.45 acp misshap

doublebarrelpete

doublebarrelpete

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Just reloaded about 200 rounds of 45 acp when suddenly my lee loadmaster jammed up a bit and in trying to overcome the resitance I forced a primer just a bit too much and "bang".

My ears are still rinning. On closer inspection there are a few shells that are stamped WIN NT 45 Auto. The primer pocket seems much smaller by about 1 mm. In forcing a large pistol primer into the small opening i created fireworks.

Does anyone know why there would be 2 different primers for 45 auto?

I must have picked the brass off the floor at the club.

Thx
 
My experience has generally been, that if the brass is still on the ground most likely it is no longer reloadable. There are plenty of exceptions to this generalization, of course.
 
I keep two different jars of .45ACP brass, one for small primer pockets, the other for large.

That way if I'm out of either small or large pistol primers I can still load .45ACP.
 
45acp brass marked WIN NT will be small pistol primed. for 45acp you must sort your brass carefully, did it blow apart any of the primer feeder tray?

The only other pistol brass I am aware of that has 2 sizes of primers is .455


handy site for the loadmaster http://forums.loadmastervideos.com/forums/
 
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As Colin said, WIN NT uses a small pistol primer. They decided to standardize on small primers . Now we have a problem in that there are a lot of used 45 cases that take small primers.
As you and others have found out a large primer does not go into a small primer pocket.

All I can suggest is always go through your 45 brass before reloading and pull out the small primer ones.
Also, a number of people wear safety glasses when reloading. A good idea .
 
i've actually SWITCHED OVER- my 1000 is set up for nt/winclean/ wahtever you call it-
that way i can keep all my auto pistol stuff in the one room- i like to have dispersion between calibers and powders so there's no confusion as to what powder/primers go where if any end up on the floor- anyway, also be aware that about 95% of the small pistol primer 45 stuff has a crimped in primer that has to swaged/removed -and i can just about guarentee the small pistol stuff is once fired- unlike the other range brass
 
doublebarrelpete said:
my lee loadmaster jammed up a bit and in trying to overcome the resitance
[...]
Does anyone know why there would be 2 different primers for 45 auto?
Click to expand...
Lesson one: never "overcome the resistance" on a progressive. Something is wrong: forcing it will breaking that something.

Regarding the small-primer brass, you can put it on the EE if you have a decent quantity. Some people use it exclusively.
 
on-ca said:
WinClean .45 acp brass uses small primer holes and thus small primers. I don't know why they did this and should be spanked for it.

That is the reason.

on-ca
Click to expand...

i don't know where you got that information, but it's not right- the flash holes are the SAME SIZE, just the diameter of the primer cups is different- winchester even says so on their site- the reason they did this this is that this is a MARKETING GIMMICK so they could sell the non-toxic ammo and most shooters would throw away the brass- and it was too much trouble to go to a whole new cup size- the small pistol primer is also supposed to burn "hotter" and they wanted to produce only one size of non-toxic primer for both the 45 and 9mm- which is where the majority of shooters are these days- us 44 and other caliber shooters are considered as "fringe"
 
I think I just learned a lot more then I thouhgt possible.

In reply to some of the return questions:

No the primerfeeder was not damaged. I found the bottom of the primer nicely flattened with a nicely curled edge.

The brass I picked off the ground trying to find my own brass at the shooting edge. They dispose of brass by the bucket.

Not only will I sort; wear goggles; but also hearing proctection.

Thx guys...

now one more question what about my RRSP ? hehehe
 
be aware that the EDGE sells a LOT of that winclean stuff- i use the same range - the best "solution" i've found is to USE CARTRIDGE BOXES and try to re-fill them up about every 2 or 3 boxes- say 100 to 150 rounds- put the two rounds side by side and the difference is readily apparent- and if you take the time to tape every mag ful instead of just busting away, it can take up to a couple of hours to do a hundred rounds- now i realise that this isn't possible at the edge unless you call a cease fire or you're the only one on the range, as autos throw the brass all over the place, so my best advice would be to do the inspection and separation thing when you get home and have a couple or more different colored boxes to cull the large from the small- and order a small primer assy from either wsl, higgenson, or lee directly- just get the troughs and the slider- the other parts are common-
 
If you're going to load the small primer brass just be aware that some brands crimp the primers in. I know that American Eagle Non-toxic is crimped primers. a couple twist of the chamfer tool takes care of that. Just remember to keep them separate if you decide to use both.
 
Some of 45 Win NT not only have small primer holes, but also has crimped primer holes as well similar to military brass. I have a few sitting in my bins, which needs swaging.
 
i have some small holed large primer 45 acp brass- fact is some of the holes are undersized b'c the drill they used was undersized- i know this b/c the undersized hole brass PULLS THE PIN out of the mandrel- been meaning to re-drill that stuff but haven't got around to it
 
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