Stuck Primer - Taking things for granted OR How I jammed things up by not paying attention.

[Pat Riot]

Today I was prepping some .45 Colt brass for reloading. I resized and deprimed 200 rounds of brass but didn’t bother with inspecting the primer pockets. Why would I do that? They don’t need inspecting…

I was installing primers in the cases with my RCBS Automatic Primer Tool when I had a stuck case when pressing in a primer. I couldn’t remove the case. I couldn’t retract the primer insertion rod. A primer was stuck half in and half out of the case.
I tried force. I tried jiggling things. Then I considered using a 1/16” punch to push the primer out. This would not work and I was afraid of setting off the primer.
I disassembled the primer tool. I put the primer insertion rod into a vise and pried against the vise and the shaft to free the insertion rod and I got it loose.




I used a punch against the bezel edge to force it down to get the primer cup out of the bezel. The cup was deformed from me pushing against it in the priming tool.


As I was setting the pieces up for the photo above I saw what caused the whole problem. When I deprimed that case the primer being removed came apart and left the sleeve of the primer cup in the primer pocket.


Now had I done what I used to do and cleaned the primer pocket of each round after depriming this odd event wouldn’t have occurred. But a few years back I decided to follow the advise of some of my fellow Cowboy Action Shooters and cut some corners to expedite hand loading on my single stage set up ( By the way, if you don’t know me from the CAS forums and weren’t involved in my conversation about this a few years ago there’s no need for you to get upset about my post here…just sayin’)

SO, the moral to my story here is don’t become complacent and cut corners to save time. Take a few extra minutes to inspect your work and the materials you’re working with to make sure everything is going as it should.

 

[troy fairweather]

Try a small pistol primer in it lol, always inspect your brass.

 

[entropy]

Cutting corners and reloading is about the same combination as your avatar, Pat Riot. You might get away with it for a while, but........

 

[Englishmn]

That never used to be a problem but I see it often last few years. Just toss the case not worth trying to get it out.

 

[mdi]

A "ringer"!

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

I like to be on a first name basis with my brass. Because of previous mistakes very similar to this one.
Glad you got it fixed without a boom!

 

[Pat Riot]

I like to be on a first name basis with my brass. Because of previous mistakes very similar to this one.
Glad you got it fixed without a boom!

So, you think I made a good choice by not proceeding with the action in this photo?


NOTE: Photo for humorous purposes only.

 

[Pat Riot]

That never used to be a problem but I see it often last few years. Just toss the case not worth trying to get it out.

I kept it as a reminder.

 

[Pat Riot]

By the way everyone, the primer that came apart was a Winchester LPP purchased a few years ago long before The Silliness. More than likely my lack of primer pocket cleaning was the main reason for the failure. I would guess that particular case had been reloaded numerous times.

 

[entropy]

I wasn't going to accuse you of that, but I did suspect that was the cause.

 

[41 Mag]

Been there, done that, only with a big batch of LC 308's. Out of around 600 or so cases I had close to a half dozen that did the exact same thing while depriming..they had all been initially cleaned and pockets reamed to remove crimps.

Luckily I found it while working on cleaning the pockets but it did make for an aggravating time clearing things out.

To my eyes, it appeared that there had been some moisture which had gotten in around the cup and the resulting mix with possibly spent primer compound bonded them in.

Also had some older mil-surp '06 that had quite a few of the bases pop out leaving the rims when I initially resized. Those however just went to the squash bin for the metal man.

Goes to show something can slip in at any stage of the process to ruin your day.

 

[CQB45ACP]

Here you go.

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

I’ve seen a number of quasi explanations, ranging from wet tumbling and insufficient drying to not wet tumbling and leaving residue behind. My completely uneducated guess is you did something to upset the primer faerie and this is her revenge (naturally in my mind the primer faerie is female, redhead, and has sparkling eyes). Did you recently steal back a dropped primer from the primer gnomes living under your bench?

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

Here you go.

View attachment 1178251

That looks like a refugee from Doc Holiday’s dentistry bag.

 

[lordpaxman]

I’ve seen ringers on Federal NT 9mm cases, but not on LPP like that. If you load on a progressive, eventually you’ll discover a ringer. I’m glad everything worked out.

 

[Charlie98]

By the way everyone, the primer that came apart was a Winchester LPP purchased a few years ago long before The Silliness.

The one bad experience I had with Winchester primers was... 'Winchester LPP purchased a few years ago long before The Silliness.' Exactly. Mine perforated even with lower pressure .45ACP loads, cut right at the outer radius of the cup. Messed up the bolt faces on a few of my .41's, which makes me very sad. The first 3000 of them weren't a problem, but all of a sudden, the 4th brick started giving me problems. The 5th brick is stashed in the 'break glass in case of none' locker... because if I run out of CCI's and cant' get any more, it won't matter anyway.

 

[Pat Riot]

The one bad experience I had with Winchester primers was... 'Winchester LPP purchased a few years ago long before The Silliness.' Exactly. Mine perforated even with lower pressure .45ACP loads, cut right at the outer radius of the cup. Messed up the bolt faces on a few of my .41's, which makes me very sad. The first 3000 of them weren't a problem, but all of a sudden, the 4th brick started giving me problems. The 5th brick is stashed in the 'break glass in case of none' locker... because if I run out of CCI's and cant' get any more, it won't matter anyway.

