Reloads didn't fire??

[yomomma]

Maybe you just suck at reloading.

 

[elkhuntr]

Thanks C-fbmi. I have always practiced clean hands using primers. Often wondered about it. I wonder about primers and water contamination. It may be worse than with oils. But good to spread the knowledge anyway. I have used the RCBS hand held primer for ever. Great product if you can get your hands on one because you can feel the seat pressure very well. Elky...

 

[Deathrawt]

Are the bullets seated long? Do they engage the rifling? Are there rifling marks on the bullets that did not fire?

That will cause a primer not to fire.

When I first started reloading for my 34 this was the issue I had, seated the bullets in a little more and problem solved

 

[Suther]

Suther the fact that another loader also had ignition problems definitely points to the tool being out of adjustment and the primers not being seated. I have fired 1000s of rounds without cleaning pockets and have never once experienced a misfire because of it. Either try to adjust your priming tool or throw that LEE POS in the garbage and buy yourself an RCBS bench mounted priming tool like I have used for 40 years............can't beat it and it never wears out and you can seat primers .005" below grade if you want to with this tool. I have even found that I can apply enough pressure to expand the primer enough to keep it from falling out of a slightly over used primer pocket.........for that one more firing. I have actually be amazed over the years at how much abuse and deformation a primer can sustain and still go bang, the only thing they will not tolerate is not having a solid backing to allow the anvil and firing pin to do their job.
It has been proven many times that the new sealed primers cannot be contaminated with finger oils or even submerged in oils for days. There was a thread here about a year ago disproving the oil contamination theory completely.

Thanks for the insight.

Sadly, I need the hand primer, as I have no space for a bench in my current place. Even my press is handheld. Not ideal, but it beats not reloading at all.

I have decided the hand primer must be the issue... Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can make it work better? I was thinking sanding down the bottom of the shell holder, and shimming the top side so the case sits a tiny bit lower? Maybe there is an easier option though?

As for length, Im around 0.060 off the lands.

 

[Cummins]

How can a bullet seated long and into the rifling cause the primer not to go off? I would have thought if anything it would help hold it to the bolt face.

 

[Dogleg]

How can a bullet seated long and into the rifling cause the primer not to go off? I would have thought if anything it would help hold it to the bolt face.

It will hold it against the bolt-face, but that also pushes the shoulder, belt or in the case of these 303s rim away from bottoming hard on the applicable area of the chamber. The firing pin tries to pound the bullet into the rifling like a nail into a pre drilled hole. It cushions the blow.


Ever notice how just about every misfire thread has a CCI primer in it? Tired springs and hard primers don't like each other.

 

[tigrr]

Primers are fussy. Something as simple as sweat/oil off your hand can make them inert. Brass lube has accounted for many dead primers.
When you get a chance pull a bullet and dump the powder and see if the primer had gone off.

 

[Tinman204]

Cci primers maybe?

I ask cause after firing around 10k Cci primers and never having one fail to ignite my buddy and I were both running short. So long story short we both ordered more together from the same place. After loading them we went shooting and we both experienced rounds that didn't go off on the same day. We both have never had that happen with either of our guns.

Driving home we were yakking and we realized that the 5 or 6 primers that didn't go off were all Cci no200 and they were from the same lot as we bought together at the same time.

I love my cci primere but some times you can get a bad couple here and there. Stranger things have happened.

 

[Suther]

The primers i used were cci, but my friend was using remington primers.

 

[FLHTCUI]

I do not mean to be rude but are you sure you put powder in? I have made that mistake more than once. Or at least that was my verdict when I had the same issue with 30-06 and 303

The primer has enough pressure to dislodge the bullet in the round.
It would make a popping sound rather than the ka-boom or pew pew pew Depending on the round being fired.
Do you inspect the primer pockets before inserting the new primer in to the pocket?
Post some pics of those primers that didn't detonate if possible.
Also, is sit possible the primers are defective or have been rendered inert somehow?
Rob

 

[Dogleg]

Usually if you forget the powder the bullet doesn't budge, and there isn't the slightest sound. Pull the bullet and its baked black on the base and that's it.

