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Touching primers?
- Thread starter Mike38
- Start date
Good reloading habits call for washing one's hands before and after handling reloading components. I figure for me that is adequate. Now if someone is still concerned then just find some finger cots. Figure about 200 of them cost about six bucks (USD).
Ron
Ron
Yeah, another old wive's of the gun world dying. No worries. Good practice to wash your hands before and after.
I read an article that was pretty interesting last week that talked about how the firearms industry is just a huge game of telephone. So many people believe so many fallacies since there is 1. No regulation from the feds and 2. Those who got an early start got to set the rules.
You see guys like Enos come along and totally flip the script on handgun shooting at speed and now, no-one really questions it...but there are still some things to learn. The script he flipped was, in large part from larger than life Cooper, who did much of the same thing.
Tubb, end of last century changed so much. Now we have Litz and Saterlee and others that changed a ton in the last few years in precision rifle and reloading.
We have all these little spheres with disciples and good intentions, but so much got passed down verbally, and changed over time. The AMU has helped a lot and today, really, a good amount of what all the Alpha males think, or thought they knew about shooting is being challenged, refined and retooled. Those little spheres rarely interact since most are only in one discipline with any amount of effort.
Many of the "authors" who have written reloading manuals and books are most focused on reloading and less on the shooting. The shooters are more focused on the shooting and not so much on the reloading. Isolated expertise that fails to cross pollinate, challenge, test because, in large part, they do not interact.
I still run across people who have never heard of the Houston Warehouse. Or those who believe that all of the "recipes" in the load manuals were actually tested with pressure equipment. Or that if a powder is not listed for a certain caliber it must not work with it. That cleaning rifle barrels all the time is necessary to maintain accuracy.
I read an article that was pretty interesting last week that talked about how the firearms industry is just a huge game of telephone. So many people believe so many fallacies since there is 1. No regulation from the feds and 2. Those who got an early start got to set the rules.
You see guys like Enos come along and totally flip the script on handgun shooting at speed and now, no-one really questions it...but there are still some things to learn. The script he flipped was, in large part from larger than life Cooper, who did much of the same thing.
Tubb, end of last century changed so much. Now we have Litz and Saterlee and others that changed a ton in the last few years in precision rifle and reloading.
We have all these little spheres with disciples and good intentions, but so much got passed down verbally, and changed over time. The AMU has helped a lot and today, really, a good amount of what all the Alpha males think, or thought they knew about shooting is being challenged, refined and retooled. Those little spheres rarely interact since most are only in one discipline with any amount of effort.
Many of the "authors" who have written reloading manuals and books are most focused on reloading and less on the shooting. The shooters are more focused on the shooting and not so much on the reloading. Isolated expertise that fails to cross pollinate, challenge, test because, in large part, they do not interact.
I still run across people who have never heard of the Houston Warehouse. Or those who believe that all of the "recipes" in the load manuals were actually tested with pressure equipment. Or that if a powder is not listed for a certain caliber it must not work with it. That cleaning rifle barrels all the time is necessary to maintain accuracy.
Yup. But I think there's more to it than just that.I read an article that was pretty interesting last week that talked about how the firearms industry is just a huge game of telephone. So many people believe so many fallacies since there is 1. No regulation from the feds and 2. Those who got an early start got to set the rules.
1. Much of what goes on with firearms happens so fast that it's not just beyond the perception of humans, but even beyond what can be seen in slow motion--except with the fastest cameras.
2. Many people who get a lot of enjoyment from firearms and who become very accomplished at their use are not well versed in basic science and math and therefore come up with explanations for why things work that have nothing to do with reality. One good example of this is a commonly related story about how the benefit of rifling was explained when it was first discovered that spinning projectiles improved accuracy dramatically. The story goes that the theory was that with the ball spinning, the demons who caused inaccuracy could not sit on the ball because the spin would throw them off. Of course, spinning the ball DID improve accuracy, but the reason it did had nothing to do with demons. That's kind of an extreme example and comes from a time before the science of projectiles was developed--but the same general problem still exists today in evolved form.
