A primer just exploded in my press!

[yorec]

I use a Dillon 550B and have never had any problems or incidents before. I have happily and successfully loaded upwards of 10,000 in this press without a hitch, but this morning I was in for a shock.

I was merrily reloading along - Add new bullet, add new case, handle press and pull, rotate table, new cartridge pops out, grin, and repeat etc. Suddenly, when I pulled the handle up to seat the primer I heard a bang, saw a small flash and felt a pinprick on the right side of my chin. I stopped and removed the primer (Winchester small rifle). It had gone off leaving a black sooty smear across the bottom of the case. It had some jagged edges and had blown itself apart, but was still wedged in the pocket.

I could find no damage to the case or my equipment and none to my face when I checked latter. I could find nothing abnormal in the press or the case. I cleaned the area thoroghly and finished the cases I had left with no problem (including that same case after scrubbing it out and examining it). I don't reload at a blistering pace and don't think I used a quick motion or ecessive preasure on that particular stroke. It's a mystery to me why that primer went off.

I have heard that Winchester primers are a little softer than others. Maybe this was why it went off, or maybe it was a shaving of brass stuck in the press's primer holder that impacted it just right. I don't know - have any of you experienced this?

Anyway, all is well and I'll happily continue reloading. I trust my equipment totally, I would blame the components well before my press. This post is meant as a reminder to us all: Wear safety glasses when relading, I was. That pin prick (don't know if it was a bit of metal or a spark) on my chin didn't hurt much, but if I didn't have safety glasses on and it reached my eye.............

Eye protection =

 

[James E]

Bravo, glad you wern't injured especially your eyes. Safety glasses are indeed a must in reloading, even if you are using a single stage press. Sounds to me like the primer was quite defective in its manufurering. May have been an over loaded cap and only needed to have a wee bit of pressure when inserted into the brass casing that everything went boom!

Jim

 

[Southla1]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by yorec:
Eye protection = [/quote]


Amen! It becomes easy when you become an "old fart" like me cause you need glasses to see up close anyway. One of my going away presents from Texaco before retirement was a brand new pair of prescription safety glasses (they don't know they bought them for me ). It is so easy to just slip on the side guards for the glasses when you start to fire off a few, or stuff a few fired ones on the reloading bench!


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Carlyle Hebert

 

[Big Bunny]

You should try a LEE LOADER berdan for some primer action, when they go bang it is all smoke and soot!!
Due to the shell being totally enclosed in the die in LEE it is safe but hard on the nerves and warm on the hands !!

I endorse previous comments on eye protection completely, even 1/2 frames are better than nothing.

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If we shooting sportspersons don't hang together... we will all hang separately !
Never knock another's different shooting interest or discipline...REMEMBER we are all but leaves on the same tree of freedom.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Welcome to the club. I had one pop in a single stage a couple of years ago. Got it in sideways, wasn't paying attention, and I forced it.

POP!

A guy at my old gunclub was almost killed when the entire primer tube, unshielded, on his press went up. Blinded in right eye, right ear drum burst, and shrapnel wounds all over the face and neck, including one that stopped just short of slicing the juglar.

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Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.

 

[Clark]

My brother had a girl friend that had been hired by her father to deprime cases. One went off in the basket and set the others off too. She had little scars all over her face. She said every now and then an anvil would work it's way to the surface.

I make my kids wear eye protection if they are watching me isert primers.

 

[James E]

I'm sure glad poor yorec (I knew him well) posted this topic. It brings out a lot of past experiences that can benefit reloaders to be alert and safe, you never know when the boogyman will bite you for being lax. A friend of mine won't reload at all because he told me of someone he knew that was like Mike Irwin's friend. I've been doing it for over 40 years and it is still a great source of satisfaction to me.

Jim

 

[Southla1]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Bunny:
You should try a LEE LOADER berdan for some primer action, when they go bang it is all smoke and soot!![/quote]

How well I know about the Lee Loader. I started loading in about late 62 or early 63 with a Lee Loader in 30-06. I guess about 1 out of 10 primers would do just what they are supposed to do (go bang) when I was seating them. It was so bad my old man made me do it outside so the smell would not stay in the house! About 2 or 3 years later when I started using preses that elimanated the problem. To my knowledge I cannot remember having a primer go off since then, even though I have accidently crushed some now and then.

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Carlyle Hebert

 

[Kenneth L. Walters]

This really isn't all that uncommon. Progressives were introduced, believe it or not, in the 1890's but, as far as I know, Winchester. The Star, introduced in the 1930, had this problem, though rarely. Star solved it by massively increasing the size of the primer tube. When Dillon first encountered it he didn't increase the size of the primer tube but rather added a thick primer around it. That was worth some advertising mileage though Star's approach decades before was every bit as good. Straightline progressives, like the CH, were famous for this. The Cougar & Hunter (and similar CH) made primer detonations into almost an art form.

