3 out of 100 primers failed. Normal?

[PigButtons]

I'm just starting to reload for 9mm. Up until now i've been doing .223 and .308 exclusively. All that the local gun shop had was Federal No. 100 small pistol primers. I've loaded about 100 now and 3 have failed to fire. Good firing pin strikes on all three, and I tried a second strike just in case. After decapping the primers looked to have a normal amount of primer material.

Is this normal for Federal pistol primers? I've not had any failures with their rifle primers. Could this just be a fluke in the batch that is in this one package?

Thanks

 

[blarby]

Is this normal for Federal pistol primers?

Not normal for any primer.

Got any pics of your seating attempts ?

Was the primer box discolored vis-a-vis waterdamage ?

 

[FROGO207]

It is possible that you pushed too hard and crushed the priming compound so the primer then would not fire. Were the outer sides of those primers flattened or were they rounded like the other primers. Sometimes the primer pockets with crimps will cause you to crush a primer if you seat them without removing the crimp before the first reloading. I would think of this if the brass was military or shows primer pocket crimps.

 

[W.E.G.]

My vote is that you didn't completely seat the primers on the duds.

 

[gamestalker]

That just doesn't sound right? I've never had one fail in several decades of reloading. It's either the gun, or the primer wasn't seated properly.

 

[PigButtons]

My vote is that you didn't completely seat the primers on the duds.

I think we have a winner. W.E.G., looking under magnification at the unfired primers, it appears that the little three leafed metal piece on the inside is pushed up and out of the primer just a little. The fired ones are still flush with the edge of the primer. I guess that there was enough room for the inner piece to move away from the strike and therefore not ignite.

Got any pics of your seating attempts ?

Was the primer box discolored vis-a-vis waterdamage ?

Sorry blarby, but I don't own a camera that will take a picture of anything that small.

There wasn't any discoloring of the packaging and the color of the primer material is normal when compared to the others.


Thanks everyone for your help. I'll post again when I've got some results.

 

[FROGO207]

Most times when you have primers that are not seated enough the second strike will set them off. The OP stated this did not happen. So that is why I discarded this as the problem. Again, I would look at the primer pockets of the problem round brass for a crimp ring that was not removed or removed enough thus not allowing the primer to be fully seated. I would even think about crud in the pockets stopping the cup from entering completely. I also believe that the primers were not at fault as this is the least likely cause of the problem.

 

[kingmt]

I agree that the problem is more likely caused by crimped pockets.

 

[wingman]

I've only used Winchester or Remington in nearly 40 years never had a primer failure.

 

[PigButtons]

Frog and kingmt, I will carefully inspect my brass before loading to determine the status relative to your posts. I'm familiar with crimped primer holes from the military .223 that I reload. Although I'm not shooting military surplus, I will look to see if there is any obstructions in the primer pockets as well.

Thanks

Well here's an update. I looked more closely at the primer pockets. Sure enough there was some black and grey residue hiding in the 90 degree angle where the floor of the primer pocket meets the wall. I used a small flat bladed screw driver and cleaned all of them out. I'll let you know how the next batch turns out.

 

[soloban]

Something I do that I have noticed that cut my duds down to almost nothing is to try not to touch the primer with your hands at all. I use a Lee hand priming tool. I dump the primers in and do not touch them with my fingers if at all possible. Or I will try to wear gloves. I've heard finger oils and case lube on your hands will contaminate the primers.

 

[TonyT]

I would check your primer seating operation. I belive your primers are not fully seated resulting in ignition failures. I have used more than 100,000 Federal primers without a single problem.

 

[ArtP]

I had a similar issue with three failures out of 100, like you good primer strikers. I had switched from press priming to hand priming with an RCBS. Almost everyone on this forum thought I wasn't seating deep enough -- and there were claims that there is no such thing as too deep. I was using the entire stroke of the unit to seat as deep as possible. My failed primers did indeed go "bang" once decapped.

After measuring seating depth with the bottom of my calipers, I discovered the failures were deeper than spec, spec is around four thousands below the case head. My failures were seated at 8 to 11 thousands.

I've since, not used the entire travel of the tool, I go by feel instead and the results are .004 to .007 and I haven't had a failure since. I suspect the extra few thousandths of depth, coupled with new brass that wasn't yet fire-formed, cause the distance from the firing pin to be just a little too much -- even though primer strikes were normal looking.

