case lube and primer failure?

[JeffG]

This is my first wildcat/fireforming cartridge, so I'm chaulking it all up to education!

 

[dkhunt14]

I forgot to mention when I had the bad Fed 205 primers the anvils had a dark color or stain on them. The primer cakes sometimes were stained also. A few of the primer cakes were cracked.

The Rem 7 1/2 BR primer anvils are a more uniform copper color all over. The primer cakes are uniform in a clean looking color without cracks.

Don't remember which primer brand but one lot had burrs on the anvil edges like it was punched out with a dull or worn out die. Does someone out there know if the dark color on Fed 205 primers is normal. I still have them. When you get a new box of primers put a 100 in the primer flipper and look at the anvils and primer cakes of about a bunch of them. It only takes about a minute. You need about a 5X hand magnifier.

All my Regular Federal primers have a Red coating on them. The magnum has Purple. Matt

 

[Joe R]

jlow said: You may have found your problem with the primers but since your headspace was so far off, you may have problems with the short ones thinning at the head and heading for case head separation. I would do the paper clip test on them.

Out my range before each match they say "Safety first, safety last, safety always". I would pay attention to jlow, testing his suggestion would take a couple of minutes but if he is correct, the risks is too substantial to ignore.