What happens when a primer won't seat....

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CMV

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....on Dillon 650 press? Reason I ask is was watching video of guy talking about how he set off a primer on a 1050 when a SPP piece of .45ACP got thru his sort. Trying to smoosh a LPP in the SPP case, it set it off.

So that got me to thinking, could same thing happen to me? Or similar. Since I'm new to the 650, I don't have a good "feel" yet. Have just used Lee hand prime which was simple - it just went in or something was wrong. If something was wrong, you felt it right away. Worst case was a primer halfway in with lots of resistance so just pop the whole shellplate and hit with universal decap die.

So.....if military crimps sneak by for example, am I just going to feel a lot of resistance on that forward push to seat? If I just force it, is it going to seat anyway, possibly shaving the primer the way the Lee hand prime would? Or is that likely to set one off? CCI #41 or Wolf SRM

Same with the .45ACP incident from the guy's 1050 story....Lee hand prime is just a dead stop and so obvious something is wrong not an issue. Would it require such an abnormal amount of force on the 650 (LPP trying to go into SPP hole) to crush it or set it off that I would just know something was off and stop? Or can the 1050 priming on downstroke apply that much force but a 650 on forward stroke really can't without going ape that its a non-issue?

The 650 being new to me AND priming on press new to me just worrying a bit. Need to do 1800 .223, then my next setup is a run of 1400 .45ACP so as I'm learning these new things will have both potential issues of missed crimps or SPP 45 brass....

I know there is a lot of SPP .45ACP brass in my mix since I've had several different people with me shooting .45. So even if I'm 99.9% accurate sorting by primer size (and they all start looking the same after a while....) that's still 1 per 1000 sneaking by....
 
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I have to agree, I find all kinds of things wrong with my cases when I'm loading. I do sort but when your tired sometimes they just slip through. If you have loaded 10 rounds that all went well on then you know what the process is supposed to feel like.
If you get one that doesn't feel right then STOP and find out why.
If they size too easy then it may be a 40 S&W case or a 45 that is split. If the don't want to prime then look to see why. Maybe a crimped primer pocket or the wrong sized primer pocket.
Your press will tell you if you listen to what it's saying.
 
Are you using a case feeder? If not, then simply look at the base of the case each time you pick one up to put into your 650. When doing repetitive volume operations, it's very easy to condition yourself to do the same thing each time. Looking at the base of a brass case each time you pick one up to put into the loader will become automatic. You can then spot a SPP in a 45ACP or a crimped 9mm primer in an instant.

With the Dillons, make sure you have the outer protective sheath on the primer tube and keep the area above the loader clear. I've seen numerous pictures of primer tubes embedded in the ceiling from primers going off in Dillon presses. I would advocated eye and ear protection, but almost no one uses them if they do large volumes of reloading.

I've had 2 primers go off on me. One while trying to complete a primer seating from partly primed batch of .308 brass that someone sold me (I deprimed all the rest and completely reprimed them myself) and once on a Lee hand primer when I didn't inspect a .223 crimped case. Both times the bang was loud enough to cause ringing in my ears for a long time. A chain fire of a tube of primers will be very loud.
 
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Internet photo. When you have a jam, dont force it. STOP. There are others. One Hornady progressive blew the primer tube and set the powder on fire.
 
I just finished loading 2000 9mm on my 650. Found about 20 crimped cases, no problems. If at the end of the handle upstroke you feel a "hard stop" or get some sort of "crunch" sound, don't give it that final push to seat the primer. Remove the case from the priming station and inspect it. Discard the case if for any reason you don't like the look of it. Then just proceed with loading and the unused primer will go down the ski jump. These primers, having hit the bottom of a case or a crimp, may have a burr on the edge, so do not reload them into the priming system unless you enjoy unjamming it. After you've finished loading your batch of ammo, rework these primers. Decap some cases and hand seat these primers. Then remove your decap pin from the sizing die and run these cases through the press to load.
 
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Then remove your decap pin from the sizing die and run these cases through the press to load.

Why not just start them in station 2? Just curious.

So you're saying it will be pretty easy to tell that the resistance is a lot higher & won't be a big deal?

I've done about 200 .223 on it so far just to start tinkering with it. All brass was swaged so I'm sure no crimps. But I felt a lot of variation in the handle. It sure didn't feel like 200 of the exact same thing.....However, I didn't have anything that felt difficult or I was forcing it, just some a little easier or harder than others.

Maybe I should just dig out some spent primers and grab some crimped cases & SPP .45 and just run those in station 2 individually to see what "wrong" feels like.....
 
I've found that de-priming BEFORE tumbling, not on the progressive press, keeps the primer smooge off the progressive and gets you cleaner primer pockets.
I can feel a crimped pocket, de-priming this way and just hand chamfer it when found.

