DUD Remington 7.5 small rifle bench rest primers

[DShortt]

I’m really not sure how to check head space I’m gonna have to read into it

Uncle Ed posted an excellent description and illustration. I made the same mistake once myself and given the circumstances you have described I think it would be a really good idea to check into this possiblity before you go too much farther.

 

[22DASHER]

Yeah that powder is clumped together

 

[DShortt]

To the OP, how do you store your powder and more importantly clean your cases?

 

[Tokay444]

That powder clumped inside a wet case. It wouldn’t have gone through your funnel clumped like that.

 

[Nic Swink]

To the OP, how do you store your powder and more importantly clean your cases?

I store it in a cooler temperature in the bottle

 

[RegionRat]

Shiny the primer didn’t pop..some Gun powder stuck to the walls

This is why it was important to do the forensics. Now you learned something and can take corrective lessons away for the trouble.

ETA: without guessing on the possibility of concurrent issues like water in the primers or if there was a mechanical reason they didn't ignite, you should now very carefully remove them (primers) wearing eye and ear protection and going very slowly.

If you elect to strike them again to check and see if they will go off, again make sure to treat it like a fired shot cause it is as loud as a gallery round and point the bbl at something harmless preferably outside. Then I would still encourage you to inspect dimensions and learn to control both the primer seating and headspace.

 

[Nic Swink]

Yep, I’m gonna get me a few books on reloading and look into some websites

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Yep, I’m gonna get me a few books on reloading and look into some websites

Youre on the best one available right now. Those idiotic practices that some try wont fly here- too many thats been there done that. Any topic you want do a search on it with the magnifying glass above

 

[searcher]

As a re-loader, you will run into issues like these. Best thing is to write a list of all possibilities and begin a process of elimination. Here is what I'm thinking. You did end up with damp powder as evidenced by clumping powder. Lesson learned is to warm your brass in oven at lowest setting or a brass dryer until you are certain all traces of moisture are gone. Still - I don't believe there was enough moisture in them to cause the primer to not pop, given you blew them with compressed air. You didn't deepen the primer pockets - so unless your brass is faulty enough to cause misfires (very unlikely), the brass and primer pocket seating depth are not likely the issue. My $10.00 says you pushed your necks back too far with your die setting. If you have a Hornady headspace measuring tool that you put on your dial caliper (or other brand of tool), measure all of your fired cases and compare to the measurements of a fair number of ready-to-fire ammo you have not yet fired (if you have any). If the fired cases are more than .005" longer from base to shoulder than that of the unfired, it shows you that you bumped the shoulders back too much. It could have been .010" too much. I'd take your absolute longest fired case and use this as a temporary basis for setting your shoulders back on your next batch of ammo. I'd bump them no more than .002" is bolt gun and .004" if in semi-auto. Then, do the same comparison of your fired/unfired cases again. I'm betting your new .002" setback length will be considerably longer than the measurement you used to load your first batch- which indicates they were too far back before. The Remington 7 1/2 primers have a little thicker cups which means they need to make solid contact with a firing pin that won't merely push an "unsupported" case forward. If your case was too short, the firing pin merely pushed the case forward -or it was sitting "loosely" and too far away from the firing pin in the chamber - resulting in sporadic misfire when struck. If it turns out that your fired brass measurements reach a certain point that no individual case exceeds, though several reach the same longer measurement - that is most likely the measurement you want to use in the future to set your shoulders back. After all that - and still having problem with dry cases and powder, fully blown-forward shoulders, primers seem to be sitting just below being flush with the brass, I'd re-examine your bolt assembly to ensure no grit or carbon is preventing full firing pin extension, as well as the condition of the tip of the firing pin. THEN I'd look at the possibility of bad batch of primers. Good luck!

 

[dellet]

It could be as simple as tolerance stacking. The powder was likely wet, but if the primers did not fire, that’s the bigger issue. Wet powder could have been a hang fire, huge velocity swings, a squib etc, but it did not pop.

Separate the brass that did not fire. Then there are some choices.

If the primer is on the deep end of the tolerance, the case shoulder at the short end and the chamber on the long side there may just not be enough contact from the firing pin. Some careful measuring or the half seated primer trick mentioned is a good start.

You can carefully remove the primers and put them in a fired case to see if they pop. That would eliminate most of the variables.

Something else you can do is re- seat the same primer in the same case, with a small change.
Take a heavy strip of paper, and place it between the case and shell holder. When you seat the primer it will cut a spacer that will cause the primer to stand a bit taller in the pocket. You probably only need a couple thousandths.

Same can be done in the same case with powder and a bullet so they can be fire formed. If it looks like short brass is the issue.

This is a somewhat common technique with black powder shooters or when using a fine ball powder in cases with large flash holes. It keeps powder from dropping into the primer and seems to cut ES/SD numbers. But in your case it might just be enough to get things going bang.

As for drying wet brass, I use a $10 toaster oven from the thrift store set on warm for an hour or so. About the same as laying them out in the hot summer sun.

 

[skeeljc]

Shiny the primer didn’t pop..some Gun powder stuck to the walls

It appears there was moisture in the case when you loaded them.

Allow the case with the suspect primer to "air dry" for a week and then just chamber and fire the primed case.

Let us know what happens.

 

[M-61]

Any chance there is a pic of a case which have NOT fired but have primed? (not chambered)
The pics I see show (to my eye) primers that are seated so deeply I think maybe the pic is deceiving. There is nothing normal about that primer depth at all.

 

[Nic Swink]

It appears there was moisture in the case when you loaded them.

Allow the case with the suspect primer to "air dry" for a week and then just chamber and fire the primed case.

Let us know what happens.

Ok should I just throw the powder out or let it dry as well?

 

[Nic Swink]

Any chance there is a pic of a case which have NOT fired but have primed? (not chambered)
The pics I see show (to my eye) primers that are seated so deeply I think maybe the pic is deceiving. There is nothing normal about that primer depth at all.

 

[LHSmith]

My vote goes to water droplets in the case upon reloading. Tough to remove moisture from deep in case without some heat over time. BTDT

 

[mmcu]

Ok should I just throw the powder out or let it dry as well?

Toss it.

 

[Nic Swink]

 

[skeeljc]

View attachment 1227082

Primers look o.k.to me.

Toss the wet powder. Let the primed cases from the pulled rounds dry preferably in a warm, dry environment for a week or so. Chamber the primed case, fire and see what happens.

 

[Nic Swink]

Primers look o.k.to me.

Toss the wet powder. Let the primed cases from the pulled rounds dry preferably in a warm, dry environment for a week or so. Chamber the primed case, fire and see what happens.

You know I was thinking the primers looked good to me but I’m new to it and by the feel it seemed right. I’ll pull them thanks

 

[M-61]

Those primers look fine. The question is how did the others get so deeply seated?
Wet powder, primers etc do not make a primer seat so deep.
If you measure the HEIGHT of a primer and the depth of the primer pocket in the case that's the end in my opinion. It can't sink to the shown depth IMO unless you really had 'squared ' the primer pocket to excess. You said you had not done that. I'm back to primer height and pocket depth.