Difficulty seating primers

[Charlie of Cypress]

I am experiencing difficulty in seating Fed 210M primers into Hornady brass in .308. I am using a Lee multi-primer like I have for years. Some of the primers won't even seat all of the way. I use primer pocket uniforming tools every time I reload.
I have never had this issue reloading 6 other calibers. Anyone experience this issue?

 

[TheOtherZilla]

First thing that comes to my mind is... Crimp present? Have you loaded these before?

 

[Webster]

I am experiencing difficulty in seating Fed 210M primers into Hornady brass in .308. I am using a Lee multi-primer like I have for years. Some of the primers won't even seat all of the way. I use primer pocket uniforming tools every time I reload.
I have never had this issue reloading 6 other calibers. Anyone experience this issue?

The pockets are swaged into place. No machining to dimension. Poor dimension control. I believe all of the pocket uniformers only cut to uniform depth. Never heard of uniforming pocket hole diameter. Even if there was a diameter uniformer a hand held tool would be scary for precision. 308 brass should be inexpensive. Try some other well known brands and toss the Hornady. For hunting I have no problem with range pickups as long as I sort them by brand and inspect each case. Toss all but the best brands. Can someone on this website recommend good 308 case brands. I only shoot Lapua.

 

[wkdickinson]

You don't say what kind of "primer pocket uniformer" you are using. I use a Sinclair, which is a round, straight piece of carbide with teeth on the end. While it may not be designed to size the diameter, by default it must. I have never used Hornady brass, but I have used lots of Peterson that is always difficult to seat primers the first time, even after having been "uniformed". Ultimately, you will need to either buy a primer pocket uniformer that cuts the diameter or change brass.

 

[Punkur67]

I have about 700 rounds of Hornady 308 brass that I had the same problem with. I actually broke the handle off my Lee primer because they were so tight. I ended up running the primer pocket uniforming tool through them and they work fine now

 

[BoydAllen]

Back in the day, some Lapua .220 Russian brass had too large of a radius where the bottom of the pocket met the side. This resulted in primers not being able to be seated properly. Getting them to flush require a lot of force and resulted in their being abnormally flattened. A regular Sinclair uniformer would tend to bind up so Russ Haydon came out with a special cutter, that was mad of carbide and not adjustable. It looked similar to a regular uniformer but it did not bind, and only cut at the outside of the bottom of the pocket. I still have mine, but have not needed it in years, since Lapua fixed the problem. If you like, you can PM me and make arrangements to send me a couple of your most difficult cases and I will use the tool on them, and seat primers, reporting on the result. It that solves the problem, perhaps the manufacturer can be convinced to modify their pocket forming tooling, or someone can have a go at modifying a uniformer to the spec. of the Haydon tool. I never put a mic. on it. or the Silclair, but I can.

 

[ronemus]

You can also switch brands of primers. I couldn't seat CCI large pistol primers in new Starline brass, but Winchester seated easily. There are minor dimensional differences between brands that normally don't matter.

 

[K22]

When you said difficulty, do you mean the pocket is too tight in diameter or not deep enough or both?

Just a long shot, but is your priming tool set so the plunger pushes the primer to the bottom of the primer pocket of the case. With my Sinclair tool, if it's not set up properly, it won't seat the primers to the bottom of the pocket.

I never had trouble with Federal primers but had some problems seating CCI primers. Also, I use a lot of Hornaday cases in 223 Rem and in the past, some in 308 Win and never had a problem but there's always a chance of a bad batch of product especially these days.

I've loaded literally thousands of Hornady 125 XTP's in 38 and 357 and encounter an isolate box where a few had the cannelures placed too high. It was extremely rare but it happened.

 

[Coyotefurharvester]

Federal 210 have larger diameters than Rem, Win,and CCI. This could be your issue, if the the primer pockets are correct depth.

 

[Jtate]

I had some Hornady 308 brass that the primmer pocket was so far off center you could not get a primmer to go in the pocket, check that.

 

[KMart]

I am experiencing difficulty in seating Fed 210M primers into Hornady brass in .308. I am using a Lee multi-primer like I have for years. Some of the primers won't even seat all of the way. I use primer pocket uniforming tools every time I reload.
I have never had this issue reloading 6 other calibers. Anyone experience this issue?

I recently loaded a bunch of once fired hornady 308 brass and had similar problems. Looking closely at the primer pocket, it looked like hornady had staked or crimped the primer in. I had to champfer the mouth of the primer pockets to get the primers started.
Take your rocket ship type champfer tool and slightly open the mouth of the primer pocket on one and see if it gets any easier.

 

[jepp2]

I've run into tight primer pockets occasionally on new brass (translation - no crimp present). I just swage them and all is good.

 

[GlennK]

So i also had a Lee priming tool I used for a long time. I also started getting inconsistent primer seating.....turns out the top of the cam in the tool had a flat spot. Disassemble you seating tool and look at the top of the round portion of the cam. I am betting on a flat spot....just a thought. Good luck

 

[TheOtherZilla]

I recently loaded a bunch of once fired hornady 308 brass and had similar problems. Looking closely at the primer pocket, it looked like hornady had staked or crimped the primer in. I had to champfer the mouth of the primer pockets to get the primers started.
Take your rocket ship type champfer tool and slightly open the mouth of the primer pocket on one and see if it gets any easier.

I had this issue with 17 Hornet Hornaday factory ammo. Ended up tossin a bunch.

 

[Steve Blair]

I use the RCBS bench tool so I can stand and really put my weight on it. No problem seating primers, even Russian.

 

[mousegunner]

I use the RCBS bench tool so I can stand and really put my weight on it. No problem seating primers, even Russian.

Tula primers go in tighter on my Win brass and take a bit more effort but I also use the RCBS bench tool with no problem.

 

[Macropod]

I am using Sellier and Bellot small rifle primers in Alpha Munitions 308 srp brass and are they hard to seat!
The thing is that load shoots so well that I do not want to change primers. The S&B stuff is super consistent.

Any suggestions on a robust bench mounted priming tool? I am considering designing my own priming press.

 

[BoydAllen]

I am using Sellier and Bellot small rifle primers in Alpha Munitions 308 srp brass and are they hard to seat!
The thing is that load shoots so well that I do not want to change primers. The S&B stuff is super consistent.

Any suggestions on a robust bench mounted priming tool? I am considering designing my own priming press.

The inexpensive RCBS top of press tool works fine and the leverage is completely adjustable.

 

[Macropod]

The inexpensive RCBS top of press tool works fine and the leverage is completely adjustable.

Thanks Boyd, I'll see if I can source one.

 

[KY_Windage]

The inexpensive RCBS top of press tool works fine and the leverage is completely adjustable.

Yup, works way better than using a press -- it is faster and you can feel how deep you are going better.

I don't have any 210's but I just measured some 215's and they are a half a thou smaller in diameter than my CCI 250's. I don't see changing the brand of primer as the solution.

I have loaded many thousands of Hornady brass with Federal, CCI and Remington primers and never had a problem seating. Maybe they made some mil-spec brass???