Personally I blew up an entire primer tube once on a Potter. Got your attention.

Back in the days when people made primer turrets that fit on the top of a progressive primer tube, such explosions could REALLY be impressive. They sat above any primer shield and usually held at least 1000+ primers. Those were bombs just waiting to go off. The last makers of such devices, I think, was Brewster Plastics. Of course if you have one you should throw it away.

With modern presses this isn't much of a problem anymore but it can happen, particularly on machines that still use some kind of primer tube. This is one of many reasons why I prefer the new RCBS using their strip primer system.

 

[Good Guy]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Southla1:
How well I know about the Lee Loader..... I guess about 1 out of 10 primers would do just what they are supposed to do (go bang) when I was seating them.....[/quote]

Reminds me of my experiences in the 70's seating primers with the LeeLoader. Tap,tap,tap-BANG! Really wakes a fella up, don't it!?! I had 2 primers go off while using the Lee in the first 100 rounds that I ever reloaded. After that I bought my first press, an RCBS Junior. It was just toooooo unnerving waiting for that 3rd primer explosion! But hey, even these mishaps are fond memories, at least for me.




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Just one of the Good Guys

 

[Mal H]

As soon as I read yorec's post, I was also reminded of the Lee Loader. Anybody who has used one knows what it's like to have a primer go off. After a while and several hundred rounds, it didn't even startle me any more. But I never kept my head over the die when seating a primer, that is, after the first one. And I will sixth or seventh the motion to always wear eye protection for any reloading operation.

 

[Robert Foote]

Oh, yes, Lee Loaders and the occasional BANG! I just screwed up my courage recently and got one for .303 British since I was neck sizing only anyway. Either the primers are less sensitive nowadays or I don't hammer as hard now. Always a nervous operation, though, and I do it out in the garage.

Still using single stage C presses after 38 years; better quality control.

 

[Southla1]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Robert Foote:
Either the primers are less sensitive nowadays or I don't hammer as hard now. [/quote]

[/B][/QUOTE]Still using single stage C presses after 38 years; better quality control. [/B][/QUOTE]

I am not sure about the primers being less sensitive today compared to almost 40 years ago but part of the problem i may have had back then to give an almost 10% failure rate was i was reloading military 30-06. I had removed the primer crimp but they were still tight. I have not much experience with the "C" type press all of mine is with "O" types but basically they are the same and I second your experience. Never had a primer fail and quality control is better.......but dang that lil Lee was/is handy! I had one in 30-06 (STILL HAVE IT) and had 2 more, one in .45 ACP and one in .357 Mag. Someone "borrowed" these 2 but I swear that one day I am gonna replace em if for nothing elxe but old times sake.

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Carlyle Hebert

 

[JackFlash]

LOTS of leverage in the lever on a press. I have a single stage RCBS and caught the tip of my finger between the shell holder and the bottom of the die (setting up). Ouch! And a good blood blister too.

Every once in a while I almost get a finger between the end of the case mouth and the die -- That one should probably cut!

I like my RCBS primer die tool. It's slow, but it's one primer at a time, hand positioned in the press, examined, and then sensitively pressed into the cup. Lots of control here, good "feel" for what's going one.

Goggles, glasses, AND keep the face away from the end of the case when priming. Seating primers is probably the big risk part of the process.

 

[James E]

Some good points being brought up here...if possible use a separate priming operation from your press, I know for a lot of guys this is not practical, but it is safer. Also, do not...I repeat...do not leave open containers of canned gunpowders or the little dribble powder dispensers near the priming operation. I think this is what has caused a few tragidies in loading. Always recap a powder can and put it far enough away from the loading operation. No spark to fire this stuff off. Better safe than sorry.

Jim

 

[Steve Smith]

What's really interesting (scary?) about all of this is what happened to me. When I still had my Lee Slo 1000 (notorious for screwing up primers) I was cleaning it one day, and a mangled primer fell out from under the shell plate...unexploded. I had crushed the crap out of it, ans was very lucky it didn't go off.

 

[alan]

Have been loading since the mid 1960's and have seen/done some strange things. No powder is a cartridge, unside down primers, sideways primers (they were crushed), no primer in the case, I guess most things other than backwards bullets.

Happily, I have yet to see a primer go off, even when live primers are pushed out. Have been using a Dillon 550 since about 1980, and while I suppose that primers could go off, it's never happened (there is always tomorrow) to me.

Crux of the story is, ALWAYS BE CAREFUL.

 

[BIGR]

Thats always been my biggest fear is having a primer go off during the priming process. I have always feared that and wear safety glasses.Thats why I only load one primer at a time. Glad you were not hurt.