I was loading some pistol brass in my Lee Loadmaster. I didn't notice that my decaping rod on my sizer die had slipped up. In the next stage when I went to press in a primer (on top of the old one) BANG. No damage (except to my shorts). A couple of other primers in line had their anvils loosen but didn't go off. I was using CCI small pistol primers. Any one else have this happen?

This guy Kaboom & Fire More photos at link

Sooner or later every one will get distracted and crush and set off a primer.
I never prime anywhere near my powder measure.

Since it is a progressive press, the priming station and powder station are side by side.

Lee dies?

Some other brand designs with threaded spindles do not allow the decapper to slip down.

Yes, Lee dies

I prime off my press using a Hornady hand held tool. Priming on a press is like using a sledgehammer to set a thumbtack, IMHO. I also am very distrustful of a stack of primers anywhere near my face (despite the flimsy 'guards' in place). 'I would rather be careful a thousand times than dead once' - Mark Twain.

I'm not a fan of primer tubes either. I prime everything with an RCBS hand held primer...but I do not own a progressive nor shoot enough of any one caliber to justify owning one. Reckon if I did I'd learn to live with one.

I own 3 Lee 1000 progressives and pop two primers in the loading of many 10s of thousands of rounds loaded on them. No other damage or fires etc..

Misaligned primers cause by some dirt in the primer feed.

Lesson learned clean press after every few thousands of rounds.

I too own a Lee progressive press and I guess I've been fortunate. I've loaded thousands of rounds and luckily haven't had a primer go off in the press. But rest assured that I WILL be insuring that the press is clean!

The post indicates the reloader was trying to seat a large pistol primer in 45 ACP small pistol primer brass. I never saw the pictures, but bud’s who were sent the email, say that a reloader totally demolished a Dillion progressive in an identical situation.

This happened to a gentleman who was using federal primers in a Hornady LNL, he had resistance to seating a primer in 9mm brass, and look what happened.

The above photo is a fine example of why I prime off the press. It also makes me glad I installed clear plastic sleeves over my fluorescent light tubes. Contains the glass shards if anything strikes the tubes.

Out of pure ignorance...what is that stuck in the ceiling?

Primer feed tube

Lee doesn't use a feed tube

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
Primer feed tube

That pic makes that thing look like a piece of 3/4" pipe. Primer feed tube makes sense...the context of that pic just makes it look like something else.

quote:

Originally posted by ted thorn:
Lee doesn't use a feed tube

"This happened to a gentleman who was using federal primers in a Hornady LNL, he had resistance to seating a primer in 9mm brass, and look what happened"


Reading the above

I believe that primer tube is from a Hornaday LNL press.

One reason I bought a Lee Loadmaster was the absence of a primer tube

the primer tube stuck in the ceiling (ah, yeah, lee's "havent" had primer detonations.. NOT) is actually worse that one might expect. dillon uses the same tubes, btw

it shows evidence of the primers in the tube cooking off -- where can be 100 of them in that. it could have pop-pop lifting the tube up, and then blown up in the air .. loss of an eye and fire would be the shortest problem list

i have had a couple primers go bang on press.. and everytime i have a new hole in my drawers... and every instance was preventable .. i own my mistakes

I've been reloading since '65. Think in the early I popped about 4-5 caps on the Lyman tube fed press when loading GI .30-06 cases I handn't quit gotten all the crimp out of. So, I removed the case and reamed again and went on. Cost me a primer each rime but my shorts were fine.

Doesn't take long to know the right feel on a press. When somethings not right I stop and find out why, not just push harder.

It also does not take long for a tube full of primers to go off....

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
Out of pure ignorance...what is that stuck in the ceiling?

Its a pipe that goes over the primer tube. You can see it in this photo.

I've had my Dillon since '81. I usually prime on the press. I couldn't tell you how many rounds I've run on that press. In the 100K's of rounds for sure.

I've NEVER set off a primer. Ever. Even when it was new and I was learning the "feel" of the press.

I agree with the reply above that if you feel a resistance, STOP! And figure out what the hell is going on. There's no way in hell to set off a primer without putting way too much force into the operation.

Absolutely no excuse for setting off a primer. Operator oblivion blamed on a mechanism.

Those folks need to adopt a different hobby and stop reloading altogether due to their lack of mental focus. Sooner or later they're gonna kill themselves.

Bottom line: No primer cookoff is possible with a hand held priming tool such as the Hornady (Lee and RCBS make similar models). I could care less about the folks who have never had a cookoff; I am concerned about the next one that will happen. Spin the roulette wheel a certain amount of times and you are bound to have the ball drop on zero......

Go to agree with Slowpoke Slim-I, too, have been reloading since the early 1960's--yeah, I am old--and my records have my cumulative rounds loaded at a bit over 150,000 counting shotgun, pistol and center fire rifle with nary a pop off-yup, I have crushed a bunch early on, put 'em in backasswards and made just about every mistake possible but not one went off. Maybe just lucky but I doubt it, rather I avoided SHARP CONCUSSIVE force to the primer.

If it don't feel smooth STOP!

How do I prime these days? For shotgun and pistol and 223 volume stuff I use the progressive setup, for long range accuracy loads I hand prime for the exact feel of primer set.

All I can say is it works for me and If you have had a accidental discharge of a primer perhaps you need to reassess your practices.

Just sayin'.

Now let's go out there and be safe!

Gary

+1 for Slim. Over 150,000 reloads since 1974 and no primer problems. Always on a Lee or RCBS hand-held and never a problem.

Dutch

With all this talk about popped primers...

How many people wear safety glasses while priming? The guy who taught me how to reload some 33 years ago insisted on it and I always have since. (Knock on wood) I've never had a primer pop, but I still wear them while priming metallic cartridges.

