Greetings,
I have a Hornady Hand Held Priming Tool, I have been using it for about a year and just last night I noticed a problem. I am currently loading Lake City brass in .223 (5.56mm) for my nation match AR. Of course with a military semi auto, slam fires are always a concern. For this reason I am careful to uniform the primer pockets so as to ward off any high primers. I made a few batches of primed brass and just before loading I make a careful inspection of primer height for safety. I was finding a few flush primers and a very few high primers. I assumed that I had not uniformed the primer pockets correctly, so on my next batch, I was very careful to perform this operation correctly. Last night while priming this brass, I was finding that I had a really high percentage of high and flush primers. In a attempt to find the reason, I put the primed brass through my press using the primer arm, almost all of the primers went in a little further resulting in nicely seated primers a few thousandths below the rim. Is the fact that I am using Redding shell holders in my Hornady priming tool to blame? Would purchasing a set of Hornady shell holders remedy the problem? I really like the tool, it is very convenient to be able to prime my brass away from the reloading bench. Thank You For Your Time.

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-Hip's Ax
"Where the Hell did that 8 come from!!??"

Hip,

(Can I call you by your first name? )

I think you are geting a small ridge left by the primer pocket reamer, and you are feeling this with your hand-held primer tool and stopping.

I don't think it's the shell holders.

I just use the primer tool on my rockchucker for my M1A. I prime them after tumbling, so I have a universal decapper on the press to knock out any media stuck in the flash hole.

Don

Thanks for the reply Don, and yes you may call me Hip...but smile when you say that pard...lol. No, I am not stopping, the tool is actually bottoming out, this is as far as the tool will press the primer. I have observed the ridge in the bottom on the pocket, I am careful to make sure this is removed. The only thing I can figure is that there is a different "stack height" between the two shell holders.

Standard height for a shell holder, I believe, is .250. You could measure the one you have to be sure it's ok- I doubt that Redding is putting out shellholders of an odd size.
I suspect you've run into some primers that are a hair on the large side, and are giving you more resistance when seating with the hand tool.

Hip,

Then your problem is with the tool. I'd replace it, or modify it to push further if you like it otherwise.

Don

Hi hip. try using different brass and also primers,Ive found 1 to 11/2thousand diff in the depth of the primer pocket and a diff on how much the anvil on primers sticks out.Get a mic and check these demensions' hope this will help. RGB

I'm not sure how the Hornady priming tool functions but it should be close to the same as the RCBS with a punch rod actuated by your thumb or finger. In the RCBS tool with a punch rod I found that some of the rods aren't quite long enough to fully seat primers. You require another couple of thousandths length to push the primer fully into the pocket. I have several tools set up for different cases and primers and found that by interchanging rods I could get a couple to work. On the others I called RCBS and they sent me longer rods which cured te problem. You might check with Hornady. It's probably the same problem. The length of the punch rod is pretty critical and if it's too short you'll never bottom the primer. Bob

Thanks for the replys folks, I suspect that the rod length may be to blame. I am waiting for a reply from Hornady on the matter.

If you think all shellholders are built to the same size, I have a surprise for you.

What I have read is the distance from where the die hits the shell holder to where the case sits in its cutout is .125 inches.

I haven't seen other dimensions given, but have observed the hole size for primeing is small on lee shellholders. I would measure a hornady shellholder if I had one, but most of mine are lee's as they are free with lee dies.

Your question made me curious so I just tried to measure some of my shellholders. I seemed to have .010 difference in the height above the ram on a matching (?) pair of .223 shellholders (lee # 4).

This means a difference of .010 inch in seating depth if I use the same seating die adjustment!!!!

I only had one rcbs shellholder handy and it appears to be slightly longer (sits higher on the ram, by .005 inch) than the lees.

Of course, each manufacturer cuts the groove for the rim a bit different also which allows the case to ride further out if you use this shellholder for priming.

Net: It seems to me the priming pin needs to be adjustable (or have many thousands of extra travel) to use the standard (???) shell holders for priming seating.

And don't set your dies and switch shellholders, even if you have all lee shellholders.

JerryO

I had the same problem with a hornady hand priming tool. I had a Lee hand prime tool that broke I liked it alot but the replacement was going to take to long so I bought the hornady. It too would not seat primers fully. I tried different brass , make of primer, shell holder. In the end I shimmed the seating rod with some brass shim stock now i works flawlessy. Carefull not to shim or extend the rod too much.

I agree witt Bob338 that the primer seating stem is, in effect, too short. I'm not familiar with the Hornady tool, but with the older Lee tool, the aluminum camming surface would eventually wear to the point that primers would not fully seat. If the Hornady tool has a similar wear point, that could be the source of your trouble and would be easily fixed by shimming.