Reuse Primers?

waynewjw

waynewjw

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Today I had to resize some 243 that wouldn't fit with unfired primers. So should I re-use these prmiers? The do have the primer pin mark in the center but otherwise are unblemished. It's only 20 rounds so no biggie on the cost just curious if any of you guys have just reprimed again? And did you get 100% ignition?
 
The next time you need to do this, try taking the decapping pin out of the expander ball rod. That way you won't remove the primer when you resize.
 
The previous responders are all correct. One reason they wouldn't use the ammo for hunting is that unless you are very careful there is a chance that the primer compound becomes contaminated with things like oil on your fingers etc. Also, when the decapping pin comes up against the anvil in the primer it can stick a bit and either pull it out completely or offset it. I have had both of the latter happen because of small diameter decapping pins.

If you take care to make sure all is very clean, including yourself, all should be well. The previous responders are all experienced reloaders and just take it all in stride as a habit. Lots of newbies need to be reminded about certain procedures. Good for you for asking by the way.

Just remember, you are talking about less than a buck worth of primers. If this is hunting ammo, is it worth taking the chance to you of a mis fire or hang fire when you need it the least??
 
bearhunter said:
The previous responders are all correct. One reason they wouldn't use the ammo for hunting is that unless you are very careful there is a chance that the primer compound becomes contaminated with things like oil on your fingers etc.
Click to expand...

THIS .... is the biggest old maid's tale on the internet. A teeny tiny bit of oil from your finger applied to the external portions of a primer will never in a million million years cause a primer to not work. I ran a primed case through the clothes washer by accident and it fired just fine after having been submerged in soapy water for 20 minutes.

The problem with insisting that an itty bitty little bit of oil could inactivate a primer is that people think it is safe to dispose of live primers by soaking them in oil .... which it likely is not.
 
Well, don't take my word for it but many reloading manuals caution against handling primers with bare fingers for just this reason. I don't know about you but I have had issues with misfires that were directly attributed to malfunctioning primers. Maybe you've just been lucky? The new made primers have some sort of shiny coating on them but not all. I still have primers from 30 years ago which are very reliable because they have been stored properly. I have also had misfires with newly made primers. I use CCI primers exclusively.

I agree misfires don't happen often but they do happen for unexplained reasons. As for primers making it through a twenty minute cycle in your washing machine, how many did you wash??? I just tried your little exercise and guess what??? None of the half dozen I put through the cycle went bang.
 
I was just curious as to whether they could be reused. And I was loading hunting rounds before I did the post. Any you all are correct that its not worth the $2 of reusing the primers. So I used new primers. When taking out the old ones, I cleaned out the primer tray and once all out handled them carefully with clean hands and put them back in an empty prime case, labeled as deprimed live and will give them a try on some range rounds in the future. thanks for all the feedback.
 
I've soaked primers in water for 24 hours, and if removed and tried wet, none went off. I repeated the soaking and let them dry completely, and they all fired.

I did the same thing with WD-40 with the same results. All about 8-10 years ago and posted here on CGN.

The purpose of this was to try to see if there was a way to permanently disable primers, and I could only conclude that water and WD-40 were effective to temporarily disable primers, which is of no use, as it's safe to deprime live primers.

As for re-using previously seated primers, I haven't done any testing to see if the unseating process could harm a primer and won't, as even if I tried 100, someone would say I should have tried 101.

For me - deprime the live primer and discard, but if I happen to have to touch a primer with my fingers, I use it with confidence.
 
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Consider a semi-auto rifle with a floating firing pin. Each and every time the action cycles, the primer receives a light impact from the firing pin, and each and every time the rifle fires, it fires with a previously dented primer. These rifles, in their better examples tend to be extremely reliable, so previously dented primers do not seem to affect the reliability of the primer. What a dented primer might do is increase the ease by which the priming compound might be set off, as the cup, anvil, and priming compound are now in a lightly compressed orientation. An interesting experiment might be to repeatedly chamber a single round through an AR to see if after multiple firing pin strikes it fires on chambering.

I don't seat primers immediately after changing the oil in my truck, without first washing my hands. As a rule I avoid touching primers, but when I do I don't discard the primer, or segregate the cartridge its loaded in. I too did a primer test with WD-40 to see how primers were effected by contact with it. I put the primer on a steel bench and hit it with a hammer. In each case there was a small puff of white smoke, the sound was very muffled, and I saw no flame. This was after immediate contamination, and I didn't think to try the test after waiting for the WD-40 fluid to evaporate.
 
I've only been reloading for a few years now, but I've always used my fingers to pick up the primers. Thousands of rounds now and not once have I had a failure to fire due to contaminated primers.

Who are these people whose fingers are so oily that merely touching a primer renders it inert?
 
I just shot through 12 rounds with reused primers in my 7mm MAG without any issues whatsoever. Knowing that, I'd rely on them again.
 
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