3. There's a lot of proprietary information out there that is not released due to intellectual property issues and liability concerns and that means that it can be very difficult to get good information from the people that actually have it.
4. People become very entrenched in their opinions about guns and how they work and can be tremendously resistant to changing them even when good information becomes available.
5. People are often just not that concerned with actually knowing the truth as long as they feel like they understand a topic "enough".
Have had the occasion to meet people like Nick C S that have very acidic or whatever touch. They have told me so and I consequently wiped gun down after they touched it. Thankfully I don't. Don't know what to do about it in that case. I do wash my hands before and especially after.
Halogen bulbs, yes, primers, no.
Probably 10 years ago, one of the maintenance crew I was tech advisor came to me with a light bulb problem.
One new building had Metal Hallide Lights and he was loosing a bunch suddenly. Looking at the failed bulbs I told him, that is finger contact leaving oil on it, very localized and burn out spot.
He was shocked. I don't touch them I know better he said.
Ok, lets go through it step by step and when we got the the place where he uses deer skin gloves to finish screwing them in , my comment was t was, oh no.
He said, but they are brand new!
Oh crap, that makes it worse. They have oil in them, right idea (clean) , wrong implementation. Just use the cover sleeve.
No more problem.
A toolmaker I worked with in the '80s told me he'd worked in a large automotive part plant at one time. Each toolmaker there had his own bench with his own tools on it. While most benches had tools that looked like the steel they were made from, there would always be one or two guys whose tools were all rust-brown. Some people having extra salty or acidic skin is a real thing that could conceivably make primer handling an issue, but it would still involve some effort to get it to migrate down into the cup. Maybe over the very long term, but highly unlikely to be a short-term issue.
I also note we've had posts and links to experiments with killing primers intentionally by submersion in water and various petroleum products, and many experienced failures to kill primers this way. Sometimes it works and sometimes it takes weeks if it happens at all. So modern primers are getting their reliability at least in part from that resistance to solvents.
The other thing to keep in mind is that primer formulations have changed over time. The old chlorate primers could attract moisture. I know because I recall from chemistry class having to dig hard-clumped potassium chlorate from a jar. Allan Jones mentioned that some early Speer primers had pellets that could crack if the anvil were driven too far into them, but that current production is not brittle like that. Apparently, binders and probably sealants have changed over time. They likely explain the failure to easily kill modern primers on demand. That makes it possible finger-handling damage is something that was an issue in the past that is remembered, but that is not an issue today.
Another possibility is misinterpreted cosmetics. Nickel-plating on primers wasn't always common, so acidic and salty skin contact could more easily make the primer's surface look bad, even if they were functioning just fine. I've seen my prints appear on copper Remington primers.
One can only wish that applied only to guns and shooting-related things.
I also note we've had posts and links to experiments with killing primers intentionally by submersion in water and various petroleum products, and many experienced failures to kill primers this way. Sometimes it works and sometimes it takes weeks if it happens at all. So modern primers are getting their reliability at least in part from that resistance to solvents.
The other thing to keep in mind is that primer formulations have changed over time. The old chlorate primers could attract moisture. I know because I recall from chemistry class having to dig hard-clumped potassium chlorate from a jar. Allan Jones mentioned that some early Speer primers had pellets that could crack if the anvil were driven too far into them, but that current production is not brittle like that. Apparently, binders and probably sealants have changed over time. They likely explain the failure to easily kill modern primers on demand. That makes it possible finger-handling damage is something that was an issue in the past that is remembered, but that is not an issue today.
Another possibility is misinterpreted cosmetics. Nickel-plating on primers wasn't always common, so acidic and salty skin contact could more easily make the primer's surface look bad, even if they were functioning just fine. I've seen my prints appear on copper Remington primers.
JohnKSa said:4. People become very entrenched in their opinions about guns and how they work and can be tremendously resistant to changing them even when good information becomes available.
One can only wish that applied only to guns and shooting-related things.
Average Joe
New member
Over the years I have touched lots of primers, never had a primer fail because of this.