You can find my FTF thread here:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=626034

 

[Slamfire]

After measuring seating depth with the bottom of my calipers, I discovered the failures were deeper than spec, spec is around four thousands below the case head. My failures were seated at 8 to 11 thousands

I am reconsidering reaming my rifle ammunition pockets to depth. While I don't want high primers, you will have malfunctions from primers set too deep.

I had 17 rounds fail to ignite in my M70 out of forty rounds for record in a long range match. My horizontal dispersion was just awful which may have been due to inconsistent ignition. The misfires were from seating the pimers too deep. I measured the primer depth on all of the unfired rounds, the first picture is of one, and they ranged from .004” to .012”. The average has to be around .006”. The upper picture is of a CCI #34 hit but not ignited in my M70. These primers are all seated by hand so there is no chance of the anvil not being properly set.

When these same rounds were loaded at random in a M1a Super Match, they all went bang. The lower picture shows the ones that fired and the ones that had not been inserted in the M1a.





Per an older American Rifleman dope bag article, Frankfort Arsenal set their primers from 0.0 to 0.005”. I am getting of the opinion that primers just need to be barely below the case head.

 

[Blue68f100]

Primers need to be seated so the anvil is supported. Whether it's 0.000" or 0.006" does not matter. In most cases when a primer fails to go off the impact sets the cap deeper, and the 2nd shot sets them off. Rifle ammo and Pistol ammo have the same requirement with the rifle having more energy to set them off if not fully seated. The only primer pockets I uniform is rifle loads. I do use a swedger to remove the crimp onon mil spec brass. In most cases I do not even run a primer uniformer afterwards. Now some of the newer Non Toxic ammo these day have a larger flash hole and are crimped too. This is because this compound has a lot more energy than a std primer and will back out. I have found that this oversize flash hole does not impact the use of std primers.

Some like to had prime other press prime. I have press primer for over 35yrs and never have a problem. I have had 1 wolf primer in SP fail to go off on 3 firings. This was the only one in 10k. Now Wolf SP seamed to be over size which caused problems with some progressive seating the primers deep enough. Most would go off on the second firing.

Unless your gong to cut all of your primer pockets the same depth, which may be too deep you can go by seating depth. But seating primers is all about feel, knowing when they have bottomed out in the pocket.

 

[wingman]

Unless your gong to cut all of your primer pockets the same depth, which may be too deep you can go by seating depth. But seating primers is all about feel, knowing when they have bottomed out in the pocket.

Very true, I've used a primer pocket uniformer for some time with good results, another issue is contaminated primers easy to do with cleaning products and various penetrating oils.

 

[kingmt]

Some fluids yes but it is hard to kill a primer. To deep crushs them to shallow doesn't allow you to reach the anvil. Ether problem can be caused by crimped pockets. Some of the crimped pockets are hard to see. I run all new to me brass through the swageing die.

 

[BLJimmy]

Gotta agree with WEG. That's too many duds and I've been there regarding poorly seated primers.

 

[gamestalker]

Artp, the problem of seating primers too deep is eliminated with an RCBS priming die that mounts in the press. In my opinion, it is as fast as using any other manual priming tool. On average I can prime 10-12 pieces of brass per minute, and I know with certainty they are all at the same depth without visual verification.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I'm just starting to reload for 9mm. Up until now i've been doing .223 and .308 exclusively. All that the local gun shop had was Federal No. 100 small pistol primers. I've loaded about 100 now and 3 have failed to fire. Good firing pin strikes on all three, and I tried a second strike just in case. After decapping the primers looked to have a normal amount of primer material.

Is this normal for Federal pistol primers? I've not had any failures with their rifle primers. Could this just be a fluke in the batch that is in this one package?

Thanks

NOT normal for any brand of primers. A failure rate of 3% is totally unacceptable...

 

[kingmt]

While I haven't used the RCBS ram prime I have a CH4D & agree I can let my 3 year old girl prime them & know they are all done right. If I load progressively then I prime on the press but all of the brass has been through the CH4D swageing at one time. I still get a primer here & there that is only flush because I didn't seat it well enough in the progressive & use the ram prime to fix.

 

[blarby]

@ pig :

Welcome to why I clean and cut my primer pockets

Many will say its a waste of time, many will say otherwise.

Whenever you see that argument come up here in the future, you can chime in with your experience