Have you ever reused a primer?

I disassembled some cartridges that I loaded last year and I primed a new shell with one, loaded the rifle, pulled the trigger and it went off. My question is this.
I heard that the primer is squashed together when you seat it so when it’s struck it goes off but if I reuse them is that dangerous because of the flexing of it from reseating it twice?

Have you guys ever reused primers?

Thanks in advance.

Vinny

I have pulled down some reloads and re-used the primers,just for paper shooting and they all went bang so far.Good Luck

In these times I wouldn't dream of throwing away a primer so I would re-use for sure.

Don't know of any danger involved, have re-used lots of them w/o any issues.

Yes I have and would reuse primers.

I've been doing it...no problems...wouldn't even hesitate to make hunting rounds with them.

Yes, absolutely!

I had 2 reused primers that didn't go bang last week. Luckily I was just shooting paper and not a trophy buck.

I'd recommend just using them on paper.

yes, no problems

I'm gonna be the dumb one here, but I've always thought it was supposed to be fairly dangerous to "pop out" a live primer. Are ya'll just letting the stem in the sizing die push them out? Can't that cause detonation?

quote:

Originally posted by daniel77:
I'm gonna be the dumb one here, but I've always thought it was supposed to be fairly dangerous to "pop out" a live primer. Are ya'll just letting the stem in the sizing die push them out? Can't that cause detonation?

Yes, in theory depriming a live primer could result in detonating the primer. I always take some precaution with shielding when I find it necessary (desirable) to remove a live primer. I've done hundreds of them and never had one go off, nor have I ever known of a reloading friend who had a live primer go off due to depriming.

As far as reusing them, well, I'm not that desperate yet.

The trick is to "push" the live primer out with a steady pressure from the depriming pin, not punch it out as you (I) normally do. You can crush a primer in a vise w/o it going off but hitting it with a hammer is another story.

I've never re-used a primer before. Why not just leave it in the cartridge and save that step?

If the need should ever arise, I just empty the powder and resize the case without the decapping pin in the spindle. I use RCBS dies that allow this. Lee dies do not. This is why I switched from Lee to RCBS dies...

Yep. I've done it a lot. Slow even extraction on the live primer. I have not experienced a primer going off.
I got the idea to try the extracted primers off this forum and it works 100% so far ( aprox 100 shots ) no misfires.

Yep done it, No problems just be careful de-priming the case.
Kerry

Yep, many times. As stated though, I would not count on a reseated primer, so it would be a practice round only.

Well I suppose I'm not too proud to admit my stupidity here...

The first time I had to pull down some reloads I ejected the first primer with the result of a nice (albeit minor) fireworks display accompanied by a loud pop.

Perhaps the fireworks display wasn't as great as I thought it was, perhaps my perception was exaggerated by knowledge that I was surrounded by 40 or so pounds of flammable contents...

Anyway, yes heed the advice, go easy and you can re-use the primers. I have had one hang fire and two no-fires using them so I limit them to practice. The issue here is that you have seated the primer (hopefully correctly) so the pieces of the primer have been brought to their proper spacing (for lack of a better word). When you remove the primer you really squish it as stated earlier so there is the possibility it might not work properly.

Anyway, best of luck.