Hey Bob, As you can clearly see, you are much ahead of denton on removing a Live Primer.

Question I used to watch Trap shooters put shells that went unfiered "primers would not fire" into their pockets. what is your opinion about disposing of a rifle center fire bullet that would not fire. How long do you leave it in the rifle? then what do you do with it.
Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by agilent_one:
There was talk on another forum not too long ago about a fellow who wanted to try seating a .30cal spitzer bullet backwards in the case in order to improve the meplat of the bullet. Never heard how this one worked out.....

That experiment was done by the US Army decades ago.

quote:

Originally posted by JAL:

quote:

but why wouldn't one just fire the empty case in a gun first?

Well, one of my club jobs was replacing primers
in Mil 5.56 cases that our civilian rifles just
wouldn't set off. I wish I wasn't going to
get into the argument, but what little I know
about primers is that a gentle push may be better than a wack, either going in or out.
Heck, I assumed they were married. :-)

What causes that? The only answer I've heard made vague mention of headspace. I had the gun rebored for 6x45mm, so it doesn't matter any more, but I'd still like to know...

I'm a new reloader, and I've been learning alot by just lurking, learning, and keeping my mouth shut..

But I opened this topic and I'm now more stupid for my effort.

quote:

Originally posted by mikeh416Rigby:
Perhaps 30 years or so ago, I was in a department store's sporting goods department when a customer came up to the counter and asked the salesperson for a pound of Black Powder. The salesperson's reply was "all our powder is black. Which one do you want?"

Great- I once meet a proud person who blended his own powder He used rawhide mallet to open the action and said brass would eject easier if ammo being oiled. According to him the best hunting bullet was a military FMJ with the tip filed off

I didn't asked for the recipe

Cheers
/JOHAN

I worked with a guy some years back that reloaded 44 mag. When the large pistol primers started to show signs of pressure, instead of backing off part of a grain or so of H110, he substituted large rifle primers instead. He said the pressure signs went away as if by magic. I guess some people have all of the dumb luck. flutedchamber

quote:

Originally posted by TomP:
[What causes that? The only answer I've heard made vague mention of headspace. I had the gun rebored for 6x45mm, so it doesn't matter any more, but I'd still like to know...

Well there is supposed to be some difference between 5.56 and .223, but the fact remains that when reprimed with commercial primers we had no problems. So it seems to me the mil primers were much harder or less sensitive, to allow slamming around in a mil auto/semi-auto.
John L.

quote:

Originally posted by bill r:
Question I used to watch Trap shooters put shells that went unfiered "primers would not fire" into their pockets. what is your opinion about disposing of a rifle center fire bullet that would not fire. How long do you leave it in the rifle? then what do you do with it.
Thanks

Hey Bill, That is a good question that you might want to start a separate thread for. Probably get some interesting responses and do the Beginners a lot of good.

I can't remember if I ever had a shotgun shell mis-fire. If I do in the future though, I'd wait at least a minute. That may be way overboard, but I sure wouldn't want it to come alive during the Ejection.

Have had some factory re-loads misfire in a revolver. For some strange reason I always noticed a slight bit of movement in the sights even without it firing(slight flinch ). But, I'd set it off to the side with the barrel pointed down-range and go on to something else for awhile. Never really timed it.

Have had a good number of 22RimFire mis-fires, but that was a long time ago. Never thought much about it back then(which was wrong), ejected them, re-chambered them and they generally fired on the second attempt. May have had only a couple need three hits, but I'm not sure. Geting the Primer material "spun" into the rim was not as well done back then as it is today.

For centerfire rifles, I've never had it happen that I can remember either. But, I'm sure I'd leave it for at least a minute with the barrel pointed down range. Then once I felt comfortable, I'd stick it in an empty sack by itself. Then when I got it home I'd pull the bullet, dump the powder, and ease the primer out using the regular Decapper in that specific Die with a large towel wrapped around the Ram where the Primer would go if it did decide to fire. I'd also be wearing shatterproof glasses.

