Reusing primers

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Farnorthdan

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Feb 27, 2008
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I had a large batch of .45acp that I had to scrap. Pulled the bullets then used my resizing/depriming die to remove the primers. The primers look perfectly good still and I plan on reusing them, has anyone had to do this before and have you had good results?

DS
 
Use em. I do it every time I boo boo and have to knock one or two out that way. You will never know the difference. :)
 
Depriming live primed cases can be dangerous. If one goes off, it could set off the whole pile of them in the spent primer cup. That would not be a good thing.

If I was going to deprime a live primer, I would do it one at a time and put a cup under the decapper and once that shell is deprimed, remove the cup and dump the live primer into another location and do the next one.

And I would wear safety glasses for sure.
 
Had to knock out 700 CCI #34 primers from match cases. The powder was going bad.

Saved the primers, using them in blasting ammo. Like shooting offhand with my cast bullets.

They go bang, and the cast bullet seems to go where they are aimed.
 
I thought removing live primers was a no-no. if I wanted to take a live primer out of an empty case, I always shot the primer first. then removed the dead primer.

I've never heard of removing a live primer, much less trying to save it and reuse it.

I guess you learn something every day. I'll be monitoring these posts to see what everyone else says about it before I think about changing my habits.
 
Loomis - sounds like you've missed the other umpteen threads concerning removing live primers! ;)

Even though this thread didn't start out asking about the safety of removing live primers, I think we need a sticky thread on that topic. It would read (just as every other thread on the topic has read) - "Go slow and you'll be fine. Always wear safety glasses with hearing protection optional."

Farnorthdan - like the others, I would reuse them, but only for practice ammo, not carry or hunting ammo, etc.

bobotech - I don't see how one primer going off is going to set off the others that may be in the catcher unless it happens to hit them with excessive force. The concussive force of the primer is long spent before it even leaves the case. The path to a catcher cup is rarely a straight line, but I think your warning still has merit. A large number of live primers (I would say 5 is too many) shouldn't be allowed to accumulate in the cup.
 
i`ve pushed out a few in my day , i empty the catcher every 10 primers & reuse em for informal plinking rounds .
i don`t push em out with any vigor ,but kinda softly on the handle
& a decapping die .

GP100man
 
Mal H said:
bobotech - I don't see how one primer going off is going to set off the others that may be in the catcher unless it happens to hit them with excessive force. The concussive force of the primer is long spent before it even leaves the case. The path to a catcher cup is rarely a straight line, but I think your warning still has merit. A large number of live primers (I would say 5 is too many) shouldn't be allowed to accumulate in the cup.
Click to expand...

I will sometimes shoot a primer off in my gun in an empty shell just because its interesting to hear just how loud they are and they put out a pretty good flash.

Now granted, the flash should be going UP when you are depriming since thats the direction of the primer however as you deprime, the needle is pushing downwards so the primer is going to flash a bit upwards and a lot downwards at the same time. Now it might not be a huge risk but I imagine that there is some risk in having say 40 live primers in the primer catch with a flash flame reaching down there. I can imagine that if one goes off, it could set up a chain reaction of all of them.

Kind of like when a primer tube detonates off, one sets off all the others.

I dunno, I have deprimed live ones but I do them one at a time incase if one goes off.
 
It is definitely something to watch out for, however unlikely it is to happen. I have always been doing 1 or 2, so I did them without the catch bin. I caught them with my hand. If you need to do a lot, it would only make sense to not let a bunch accumulate.
 
Live Primers

Hello all,
My experience with removing live primers goes back a few years, before the internet was in existance.
If I had to decap one I would just put the shell in the shellholder and run it through the process and save the primer if I could catch it before it fell in the empty primer bin on single stage.

On the Lee Pro 1000 I just put my finger in the way of the primer going down the spent primer slot.

On the Hornady L-N-L AP I've got 60 cases of corrosive primers to deprime and they will just go down the slot.:(

In all of these instances I never worried about hearing protection because I'm not hitting them on the cup, and I'm not hitting them hard enough to set them off. :neener:
By the way, I whare glasses all the time.
 
Never tried to deprime live military crimped primers
Click to expand...

A good safety warning, but I have even done this. They are generally not reusable due to the swaging effect from the crimp on the way out. Also, the only times I've ever had one go off were heavily crimped primers. No harm done as I always took safety precautions, but it sure does startle you!
 
no big deal at all. got so used to doing it i dont even get out the a die. i open a lee loader. take out the saftey chamber and the de priming rod. put it in give it a light tap. Then reuse the primer. never had a problem.
 
Mal H , et al:

You bet I've missed them. I'm new here. Only found this place a couple days ago. I'm totally hooked. I can't get away, seriously.

I'm still learning how this whole site works. Having trouble figuring out how to look back at old posts to see if anyone responded to my posts.

I'm a noob. Any pointers how this place works would be greatly appreciated. I plan to take full advantage of all the features offered here eventually. Once I get what I think is minimum competency skillset, I'll start posting my own threads.

This place rocks!

Thanks in advance.
 
I just de-primed 600 last night and moved the primers from some 38 brass to some 357 brass. No problems at all and have done it many times in the past.
 
I MUST BE MISSING SOMETHING.

I have only had to remove maybe 25 primers in 30+ years
(this was because they were upside down or just didnt look right),
any bullet I have to pull out I just dump the powder and reload the same case with new powder/bullet and go on. If IM not loading for that case at this time I place them in an air tight container and use them at a later date.
not sure why I would want to move some good seated primers to another case?
 
Did ya'll know that many years ago they used to rebuild used primers? I can't tell you how common it was but I've seen the old ads and talked to old guys who did it.
 
Did ya'll know that many years ago they used to rebuild used primers? I can't tell you how common it was but I've seen the old ads and talked to old guys who did it.
Click to expand...

I have been told you can use strike anywhere matches to do this . 1 white tip for sm. and 2 tips for lg.
I do have a qt can of spent primers,
hope I never have to reload a primer.
 
Loomis your doing nothing wrong. Look at my post count. These guys are great. not just here on the reloading part. check out all of them. you really learn alot about shooting, guns ownership everything. Its like reading a magazine but being able to ask questions and get responses from all over the U.S.
 
CHEVELLE427 said:
not sure why I would want to move some good seated primers to another case?
Click to expand...
That's an excellent point; glad I thought of it! :)

Farnorthdan, why did you feel the primers in the salvaged 45 ACP cases needed to be removed? Primed cases can be resized by simply removing the decapping pin.
 
Let me clarify, I do it either on a Lee reloader single stage or with the Lee decapper and base one at a time. I would not do it on a press that captures the primers and stores lots of them together. That could be bad. Some of us live on a very small very fixed income and salvage whatever components we can to use again later if it is safe to do so. So long as proper care is taken and you realise that if you goof you will set one off, it is no more dangerous that any other part of reloading.
 
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