I opend up a new box of Hornady Critical Defense .380, and I had 2 FTF rounds out of 4 thsat I shot. I checked the rounds and the primer was clearly dimpled. I went on to shoot some Winchester White Box with no issue. Pretty scary, and a good reason to test your ammo before carrying. I have never had this happen before?
Hornady Critical Defense .380 Failure to fire
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I fired half a box of CD through mine with no issues. The only FTF's I've had occured when I pulled the trigger very slowly and the hammer would catch in the hammer block before falling on the round, resulting in a light strike. There was a small dimple, but not like a fired casing. I found the CD to be very accurate, but in a rudimentary test I got almost twice the penetration with corbon dpx, so that is what is in my pistol. Carry something you have confidence in.
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+1 on this commentary. FTR, I too carry DPX.2thman said:
what did the dimple look like? was it as deep as the dimple on the critical defense rounds that did go off? from what i know ammo-related duds can be caused bybluesman said:
1) improperly seated primers. here the impact from the pin causes the primer to move forward, stealing energy that should have caused the pin to indent the primer. in this case the dimple tend to be smaller and a second strike fires the primer
2) incorrect primer type. e.g. small rifle primers, in particular military surplus stuff that was intended for free-floating pins. these can be so hard that a little pistol firing pin cant touch them off. the dimple should be smaller than e.g. the dimple in wwb stuff
3) primer that have been destroyed by improper exposure. you have not been cleaning your gun with wd-40 by any chance? i dont know how common this is but i've heard horror stories of pistols that destroys carry ammo over time because traces of wd-40 works its way into the primers rendering then useless. in this case one would of course expect normal dimples despite the failure to fire
either way it sounds like a really uncool experience. i'd strongly consider switching carry ammo.
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Good call by testing them but before you discard them (well let me know first and I'll take care of that for ya 
) try the ammo in a different .380. I carrry the same ammo and never had issues and haven't heard your symptom at all, really.
Also, I think the wd-40 on the primer theory was pretty much squashed:
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot39.htm
) try the ammo in a different .380. I carrry the same ammo and never had issues and haven't heard your symptom at all, really.Also, I think the wd-40 on the primer theory was pretty much squashed:
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot39.htm
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Please let us know. I have adopted the Hornady CD as my .380 carry ammo so I'm rather interested in this thread.
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