I certainly would not use "The World's Most Ignorant Reloading Suggestion".

quote:

Originally posted by JOHAN:

Great- I once meet a proud person who blended his own powder He used rawhide mallet to open the action and said brass would eject easier if ammo being oiled. According to him the best hunting bullet was a military FMJ with the tip filed off
---

Did he use the powder from old military blanks with wooden plugs? Not quite uncommon among elder shooters, as the old practice of filing bullets. And oil - he must have a rather stressed and worried guardian angel.

Anyway, I smiled as I saw who had written - another swede. This is typical for some sort of old moose hunters. And of course they are 6.5x55-fans.

Regards,

Fritz

The short answer is,

if you're a new reloader?
Stick to the manuals completely. Don't experiment outside of what is in the manual. Keep it safe, don't do anything you're not sure of, ever.

If you're an old hand at reloading?
You should have some idea of what you're attempting. If it looks screwy, it's probably dangerous, don't do it. If it smells like the load is too good to be true, it probably is. Instead of using an over the top load, buy a more powerful rifle. Spend a few bucks and save your ars.

I've used a sizing die to punch out live primers for reuse. Is it the best practice, hell no!, but done gently, it works, and the explosion of one primer would be contained in the die. As a general rule, don't do it. period.
The few cents you save aren't worth even a decent cut or burn.

We all must take what's written on ALL forums with a grain of salt, use our common sense and proceed with caution. I've even read that there was a poster on some reloading site who was giving loads WAY over max, just for the fun of seeing someone blow up a gun. Some reported it was some anti gunner who wanted to hurt some of us. I doubt any sane person would do such a thing, but it gives rise to caution. Also, mistakes in typing can cause huge errors in pressure, an erroneously typed load might blow the gun up in your face, so check it against a manual. For every gun I reload for, I have the manual data in mind, if I see someone using a load beyond the manual, I know it's not according to Hoyle, and I proceed with caution.

It's my butt, so I try to be accurate and protect it. I don't leave that job to anyone else, and I don't blame anyone else when I get burnt, as it were. I take full responsibility for my own actions. That's why I normally never quote loads online. Heck, I'm not perfect, I might type it wrong. I don't mind suggesting a powder, primer, case or bullet to try for a certain caliber, but you need a manual to give you the specifics of a load using those components. If you need a suggestion of where to start in regards to components, fine. If you need load data, buy a manual, it's the cheapest part of reloading, and the most important. It seems funny to me that ANYONE would take the advise of a poster on a load, when the reloading companies have spent years testing and writing reloading manuals. I've spent several years using only a fraction of the components they've tested ad nauseum. How on earth could I be the expert in the face of such research over so many years. Check every load against a manual and KNOW where it is from starting to maximum. Only you can prevent people fires, by following the rules of safety and common sense.

quote:

Originally posted by Fritz Kraut:
This is typical for some sort of old moose hunters. And of course they are 6.5x55-fans.

Regards,

Fritz

Fritz- I never asked about the blend. Caliber was the legendary 6,5X55 moose hammer

Cheers
/JOHAN

quote:

Originally posted by JOHAN:

Fritz- I never asked about the blend. Caliber was the legendary 6,5X55 moose hammer

Cheers
/JOHAN

Of course - what else?

There are two things I am not going to get: a Blaster and a 6.5x55.

Fritz

lets rejuvenate this 4 1/2 year old thread just for fun.

quote:

Originally posted by rolltop:
lets rejuvenate this 4 1/2 year old thread just for fun.

If Fritz and Johan were still around that would be nice. roger

Why, did you see the latest Handloader magazine with the Chub Eastman ballistic coefficient article where he loaded bullets backwards and deformed bullet tips in various ways? Other than a dangerous pressure rise (he test shot at Nosler's ballistic lab using a pressure barrel) due to more bullet being in the case the backwards bullets flew straight and cut nice clean holes in the targets.

When I was in high school and idiot that was a year ahead of me brought some shotgun primers to school one day. Well at lunch he decided it was a good idea to place one of the primers a sidewalk step and stab it with his pocket knife. The primer went off and flew back into his hand. I think he learned a good leason after the 4 stitches it took to put his hand back together.

