Reloading IVI .308 brass

... It's no problem to remove live Primers. I wear safety Glasses, and removing the "Live" Primer, just take it easy on De primming. ..... IVI Brass is a little "Harder" than regular commercial, and the Primmer Pockets do have Crimp which needs to be removed ( RCBS Primer Pocket Swager works for me ) ...... Regular Dies should work just fine if adjusted correctly. I would suggest that it's just a matter of adjusting your seating Die correctly. IT could be also that the wrong deprimer/expander ball was too big, but that shouldn't affect the seating as badly as it sounds for you. ..... David K
 
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Depriming live primers is'nt recommended. If a live primer must be removed spray a shot of WD40 into the case to neutralize the primer first. The oil can be removed by rinsing the deprimed case in soap and hot water or by using methyl hydrate.
 
purple said:
Depriming live primers is'nt recommended. If a live primer must be removed spray a shot of WD40 into the case to neutralize the primer first. The oil can be removed by rinsing the deprimed case in soap and hot water or by using methyl hydrate.
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Again, what do you anticipate will happen by de-capping a live primer? In the unlikely even that it does fire, it makes a bang . . . oh well. If wearing safety glasses makes you feel better, then do that.
 
medic1050 said:
Get yourself a factory crimp die, a slight pressure and the neck will hold seat the bullets and crimp firmly. You won't have that problem again. I discovered that when I switched from a Lee Loader to Lee Neck collet that the collet was slightly looser than the Loader. A slight crimp and bob's your uncle.
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The so called factory crimp die wouldn't be my advice to get.
Your standard Lee dies should work, but I have much greater faith in almost any other brand. I have never had trouble with the other, standard dies, such as RCBS, Hornady, Pacific, etc.
I do have Lee dies for one calibre, as well as the factory crimp die. I quit using the factory crimp die, because I didn't like it and went back to the standard, seating/crimp die.
 
There is a safety caveat in most reloading manuals about depriming live primers. I did this once as a beginner many yrs ago and the thing detonated.:redface:. No real damage done,except for a flash and some particles being expelled. I've been reloading for a long time and find that the standard safety warnings make a lot of sense. I'm no safety nazi, so by all means, each to his own.:)

An afterthought on this. Primers are fairly potent on their own. I used to amuse myself by shooting wax 9mm bullets which were propelled by shotgun primers alone. They would make quite a splat on a plywood target backing, so food for thought if depriming a live one in a resizing die which does provide a degree of containment.
 
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One thing about the Lee factory crimp die is that it accomodates slight variations in case lengths and still applies a uniform crimp. I used one when reloading for the .348Win in a M71 and found it useful. I've also used them in both .308 and .30-06 to apply a crimp after pulling and replacing military FMJ bullets. Having said that I do a swack of reloading for Garands and find no need to crimp my reloads.
 
I have decapped sevral gazzilion live primers over the years. Like the kid guru above said, primer react mostly to impact, not a push.

That said, I did set one off once in my Lee Autoprime tool. Suckers are LOUD! especially when you don't expect to hear anything ....
 
Caution!! Beware!!! Live primers are EXTREMELY sensitive and could go off even if you just allow them to reach room temperature!!

Hello?? In this world of "My Word!! You must be careful! What if, while standing to urinate, you got dizzy and fell down, splitting your head open, aggravating an aneurism you didn't know you had and casuing a stroke!! It would be better if you sit down at all times!!"

Heavens, as Ganderite has stated, I too have deprimed tons of live primers with numerous brands of dies and presses. I still have all my toes, fingers, eyes, hair, etc. I have only been doing this for close to 30 years now so I may not know everything, but I know this one. Just pop them out.
Now, I had this situation occur for the first timie last year. I was loading some 30-06 for hunting and 3 of the cases allowed the bullets to fall in. All 50 done at the same time, same stamp, same purchase time. I backed off the decapper pin, did them again. They were tighter but not the same as the other 47. Figured, oh well, that's weird, but continued. A few weeks later, I was using those rounds down a moose. The first found was one of the 47. The second round (after we found her and she tried to get up) jammed in my chamber and I could not close the bolt!! The rifle was now a club! I used my back-up gun (7.62x39mm) to end her pain. Took the rifle in the house that night and had to beat the round out of it ruining a good cleaning rod. When I measured all the rest of the rounds, I found that I had 2 that were .006" bigger than SAAMI specs at the neck. Pulled them and measured neck thickness and they were an easy .003" thicker than they should have been. Sized at the top fine, but then as they were drawn back over the pin, they didn't come back to where they were supposed to. I will now, should that sit ever accor again, stop right then and measure the thickness. If you don't have that ability, you perhaps should not use them. As I said, this is the first time that has ever happened in tens of thousands of rounds. Luckily no damage to rifle only pride when it stuck and my buddy standiing there looking at me.

Good luck
 
I had a very poor batch of IVI brass from the late 1970's or early 1980's that was impossible to size to hold a bullet with both my Lyman and RCBS full length resizing dies. The brass was just too thin at the neck to hold the bullet. I threw it all away and have had no similar problem with any other manufacturer's brass. So it MAY be just a crappy batch of brass.
 
Although it would ne nice to learn from the experience of others, I seem to have learned most of my lessons the hard way,

Picking up on something Rookie said, about a round jamming in a hunt situation....

When going hunting with handloads, cycle all the rounds through the magazine and chamber. If there is a problem you should find it in the shop - not the field.

I missed an easy deer because a round would not chamber in my Mini-30.
 
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