Primer pockets- how loose is too loose?

[crimsoncomet]

Good evening. I have a question. I have been reloading for some time now. I can definitely feel the difference in a tight primer pocket vs a loose one, though I have never had a piece of brass to the point the primer would just fall out. If I ever find a piece of pistol brass that feels loose, I just tap it hard one the table to make sure it doesn't jar loose.

Well, I finally found the some "looser" pockets then I have ever found. Log story short, I bought some range pick up 223 brass WCC head stamped to make 300 blk brass. I thought, military crimped, this stuff should be once fires and tough stuff. Well, I was wrong. Out of 100 I deprimed, cleaned, cut and sized, half had very easy to prime primer pockets. I am wondering if its machine gun brass.

Anyway. I came up with a test, I use a very large paper clip to try and push hard to back the primer out. If I could, the piece got scrapped. If I couldn't, I kept it. These rounds will be loaded with sub sonic rounds. So very low pressure. What is the chance that the primer will not seal the pocket and leak gasses and cut my bolt face on a very high dollar rifle. What's the best test or this? Should I scrap them all? Or is my test ok? Thanks I'm advance for any info and advice!

 

[rcmodel]

A good rule of thumb is, If it feels too loose, it is too loose.
Toss it.

That's one reason I do all priming with an RCBS hand priming tool.
Loose pockets are immediately apparent just from the feel when seating them.


BTW: Pushing on a live primer through the flash hole with a paper-clip is dangerous at best.
It is not at all likely one will fire off.
But IF one does?

You will be making a trip to the ER to get some fingers repaired, and possibly a paper-clip extracted from your no longer functional eyeball!

rc

 

[vongh]

A story that I am sort of ashamed of but what the heck It happened when I was 13 or 14 years old. I took the contents out of a shot shell and was trying to remove the primer with an ice pick or something similar and much to my surprise the primer blew it made a hole in my moms carpet about size of a quarter. Im just glad I wasn't injured that day. But I learned about respecting primers.

 

[Reefinmike]

Not to hijack the thread, but when I was young, my brother and I used to cut shotshells in half, dump the powder out and put the the empty case on top of a bb gun and shoot the primer . We then took half the powder out and dumped it down our "cannon" which was a thin aluminum blowgun tube with a rolled end and flash hole. Insert a fuse from a bottle rocket and ram the payload down which ranged from large ball bearings wrapped in foil for a seal, bb's wrapped in foil and even moms tiny screw drivers. By some act of god, both of us have all 9 fingers still

 

[Miata Mike]

I have only loaded a few loose primer pockets. Marked the brass and scrapped them if I found them in the grass. I don't remember any that were too loose to use.

 

[cfullgraf]

If the primer falls out on its own, the pocket is too loose.

More often than not, I deprime cases with a universal depriming die. You get a feel when a pocket is about to be too loose.

Ditto, when I am priming. If the pocket feels loose on priming but the primer does not fall out, i will mark the case and discard it after firing.

I do not risk cartridges that are required to be 100 percent reliable and use only cartridges that I know have tight primer pockets.

Cartridges used in AR-15s are my biggest source of loose primer pockets. I have been easing off the powder charges a little, particularly with 17 Remington and 204 Ruger and the primer pockets last much longer.

 

[1SOW]

For pistol: If the primer seats 'loose' (not falling out loose), I paint the case bottom with laundry marker and don't re-use it.

 

[gamestalker]

I prime with an RCBS priming die on my press, which can be deceiving due to the leverage the press produces. But I have also come to know what feels right and what doesn't, enough so that I have not had a primer leak as yet. But I also don't load anything that simply doesn't produce enough resistance to my liking.

As for using a paper clip, or anything else to test primer tightness, no way for me, they produce enough of a blast to seriously injure us. I think about as far as I would go is to use a decapping pin on the press, in a normal depriming fashion to see how easily it will move. But no way I'm getting my hands or face in the way of a discharging primer, especially with a projectile such as a paper clip. Be careful how you work with this hobby.

GS

 

[mdemetz]

I had some old 9mm with loose pockets. Checked them with an air compressor blow gun with a rubber tip. All the bad ones blew out the primer with about 60-80psi.

 

[jmorris]

I post load tumble to knock the lube off them. If the primer falls out, it was too loose.

 

[kerreckt]

I believe the OP was stating that he used the paper clip on the dead primer as a test before processing it to reprime (at least I hope that is what was being said)....my two cents worth.

 

[PCCUSNRET]

Doesn't need to be a loose primer for one to fail and damage your bolt face. I loaded some new Winchester brass with WLR primers for a new Tikka in 243 and one that rimers failed leaving a nice pin head mark on the bolt face. The best I could tell the leak came from around the primer and not a ruptured primer. This was at the minimum charge as I was just starting to develop a load.

What primers are you using? I have found that CCI primers tend to fit a little tighter than Winchester and I can get an additional load or two from some brass that I would have tossed using Winchester primers.

What are you using to remove the crimp? I use one of the Dillon 600 Super Swage tools and have reloaded hundreds of WCC with no problems noted with stretched primer pockets.

 

[mljdeckard]

I'm still mostly a rookie myself, but I feel the same way as RC. I use an RCBS hand-priming tool, and the idea of using a more automated method gives me the willies. The priming step is when I get the best look at the brass and look it over for things like pocket size, stress, cracks, etc. With the hand tool, I can check every single case with my finger to verify seating depth.

 

[Twmaster]

I'll ditto RC and mljdecker, I too use an RCBS hand primer. I also inspect my brass at least twice through the sorting cleaning and priming process.

Loose pockets hit the scrap bucket.

A question for the OP....

How are you removing the crimp on those cases? If reaming you may be taking out too much metal. If swaging, well I don't have an answer.

I always swage as you are not removing any metal. It just gets pushed into the pocket.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

BTW: Pushing on a live primer through the flash hole with a paper-clip is dangerous at best.
It is not at all likely one will fire off.
But IF one does?

Yeah, that doesn't seem like a very good idea to me either.
I also agree that if you're in doubt, toss it. Unless you're shooting an oddball caliber that's nearly impossible to find, brass isn't that expensive when you take into account the several firings you'll get out of it. Even if it was expensive, it's not worth risking injury for one piece.