You all talk about decapping live primers and the danger of them going Bang....how many have started out with a Lee Loader and had the primers go bang when seating them? That really scares the bejusus out of you! I too have used a decapping die to removed live primers and doing it slowly lever had one go bang. I also used a decapping rod like the one Denton described or one of the Lee Loader type. I wore safety glass, ear muffs and a very heavy work glove on the hand holding the case. Never had one of those go bang either.

I think Hot Core is using this thread in his usual personal vendetta against those who disagree with his beloved CHE. In this case it happens to be Denton and I'm sure he'll now make comment on me. I could care less.

There are some hazards to reloading like most everything else. Some people do some pretty stupid things. I've managed a couple along the way learning how to reload too. I'm sure Hot Core has also. We all have or will. If we exercise due caution then things don't go to wrong and we learn. Besides, as we see here with depriming live primers; what may be stupid and dangerous to some is common practice to others. Let's just be careful in whatever we do.

However, in the spirit of Hot Core's topic in this thread I'll have to say about the most stupid thing I've seen recommended is the "load 'em up till the primer pocket blows, then back off". That is suggestion made by a couple individuals here on this forum. I never saw Hot Core take that poster to task for that suggestion. Perhaps it's because that person agrees all the time with Hot Core and his CHE or perhaps be cause Hot Core agrees with that stupid suggestion. I don't know and really don't care which it is. It's still about the most stupid reloading suggestion I've seen posted.

Larry Gibson

quote:

Originally posted by djpaintles:
Hot Core and Denton, You guys should be married..... <img src="http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de//happy/roflmao.gif" alt="roflmao" width="39" height="15"><!--graemlin::roflmao:-->.......DJ

Yes, I agree. They should be married. Heck, we ALL should be married. Almost every man I know would benefit by the company of a good woman.

Takes the rough edges off, if nothing else.

Oh, did you mean TO EACH OTHER!?

Bad idea. When you add radicals together, the total tends to be more the sum of the parts. And if you add more hotheads to the mix it tends to go exponential.

Just my observation.

Lost Sheep (Larry)

quote:

Originally posted by Rancho Loco:
I'm a new reloader, and I've been learning alot by just lurking, learning, and keeping my mouth shut..

But I opened this topic and I'm now more stupid for my effort.

Just what my signature line implies...One can't be to careful.

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:
Hey folks, A recent thread contained a suggestion that has the potential to be extremely dangerous to the Beginning Reloaders. The response showed me that there are still people on this Board who "claim" to have vast Reloading knowledge, but really don't know beans. This particular suggestion is so bad that it deserves to be pointed out to those of you who missed the original post:

quote:

Originally posted by denton:
...how to safely remove primers: Get a piece of rod, long enough to reach the primer pocket, and grind one end of it down small enough to fit through the primer pocket. I used a long style allen wrench for mine. Put the case on something that can serve as an anvil, and that has a hole big enough to let the primer drop out. Insert the rod through the primer hole. DO NOT HOLD THE ROD WITH YOUR FINGERS!! Use pliers, or something that gets your fingers safely out of the way. Whack the rod with a small mallet or hammer. If the worst does happen, you may be picking your rod out of the ceiling, but that's about all....

Absolutely PITIFUL!!!

---

My second one comes from quite a few years ago concerning a poaster on the old "Shooters Board". This guy had purchased an Oehler M43 when they first came out and was providing what we all thought was good solid data concerning Loads in his rifle.

As time went on he kept increasing the Loads to the point where he was listing Loads that he claimed the M43 said were right at 100kpsi and "implied" they were SAFE.

When questioned about it, he flared up and basically said anyone who Reloads should know not to try those same Loads in "their rifles", as if "only he" had some kind of Super-Duper rifle that would not be hurt by them.

Again, absolutely PITIFUL!!!

---

Are you aware of any "DANGEROUS" recommendations you have seen posted here or on other Boards?

Anything you post along these lines will help the Beginners understand that some information provided out here by people who really don't understand Reloading can actually get them hurt.

I may be dense, but I don't understand what is so pitiful that it deserves uppercase letters.

