs do between annuals.

No answers from me, just illogical observations.

Cheddites- had primer perferation problem a couple of years ago w/ them in 2 K80's and a M12 20 gauge that I use for hunting.Last month I Decided to try them again and had same problem w/ about 10% of loaded shells. Good price on Cheddites but they cause problems- replaced firing pins on the 3 guns w/ burned tips.

I shoot 16.3 Clays or 20.5 grains of PB- light loads.

Bertmuss, thank you for your response. I would consider your observations confusing, but constructive. Reloading components and recipes really have an effect on pressures (low and high)that can cause problems. However you are another one who has no problem with Cheddite primers, except with the light 12 gage loads and high pressure 28ga and 410 bore loads.

You have resigned yourself to replacing firing pins as something to be expected with typical usage with your K80, and I haven't. If I am using anything except expensive primers or Wichester primers and my firing pins are chipping, then I want to know why. I also want to know if chipping firing pins in other high quality guns is common, if not then KI may have a problem.

Primarily just trying to isolate certain primers to stay away from with my K80 so as not to have to replace firing pins at all.

YES, IT IS ANNOYING TO HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT WHAT YOU SHOOT TO PREVENT DAMAGING YOUR FIRING PINS!!!

I've had two "annuals" done recently by different gunsmiths, and they both included new firing pins in the base price. Apparently they are considered a wear item and part of normal maintenance. For the volume I shoot, it sounds like a good idea to me.