For some reason I've gotten out of the safety glass habit for my considerable amount of shotgun reloading. I've reloaded at least 150K shotgun rounds over the years and have never popped a primer there either, but I should probably be wearing glasses.

Has anyone popped a shotgun primer while reloading?

I don't see how you could possibly pop a tube off a press.
the Dillon 550's take the primer from the tube and move it forward into the place it will get seated.
if you pop a primer off it's under the case and in the seater. [shrug]
the Dillon 650 rotates the primers [on a wheel] into place and the primer tube is 3/4" away from where they get seated into a case.

the rcbs bench mounted seater tips a primer into a holder then you set the case on top of that and seat it.
their press mounted one sets on top of the press and it works the same way.
the primer tube is in no way near a popped off primer and it would shield all the other primers from a pop-off anyway.

I know the ponsess warren 900-950-1050's all use a primer seater system similar to the Dillon 550 where the primer is slid into place under the case.
so once again they are remote from the seating operation.

Have to agree with Lamar. The aluminum drop tube is surrounded by a steel sleeve. The primer being seated is 1 1/2 inches away from the tube. Can't see where popping a primer while seating can cause the primers in the drop tube to ignite.

scary! I'm back to my old single stage press. I prime off the press these days. I returned a Dillion 650 because I had so many problems getting the primers to seat. I am frankly surprised I did not get an issue.

quote:

All I can say is it works for me and If you have had a accidental discharge of a primer perhaps you need to reassess your practices.

It is very nice to know that there are a couple perfect people in the world.

Shotgun primers are a whole different animal and real have no place in this discussion.

I too have reloaded tens of thousands of shotgun shells in poncess and mec presses with out any trouble.

But we are talking pistol and rifle primers.

I need some one to explain how setting off a primer when seating primers on my 550B will set off the primers in the magazine nearly 1.5 inches away. Nearly the same on the Square Deal The primer is flashing up into and around the case not into the primer magazine. I have popped a primer once when I insisted it was going to go into a tight pocket. Now I stop and check it out any time the resistance is higher than normal.
The only thing that I can think of is having more than one primer dispensed out of the magazine and crushing or pinching it when you try to get the next primer. I think this would take a pretty good shot. But if you were operating the machine roughley or to aggressively it could happen.
Bill

let's look at the results, again.

quote:

Originally posted by SlamFire:

I have popped two primers during my years of reloading, both were on a RCBS Rockchucker and large rifle primers. No other damage but I do remember the pressure to seat them was not quite right. I never had a problem on the Dillon 550, although I certainly have loaded more rounds on it than the Rockchucker by now.

The pipe in the picture looks like the pipe that surrounds the primer tube on my 450 Dillon that I have used to load many thousands of rifle and pistol cartridges in the 36+ years.

Like others have posted, in the actual primer seating, the primer is 1 1/2" away from the primer tube. However, if a primer went off while being seated, the flame could reach the primer tube.

Another possibility would be if a primer turned on it's side in the primer seater. If this happens, when you try to push the primer seating arm away from the primer tube, it can get stuck, and a hard forced push could set the primer off under the tube.

The fact is that primer tubes do sometimes detonate catastrophically. There was an entire section of my owners manual for my Lyman turret press on keeping the primer tube clean and the danger of detonation.

I only used it for a couple of weeks because it took too much time to fill and then after filling it would get stuck primers and I would have to get them unstuck before I could continue. I switched to a hand primer and never looked back.

I had an acquaintance who constantly set primers off - but I am sure it had more to do with the little Lee loader telling him to use a mallet to seat the primers than any fault of the equipment or technique. You don't tell a guy who swings a 10 pound sledge to seat primers with a mallet... I told him to get a bottle capping press and the popping primers were all done.

Never heard of this. But being around a lot of shooters and hunters over the years, I can say I am not surprised. Nobody seems to agree what the definition of "careful" is.

I am even more conservative than the folks who use RCBS or Lee hand-held primer tools which have primer "trays". I have read too many warnings about shaking primers around together in ANY container than the 100-count boxes they come in, and in which they are often held edge-to-edge in rows of 10.

SO, I use a Sinclair hand-held primer seater. Holds only one primer and one cartridge case.

I don't believe you can do anything fast enough to offset the potential for danger created in the name of speed. It's just like "You can't shoot fast enough to make up for not hitting the target."

I used to fire thousands of rounds of centerfire rifle ammo per year...all handloads and thousands more of pistol ammo, again, pretty much all center-fire. Never found enough loading time required to impair my ammo supplies, and MORE IMPORTANT, caused me to view each and every case individually again, giving a final chance for QC (detecting flaws). And several times each year I would detect something which would have reduced the quality of my finished ammo.

I have set off a grand total of one primer in over 30 years of handloading, and that was trying to de-prime a crimped military 308 case with a live primer in it. Stupid, yes. I know now to de-activate with oil before trying to de-prime.

Now, having said that, the Piggyback II I use has about three inches of space between the priming station and the powder drop. The RCBS primer tubes are precision sized so there is no potential of primers hanging up, and if you keep the press clean and pay attention to what you are doing, I don't see how you can set a primer off unless you feed a primed/spent case into the press and don't re-size first.

Nice to know that P dog thinks if you actually PAY ATTENTION to what you are doing, that is considered being PERFECT...



Puh-leeze.

No you may not reload in my shop. No I will not come out to your shop while you reload. No I will not shoot any of your handloads.

Slice it any way you like boys... there is NO EXCUSE for setting off a primer. None. It has NOTHING to do with being "perfect". Stupid is as stupid does.

Take up fishing instead and let someone else clean your fish. That way all you have to worry about is setting a hook in yourself or your buddy, and maybe no one dies.