I thought it odd to machine your own tools to deprime brass when Lee makes a perfectly good set of tools exactly as described, using a hammer and an anvil with a relief hole for the primer (with the advantage of being shaped to keep the primer pocket centered over the relief hole). If you object to buying a $17 tool set for this job, I question your economics. If you can afford a lathe (or even a hand drill) to turn down a hex key, you can afford the Lee tool.

The pressure/velocity question likewise is obscure to me. It appears the chronograph, the pressure calculation program or some of the components might be "off". Or the operator. Or the rifle might have 'way excessive freebore. All explainable.

What would be REALLY ignorant, or idiotic if you prefer, is to take anything at face value without careful cross-checking of facts.

If I had pressures I believed were in that range, I would carefully check my calculations and re-examine my primers and brass. Then recalibrate my chronograph (borrow another chronograph or fire factory ammo through the M43).

Now here is my candidate:

A newbie at reloading knew enough to measure his powder charges, but did not have a powder scale. He did, however, have a truly fine quality balance beam. The kind chmemists used to use. Equal arm lengths, two trays, you put known weights on the left side and put enough material on the right side to achieve balance and you have equal the weight. Would have been fine. Except he did not have calibrated weights for the left side equal to the weight of his powder charge. So he took asprin pills of known weight (correctly converting the mililgrams to grains, of course) and piled up the proper number of pills to equal his powder charge.

Where his ignorance did him in was that the weight of aspirin in each pill is NOT the weight of the pill. There are buffers, binders and inert ingredients not counted in the weight printed on the side of the bottle.

Go get an asprin bottle, read what the aspirin dose is from the bottle's label, convert the milligrams to grains and then weigh one of the pills.

Alarming!

But I am ignorant of what happened next. If I remember correctly, I read this on a letters to the editor in one of the shooting magazines I subscribed to back in the '70s.

The best part is that the dangerous ignorance was not of firearms or ammunition, but of pharmaceuticals.

Lost Sheep (Larry)

A man once told me, that a man told him, if you want a full power load in a 44 mag. put your powder in a good plastic bag, and tap it with a hammer to make the powder smaller to get more in the case..would you want this man loading your ammo..

why wouldn't you just put the casing in a gun and fire it like a blank?

I would put a spray of wd-40 in there first if I wanted to decap a live primer. which would render it inert.

What was Rolltop's handle back then?

quote:

Originally posted by 33806whelen:
why wouldn't you just put the casing in a gun and fire it like a blank?

I would put a spray of wd-40 in there first if I wanted to decap a live primer. which would render it inert.

There's no guarantee that WD40 will render primers inert. I know, I've tried it.

I have now read this thread from beginning to end. I have found some good advice herein BUT the most compelling conclusion I have come to---is that both Hot Core and Denton have WAAAAAY too much free time!!!

quote:

I have respected both of you for as long as I can remember posting.

quote:

Hot Core and Denton both seem like nice guys to me.

Agreed.

I have never 'met' Denton but I have chatted with Hot Core and I have the greatest respect for him! He always something to teach me and I appreciate that. This time around I have found out that primers do not de-acticate with oil and water! And just how powerful a primer 'projectile' is! As a result. I am going to 'invent' a 'live primer decapping tool'. It will just have some means of preventing injury and hearing damage i.e. containing the 'blast'.

quote:

....denton, you and hot core need to go have a beer, ....

I would (if I could) join you good Folks and buy the beer!

This isn't something that I read, it's something that I saw and heard.

I was at the range last year when a guy started shooting a Colt revolver. It went off with quite a roar, and since it was getting dim, quite a flame along with it.

I was shooting fairly stiff 44 mag loads and his gun was making a louder noise than mine. From appearances he was shooting a 38 caliber Colt, or maybe a 357.

Finally we had to change targets and I asked him what he was shooting. He said 38 handloads. I asked him what powder and powder weight/bullet combo he was using. He said 158 grain hollow points and Unique. I asked him how many grains, and he said "a case full."

He was dipping the case in the powder and striking it level with a business card, then seating the bullets.

Of the 30 or so rounds he fired, ALL of them had gas escaping past the primers, and one had the primer fall out when I picked it up.

I packed up and left.