Hornady SST 1 hangfire, 2 misfires?
 

Really?

Saw a buck this morning in the crp/cedar field, lost site of him as he meandered around.
About an hour later he pops out on the trail 15 yards broadside.
Put the crosshairs right in the kill zone, squeeze....CLICK!!!!

WTH look at my shells, yep 4 so I know it's loaded, as I'm looking down the gun goes off, buck runs off.

Oh man, get down hoping for a clean miss, nope I find hair.
Raining pretty steady so I get right on the trail he took, find no blood.
As I'm doubling back checking all the cross trails I see his rack across the creek, he's bedded down about 60 yards, alert and head up watching his back trail.

I put a tree between he and I, stalk within about 40 yds, get a good rest on the tree.
Whistle to get him to stand, he stands giving me a broadside shot, squeeze, CLICK!!!!!!!!!!
He's looking my direction, **** and squeeze again...CLICK!!!!

He bolts...
I walk down to his bed, no blood but there is some hair, head in the direction he went until I get to the property line, never find a drop of blood or other sign.

Return to the truck and jack another shell in, CLICK!!!
Went off on the second pull, so 1 hang fire and 2 misfires.

So.. gun, bad box of ammo?
I'm ruling out rain because the remaining shell hardly an indentation on the primer.
So it's either the gun or ammo.

Anyone hear of bad SSTs or an H&R USH having short strike issues?

I used Hornady Custom SSTs (308 Win, 150 gr) this year without any glitches. Don't know what to to tell you other than that I would be pissed too. Hope you catch your buck.

Do you have a spent shell you can compare the primer indentation to?

I feel for you. Had the same thing happen to me in the field before. Turned out my firing pin was gunked up. Disassembled the bolt, cleaned it and that cured it. I know yours is a single shot. Can you disassemble to gain access to the firing pin? Is your hammer striking properly?

Edit: The fact that you had a hang fire, to me, says bad powder or bad primers. I'm willing to be there's nothing wrong with your gun. Contact Hornady and let them know it cost you a buck, possibly wounded.

Send in the bad shells. Write up a letter with the information you provided. If you send in a letter to the company, you should get a box or two of free ammunition, and a letter of apology.

My father is in the same boat with a box of bad Winchester Power Max .243 rounds he bought. He's put several boxes of it through his rifle, but this one had the actual lead pull out of the case. Primer and powder fell out. Not once did he have any issues with the other rounds he used.

It's a good thing he did not need to shoot with the bad rounds in his gun. The results could have been very bad.

Those who know me know I have more than a few H&R single shots and 4 USHs. I bought my first USH when released in 1995(?6) and all of my USHs have been shot extensively so yes, I have experienced some misfires.

I will say that the ammo that I experienced the most misfires from was Remington. Both sluggers I use for light target practice and BuckHammers too.

The primer indentations were faint.

What did I learn from this?

First is that single shots are the often overlooked in terms of cleaning and maintenance. Most guys will clean the barrel really well because it is so accessible and then just kinda surface clean the action of powder and then lube it up resulting in essentially coagulated oil/powder surrounding the firing pin. It has to be thoroughly cleaned and I do not use regular oil on my H&Rs I use LPS Dry Lube because it kinda goes on "wet" and dries to a film that does not attract dirt (or powder).

OK that is that. Now on to the ammo which when it comes to that Remington poop, the primer is set too deep. I have seen enough of this with all types of shotguns.

Lay a straight edge over a few different brands of slugs and see which have either the primers set deeply of the entire brass appearing concave. Check the slugs before loading them.

If you or anyone else with an USH want some advice here it is. Disassemble the ejector and block hone both sides a bit to a nicer finish than they have from the factory. The honing can be accomplished in minutes. Clean everything up real well and reassemble. You may or may not want to add a spacer BB under the spring to give it some more pop upon ejection.

Should you want to reload quickly sometime and that shell doesn't eject.......

With the light primer strikes it sounds to me that it's a gun problem and not an ammo problem.

Thats my gut feeling too. Very rare to find bad ammo, but it does happen. I've seen firing pins that get gunked up and are slow to go, or won't go all the way. Oil around the pin can definitely bind the pin in cold weather as stated. Sorry to hear that happened...unfortunate that you hit him at all. Give the gun a thorough cleaning, check your remaining cartridges for any obvious issues and hit the range to see where you stand.

I have never had that happen with the Hornady's....I have witnessed it happen with other brands but not Hornady.

Those on the side of light primer strikes...that was my initial thought but how do you explain the hangfire? Can a hangfire be a result of a light primer strike??

I went out and put 5 boxes of various slugs through the gun, even shot the remainder of my SSTs, no issues.

I feel real bad, that buck made it through 3 weeks of season and this happened.
I hope he wasn't mortally wounded.