Acid Reflux and .40 Cal Federal NT

[sublimaze41]

Well there I was just a happily knocking out 200 rounds of .40 cal per hour for spring time use. Charge weights were consistent, O.A.L. close as a hair and all was well. I decided to dump a fresh batch of brass into my pile.....Man that stuff looked good....7 hours in the tumbler and boy did it shine.

Anyhow, I start to reload again and I start to have difficulty with the primers seating. My press is a Dillon 550b and likes to be cleaned every 1,000 rounds so I did just that. Nothing but more crushed and failed to seat primers. So, I made adjustment after adjustment before things began to click.


All the brass cases that failed to have a primer seated in the recycle pile were
FEDERAL NT !! :banghead:

Jeeze I didn't see this coming. The first brass I was loading was circa 1990 and worked just fine. Does anybody else have problems with Federal NT? I was using Winchester primers.

Also, is this problem of seating primers limited to .40 cal? I think I have 1,000 rounds of 5.56 that are NT. I don't want to rig the press up to see if this is an isolated thing with .40 only.


Calll me paranoid, but I can't help but think that Al Gore and his Greenies had a part in all of this

 

[ReloaderFred]

The primers may be crimped in, since the new Non-Toxic primers have a faster brisance (explosive velocity) than the lead styphnate primers they replace. There have been several "fixes" for this problem, ranging from enlarged flash holes, to using small pistol primers in place of large pistol primers in .45 acp, to crimping primers in place.

The problem has been the primers back out of the primer pocket so fast the expanding powder gases can't drive the case back on them fast enough in semi-auto pistols.

If you'll treat the NT brass as military, and remove the crimp, they'll load just like any other commercial cases. If that's too much trouble, I've got three Five gallon buckets of once fired .40 brass in my garage that you can load.....

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[jenrob]

45 NT brass has a crimped primer and small primer for the most part. Are the primers crimped if so I runmine through and use a univesal decap you could also run them through you sizer then swag all of them and run the whole setup.

 

[Luggernut]

I ran into the same thing a while ago. I was at the range and found a bucket of good looking .40 brass so I grabbed it. I realized after the fact that the primer pockets were crimped. I took my time and swaged the pockets.

It's damn good brass so if you make the time it's certainly worth it.

 

[jenrob]

Oh but like reloaderfred. I wouldn't and I bet that a lot of others would throw it in my recycle box and get other 40 brass. 40S&W brass is about the easiest brass to get a hold of. I have a 5 gallon bucket left. I've got to the point when I'm shooting 40 I shoot it once or twice then grab another bunch out of a bucket. My wife is with LEO so I know when they go shoot and I just sit up there and wait for them to finish. All brand new once fierd 40 and 223 brass.