The problem starts when a primer gets started into a crimped pocket and you decide you don't want to continue/finish seating it.
Some shell plates have machined clearance to slide out that case, some don't, so do what you have to, to not have that happen.


I "gage" for small primers with a drill (shank) that just fits in a large primer pocket, it doesn't take any looking at it and can be done while watching TV, or just sitting alone in a dark room...:uhoh:.

You should feel something going wrong and stop before setting off a primer because most presses prime at the bottom when it's the only thing going on to feel :scrutiny:.
I deprime in a drill press, although any reloading press with a case feeder would be way faster:
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Check my sig line as it is relative here,
:D
 
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Something similar happened to me about 3 years back. Dillon 550B, WWLPP, .45 auto R-P case. Somehow or other the primer picked up OK but stood up sideways in the primer cup. When I loaded that primer, BANG, scared the heck out of me. I go slower now on the primer loading operation. (And occasionally look before I leap.
 
Then remove your decap pin from the sizing die and run these cases through the press to load.

Why not just start them in station 2? Just curious.

So you're saying it will be pretty easy to tell that the resistance is a lot higher & won't be a big deal?

[.....]

Because they have not yet been resized if a universal decapper was used on them. I'll further explain below.

Yes, I find it very easy to tell. Don't be aggressive on the upstroke and push to seat the primer. Do it as two separate motions. Bring the handle up and gently push back, you will be able to tell the difference between a hard and a soft stop as the primer hits the bottom of the case. When I get a hard stop, sometimes it's the case being slightly off center and sometimes it's a crimp. I pull the handle back a bit and push it forward gently again. If it's an off center case, this usually nudges it into place and the second gentle push stops softly. A crunch sound anytime is almost always a problem that should be inspected. If the first or second stop is soft, then I go ahead a push the handle forward with force to seat the primer. If the second stop was hard, the case comes out and it's almost always a crimp.

My procedure is to swap off the 9mm tool head and install a tool head with only a universal decapping die. Decap some cases and then hand prime them with the "rejected" primers. Then run them under the 9mm tool head with the decapping pin removed and no primers in the press. This is the most efficient way of using up the "rejected" primers, particularly if you have more than a few. Note that I have Dillon 9mm dies and the decapping pin can be removed without tools.

Another way to do it would be to have a supply of presized and decapped cases on hand. Then when you hit a bad case while loading, discard it and replace with one of the pre-processed cases. But making the preprocessed cases is more of a pain than the first process. With a full tool head, you have to manually pull them from station 2. Or you could have a tool head with only a sizing die, but that's more expensive and less flexible than a universal decapper.

When I only have a couple potentially damaged primers that I don't want to load into the priming system, I may manually place them on the punch. At the end of the loading run with no primers in the system, just keep going. Manually remove the case from station 2, place one of the "reject" primers on the punch with tweezers, replace the case and seat the primer. This gets very tedious for more than about 10.
 
I deprime and tumble before I load. For 45 ACP, I use a large primer pocket cleaner to verify each piece of brass, and sort them into large and small primer bins. I load both large and small primed cases, so I often get some of both on my range, especially when a guest shows up with factory ammo. I guess some guys can spot the small primer pockets visually, but I don't trust my eyesight.

I also prime by hand off the press, primarily because I get a better "feel" on my LnL AP without the sizer/decapping die and the loading process is much smoother without priming on the press. Being retired, time is not as big an issue for me as it is for a lot of reloaders.

All that being said, Texas10mm is spot on- don't ever try to force the press if something feels wrong. When I used to prime on my press, I could always tell if something wasn't quite right. You get a feel for how much force is required to seat a primer once you get into rhythm, and it is always better to stop and figure out what the problem is rather applying more force.
 
Reason I ask is was watching video of guy talking about how he set off a primer on a 1050 when a SPP piece of .45ACP got thru his sort. Trying to smoosh a LPP in the SPP case, it set it off.

So that got me to thinking, could same thing happen to me?

If you force it, it can. I call BS on the photo in #6 though because that tube would still be inside the blast shield retained by the nut that the low powder alarm is attached to, not stuck in the ceiling for dramatic effect...

The 1050 is different than most presses, in that it primes on the down stroke while everything else is going on. So that would make it more difficult to “feel” that how you seat on a 650.

I made this device for my 45 ACP 1050 so I didn’t have to hand sort.



Then I made this machine that does it before the brass ever gets into the reloading room.

 
Primers don’t generally set off just because they are squeezed. I have had a few get turned sideways in my 650 and get mangled badly as I seated them... but they never went off. That’s because I don’t slam the handle around. You can apply a considerable amount of force to a primer without setting it off... as long as you don’t jolt it. Move the lever in a firm, deliberate manner and all kinds of trouble can be avoided or minimized.
 