Ouch! I haven’t seen that issue. I hope I don’t.
I am finishing up a brick of Winchester primers. The same ones I had the issue with. I have one more 1000 round brick that I bought at the same time years ago. I also have a new brick of Winchesters.
I personally like CCI primers but haven’t bought any in a while. Once I burn through these Winchesters I will be buying CCI. I am also using up some Federal SPP’s. I would rather have CCI’s for SPPs as well.

 

[Charlie98]

CCI has always been my primer of choice, but Winchester's LPP's are 'standard and Magnum' primers, and I thought I'd kill 2 birds with one stone, vs stocking 2 different types of primers. Sure, they worked in that role, but the end cost was not acceptable. I have not had any issues with other Winchester primers... but once bitten, twice shy.

Here... I'll make you cry...

That's the bolt face on my Marlin 1894 .41MAG...

...and the bolt face on my S&W 58...

 

[dartor]

The brand of primer wasn't the problem, nor was it that the primer pocket wasn't clean. "Ringers" are caused by wet tumbling without removing the primers. I've seen it with range brass I pick up that has been wet from rain. I won't buy brass that has been wet tumbled without removing the primers before tumbling.

 

[N555]

I get primer rip throughs on cases I have washed and left alone for a few weeks.
I pick up outdoor range brass and give them a quick wash to knock the dirt off them to get them clean enough to run through the sizer die.

 

[Blue68f100]

The one bad experience I had with Winchester primers was... 'Winchester LPP purchased a few years ago long before The Silliness.' Exactly. Mine perforated even with lower pressure .45ACP loads, cut right at the outer radius of the cup. Messed up the bolt faces on a few of my .41's, which makes me very sad. The first 3000 of them weren't a problem, but all of a sudden, the 4th brick started giving me problems. The 5th brick is stashed in the 'break glass in case of none' locker... because if I run out of CCI's and cant' get any more, it won't matter anyway.

I had that happen to me a couple of decades ago. What I found when I dung in deeper it only happen on brass that had the beveled pockets like RP does. It also happened on a few Win Fed brass too that where beveled too deep. WIn replace the primers at a 2 for 1 and paid to have my brand new custom BE repaired, 200 rounds. I had to go through all my stock (2k) that had the same lot number and breakdown all the RP brass ones. And a few others which I though were over beveled. This is the reason I always say use the right too for the job so you don't over bevel the pocket, swage.

 

[Bronco72]

After years of cleaning brass one way or another. my preferred method now is to deprime and wet tumble with steel pins. Brass comes out looking new and unfired outside, inside, primer pockets. Just my preferred method that's all. It also stopped the ringers on the bolt face!
IMHO that's all

 

[Pat Riot]

Interesting information everyone.
In my case I do not wet tumble. I use a vibe tumbler with corn cob media. I do use mixed head stamp brass.
Also, I must admit that I haven’t looked for this blow by failure but I do look at my brass after cleaning and before sizing and depriming.
You can bet I am going to pay closer attention especially after seeing the post by @Charlie98
Man, that’s not good.

 

[kmw1954]

SO, the morale to my story here is don’t become complacent and cut corners to save time. Take a few extra minutes to inspect your work and the materials you’re working with to make sure everything is going as it should.

My morale to the story is, Never discount Feel! Been using it since 1980 when I first started. Yes I learned the hard way, when something doesn't feel right it ain't right. Stop and find out why. People stick cases in sizing dies because they gorilla it believing just a little more and I've got it. To me, saving a $1.00 pcs of brass isn't worth the effort. Same cam be said for priming on the Lee Pro1000. I can tell as soon as the primer hits the shell if it has twisted or flipped.

 

[Charlie98]

What I found when I dung in deeper it only happen on brass that had the beveled pockets like RP does.

Welllll... I'd only been loading and shooting that RP .41 brass for about 25 years prior to those primer issues... I can understand the high pressure .41 rounds, but not the .45ACP ones. Drilling down into it, it may very well have been an issue with priming... long story short, I was having a problem fully seating primers in the .41 brass, what I know now was a buildup of carbon in the primer pocket from IMR4227, I believe. So after they came out of the press merry-go-round, I would hit them again with my RCBS hand primer to make sure they were seated all the way. That does not explain, again, the very same issue with my .45ACP brass with those primers... I have no problems with primer seating in .45ACP brass on the ProJector, but still got primer cup perforations. I don't recall if it was all RP .45 brass, or mix-master brass. I've only been loading that RP brass for 15-20 years, but it's probably had more load cycles than the .41 brass.

.45ACP primers...

Winchester volunteered to take back my last brick of primers, and they would reimburse me for them... something like $60... so I just kept them (this was at the height of the empty primer shelves.) They also volunteered to resolve the issues with my firearms... but, again, I declined to take action on that. Ruger had just taken over Marlin, and had announced they were not prepared to service the older Marlins. I probably should have pursued S&W for the repair on my 58, but, again, I did not.