Priming cases proving to be a PITA

mister308

mister308

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Figured I'd ask you experienced guys for help. I have a Forster Co-Ax and an RCBS Hand priming tool. I usually prime my cases on the Forster because it's failproof (or so I thought) but BROKE the primer cup during operation.

After I was done swearing, I took a deep breath and switched to my hand primer. This also felt like giving me a hard time and repeatedly crushed my primers or set them in crooked. I know it's probably me, so what am I doing wrong?!

*I did prep my brass properly and sufficiently cleaned the primer pocket*

Forster attempt
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RCBS attempt
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They look like crimped primer pockets. You have to deal with the crimp before trying to prime them. Unless you did that the pockets would be rather tight.
 
1. Hornady brass has very little radius on the pocket. It's a pain to get primers in.
2. If these are Russian primers, they're a little bigger and are also a huge pain.
 
I use a RCBS hand primer and find the shellholder doesn't do a very good job of aligning the primer on the up-stroke with the pocket. I have to let the case sort of float in the shellholder with gentle pressure on the priming handle. Once I feel the primer in the proper position, then I squeeze and seat fully.

Have you had this issue with any other brass? Small and large primers?
 
Although I have the Forster press I prefer to prime with their hand primer (Red) it works well and will also reseat primers if they are not fully seated later and easier on the hands than just about any other hand primer.
 
Figure 11 said:
1. Hornady brass has very little radius on the pocket. It's a pain to get primers in.
2. If these are Russian primers, they're a little bigger and are also a huge pain.
Click to expand...

These are Winchester small rifle primers. Tomorrow I guess I'll try to remove more primer pocket material and see how that goes.

Alpheus said:
I use a RCBS hand primer and find the shellholder doesn't do a very good job of aligning the primer on the up-stroke with the pocket. I have to let the case sort of float in the shellholder with gentle pressure on the priming handle. Once I feel the primer in the proper position, then I squeeze and seat fully.

Have you had this issue with any other brass? Small and large primers?
Click to expand...

I've used the hand primer for only 308 and 9mm so far, but this was my first attempt with 223 and I only have Hornady 223 brass.

I've emailed Forster, hopefully they'll replace the broken part
 
Used hornady factory brass has crimped primers, but new brass doesn't. Having gone through this exact issue with hornady brass, buy or borrow a pocket uniformer like the rcbs one. Run the brass through it and the primers will press in normally.

Primers are explosive- if you are using so much force that you are squishing them then it is way too much. Be careful!
 
I'm going to echo and expand on what some others have said.

My Hornady once-fired brass had exactly the same problem, although I can't speak to whether or not new Hornady brass does.

You *might* need a pocket uniformer but you *definitely* need a crimp remover. The uniformer is going to make sure that the primer pocket itself has the correct dimensions. The crimp remover is going to let you remove the crimp and get the primer in there in the first place. In my experience, I just had to remove the crimp.

My advice: buy a good primer pocket reamer from Hornady. Theirs has a stop so that it will only remove material if there is something to be removed. I've used other reamers that will allow you to keep chewing away at the pocket until it's cone-shaped. :)

With a good reamer, you can chuck it up in a power drill and just give it a quick touch to get rid of the crimp.

You could also get a press-mounted swaging tool like the RCBS, or a dedicated swaging tool like the Dillon Super Swage. I have all three, but rely on the Super Swage whenever I can.
 
The two cases with the primers crushed by the RCBS tool look like the shellholder wasn't firmly seated in the tool because the primer punch mark is WAY off centre. Have you tried the RCBS tool with other cases & shellholders to make sure it's not the tool? Also, it's highly unlikely but is it possible you're using the wrong shellholder? A different diameter shellholder would explain why the primer punch isn't lining up with the centre of the priming pocket. I don't remember running into Hornady brass with crimped primer pockets but I did once find at the range some what appeared to be commercial once fired Federal cases which definitely had crimped in primers so such a beast does exist.

As others have said, use a primer pocket reamer with a bevel on it to make it easier for the primers to enter the primer pocket.
 
I've run into very shallow primer pockets with Hornady brass too. No matter what I did the primers wouldn't seat fully. I measured some and found the pockets were just too shallow; they were barely deep enough for pistol primers. Since it was just .30-30 brass and I had lots of Win/Rem/Fed with good primer pockets, I just scrapped the Hornady.
 
I had the misfortune of doing this one time. The reason for me was an incorrect shell holder. When I pushed the case all the way into the shell holder it was going too far and misalighning the case with the priming cup. Switching the shell holder solved my issue.
 
Should be an easy fix by the looks of it. Go out and buy yourself a primer pocket uniformer (I used Lee $24) you'll find that she does the trick nicely. Hornady brass seems to have a lot of material removed when using the uniformer on my brass.
 
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