^ yep, I actually crushed them completely flat in a bench vise when I heard that folks had set them off by seating them. That was pre Internet and I since have learned that there are people who have lit them off, though.
 
I have been reloading for nearly 60 years and have loaded hundreds of thousands of rounds (had a 06 FFL for years) and have set off ONE primer. That was with a Lee Whack-a-Mole kit when I was 18. Several replies have stressed slow steady pressure on the priming stroke and stop if it doesn't feel right.
 
I have been reloading for nearly 60 years and have loaded hundreds of thousands of rounds (had a 06 FFL for years) and have set off ONE primer. That was with a Lee Whack-a-Mole kit when I was 18. Several replies have stressed slow steady pressure on the priming stroke and stop if it doesn't feel right.

I've have not loaded as many as you have nor for as long but my only AD with a primer was also on a Lee loader. It just seems like there is something wrong about smacking a primer! I've seen primers crushed by being forced into crimped primer pockets and I've seen them seated sideways.

Reloading is a hobby where "slow and smooth" should be the normal method of operation. I've seen guys that slam the press handle up and down but it just ain't a good idea.
 
The only primer I've set off came from dumping it into my lead pot along with some culled bullets. Thankfully I was starting with a cold pot. Still quite the surprise to hear that bang from the pot.
 
....on Dillon 650 press? Reason I ask is was watching video of guy talking about how he set off a primer on a 1050 when a SPP piece of .45ACP got thru his sort. Trying to smoosh a LPP in the SPP case, it set it off.

So that got me to thinking, could same thing happen to me? Or similar. Since I'm new to the 650, I don't have a good "feel" yet. Have just used Lee hand prime which was simple - it just went in or something was wrong. If something was wrong, you felt it right away. Worst case was a primer halfway in with lots of resistance so just pop the whole shellplate and hit with universal decap die.

So.....if military crimps sneak by for example, am I just going to feel a lot of resistance on that forward push to seat? If I just force it, is it going to seat anyway, possibly shaving the primer the way the Lee hand prime would? Or is that likely to set one off? CCI #41 or Wolf SRM

Same with the .45ACP incident from the guy's 1050 story....Lee hand prime is just a dead stop and so obvious something is wrong not an issue. Would it require such an abnormal amount of force on the 650 (LPP trying to go into SPP hole) to crush it or set it off that I would just know something was off and stop? Or can the 1050 priming on downstroke apply that much force but a 650 on forward stroke really can't without going ape that its a non-issue?

The 650 being new to me AND priming on press new to me just worrying a bit. Need to do 1800 .223, then my next setup is a run of 1400 .45ACP so as I'm learning these new things will have both potential issues of missed crimps or SPP 45 brass....

I know there is a lot of SPP .45ACP brass in my mix since I've had several different people with me shooting .45. So even if I'm 99.9% accurate sorting by primer size (and they all start looking the same after a while....) that's still 1 per 1000 sneaking by....
I'm a newbee to reloading and in process of reloading 45ACP. I'm running in to primer seating issues. THe first discovery was not all 45ACP use large pistol primers. Specifically some with "FEDERAL" headstamps. Out of a batch of 500 I ran into about 50 with this headstamp that require small pistol primers. Interesting however is that a friend gave me a bucket of 250 with the same identical headstamp sand they all take large primers. ???? So now I'm confused.....Are there no industry standards?
Second I'm running into headstamp s of FC 97 that have pockets for large primers but are too tight to accept the primer. A few times I've got lucky and managed to deadblow the press handle and force the primer in. This seems ludicrace and therefore, I'm now just tossing the case aside until I can figure out what is going on. THis is where I hope you can offer assistance. Also note that I have Headstamps of FC 96 that will take a large pistol primer. By the way I'm using FEDERAL 150 Large Pistol primers. HELP Please.....
 
Joe Vol - yes, you will find both & need to visually sort before loading .45ACP. It's a pain and after staring at them for a while, they all look the same :)

Time consuming but foolproof way would be to just decap them all & then run a pocket cleaning or reaming tool - it simply will not fit the small primer ones & be obvious.

Read about "crimped primers" in your reloading manual. More common on other calibers, but lots of .45ACP out there too. You have to remove that crimp (tiny ring around the primer pocket) before inserting new primer.

A very generic rule of thumb is if the brass has a date on it (like your FC 97) it most likely has a crimped primer. Not 100% but more often than not they go together.
 
I have done great and creative violence to primers on my presses, trying to get one to go off. Upside down, sideways, hammered in, backwards, small pockets, etc. I've never lit one.

It certainly happens, but I suspect it's more often from static, residue buildup, or primer feed jambs than from seating issues. This low occurrence is offset by the shear impressiveness of the event when it does happen. If it occurs early in feeding, you probably won't light a single primer. . . it'll be all of them.
 
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