 

[Ganderite]

Primers are fussy. Something as simple as sweat/oil off your hand can make them inert. Brass lube has accounted for many dead primers.
When you get a chance pull a bullet and dump the powder and see if the primer had gone off.

I doubt this. Take some primers, rinse them under the tap and then spay with some lube -then seat them and fire in the gun (no powder or bullet) They will probably all go bang.

I will do this tonight and report. Some other guys can do the same and report here. maybe I am wrong....

 

[Suther]

Usually if you forget the powder the bullet doesn't budge, and there isn't the slightest sound. Pull the bullet and its baked black on the base and that's it.

I can hear the powder in them when i shake them.

 

[Ganderite]

I was wrong.

Put 10 Winchester small pistol primers in a fired shot shell, added some water and shook for 15 seconds. Dumped the water, added some CLP and shook. Then dumped primers on paper towel and loaded in 9mm cases and fired in a Glock. Not one bang.

I should try again with water only.

 

[kodiakjack]

I was wrong.

Put 10 Winchester small pistol primers in a fired shot shell, added some water and shook for 15 seconds. Dumped the water, added some CLP and shook. Then dumped primers on paper towel and loaded in 9mm cases and fired in a Glock. Not one bang.

I should try again with water only.

 

[bsand]

I was wrong.

Put 10 Winchester small pistol primers in a fired shot shell, added some water and shook for 15 seconds. Dumped the water, added some CLP and shook. Then dumped primers on paper towel and loaded in 9mm cases and fired in a Glock. Not one bang.

I should try again with water only.

Try with federal primers. I've reused them time and time again. Even put them in wet-ish brass (realized when powder came out clumpy) and they still went bang.

 

[Tinman204]

I doubt this. Take some primers, rinse them under the tap and then spay with some lube -then seat them and fire in the gun (no powder or bullet) They will probably all go bang.

I will do this tonight and report. Some other guys can do the same and report here. maybe I am wrong....

I'm trying to remember the source but a fellow on a large US forum did just that. He did a test with oil and water soaked primers and he tested them for 1 week, every day taking a batch of oil soaked primers and a batch of water soaked primers and seeing if they went pop.

After a week I think he finally had issues making some of them fire. I'll have to look for the link to that as it was an interesting read along with some good photos.

 

[Dogleg]

I was wrong.

Put 10 Winchester small pistol primers in a fired shot shell, added some water and shook for 15 seconds. Dumped the water, added some CLP and shook. Then dumped primers on paper towel and loaded in 9mm cases and fired in a Glock. Not one bang.

I should try again with water only.

I've done that with Large rifle Magnum primers. Threw ten in a shot glass filled it up with water and waited a minute or so. Loaded them up and got ten clicks in the garage. Dry they out long enough and they work again.

Did a similar one, spraying WD40, and a spray case lube on ten primers and loaded them. Good and wet, not just the oil from my fingers. In the time it took to walk out the the garage they were all dead.

Shotshell primers are waterproof as far as i know.

 

[Suther]

Okay, I did a bit of checking when I got home from work tonight, and it looks like my hunch was right.

303 Brit


270 Win


As you can see, with the 270 the tool is bottoming out, whereas the 303 is not even close. I am fairly certain this is my problem. The Lee Priming tool uses the same shell holder for 308 and 30-06 cases, but when looking online at schematics for the 30-06 and 308 cases, I notice the rim is not quite the same (1.24mm for the 30-06 case, while the 308 case is 1.37mm) I wonder if this is part of the problem...

Has anyone else ran into this same problem??

Any suggestions for how I can fix this?? Buying a new tool isn't really on my to-do list, so fixing the one I have would be preferred. My current idea consists of removing material from the bottom of the shell holder and shimming the top. Worst possible scenario I'm out a $5 shell holder. Anyone have a different suggestion??

 

[c-fbmi]

I'd solder a shim to the primer stem if it was mine.......something about .030" thick like a piece of brass shim stock...........or epoxy if solder isn't practical.