Firing a primer only round

[Thor357]

Personally I would discard the cases. What if by removing too much material you may have
weakened the case.

Not a good I idea to give them to another shooter and he has a mishap.
I could be 100% wrong or I could be 10% correct, is it worth the gamble.

Use a dremel and cut a case length wise. You'll see why your concern is unwarranted.

 

[Thor357]

FWIW: It's still loud. And, priming compounds aren't fumes that I'd like to breathe in. Proceed as you see fit.

Well, I would hope that one wouldn't be shooting them off in a closet!
And yes, they are quite loud.

 

[Gary O'Neal]

Like BicMC said. Slowly run them through you decapping die. Done it hundreds of times. Push them out, don’t knock them out and you’re good to go.

 

[Dave M.]

Why not run them through your decapping die slowley . No need for a bang. I have done it a few times. Just my two cents Tommy Mc

Because I wanted to see if they would have firing issues, not save the primers.

 

[Dave M.]

FWIW: It's still loud. And, priming compounds aren't fumes that I'd like to breathe in. Proceed as you see fit.

Worked perfectly. It was incredible how quiet it was. Like a 22 short or less.

 

[Dave M.]

I've fired a few small rifle primer only rounds in the shop testing function, about the same as on old cap pistol. I'd be concerned more from the fumes of 47 rounds than the noise, but my shop is in a separate building away from the house. I think they should work okay, just not for match rounds.
I would not give any case with a known defect to anyone.

Only did two of them to make sure the rounds would still fire without issue

 

[mattri]

Raised a question, experimented and came up with an answer- very interesting and thanks for posting.

 

[TedA]

Question: I uniformer the primer pockets on 50 PCs of brass and the setting changed (21st century primer pocket adjustable depth uniformer) after the 3rd one I did but I didn’t notice it. Now I have 47pcs of brass with deeper primer pockets than I wanted. I don’t plan to use them in any of my matches but I’d like give them to my buddy who just shoot his 308 for fun at the range. Is there any safe way to test fire a primered case only to make sure that he isn’t going to have hang fires or rounds that don’t go off at all? Don’t have a range in the back yard to fire a live round or I’d settle this debate the correct way. When I pressed primers into them, some of were as much as .010” under flush with the case head.
dave

As one of the later posts notes you are only .002 inch more than the recommended primer/primer pocket tolerances in the SAAMI specs (Page 36 of SAAMI2299.2-2015) so you shouldn't worry that you made the case head too thin. The primary issue is whether the firing pin in your rifle is sufficiently long to ignite the primer reliably. If your rifle reliably ignites them you should be OK. While there are many ways to de-prime cases, in my 60+years of reloading, firing them as primer only in your rifle is the easiest (and noisiest) way to do it. As a note, putting a bullet in the case with a primer only, may leave the bullet in the bore. If you want some independent info Call Sierra Bullets on their 800 number

 

[Rsadams]

So it's a sized , primed only , no powder and of course no bullet... Just throw it in your rifle and pull the trigger... It will be around .22 short in sound.... So outside is the way to do it.... I will say this , if it's just regular ol brass and you have concerns about it , throw it away.... Problem solved... I have thrown away brass that other people would have used but since I am the safety officer it went in the recycling bucket... At that point you no longer have to worry about it....

 

[4xforfun]

LOL....I have done the Dasher FF thing (6 br case, twentylots grains of HP38 and a square of TP) in my shop!! Shooting off a primer is kids play!!

 

[searcher]

I too think you are O.K. with the brass being safe - provided your (or your friends) rifle will fire them. I have shot my primers off by pointing rifle into a 5-gallon plastic bucket filled with shredded, wet newspapers at least half way to the top of bucket. Stick barrel down inside the fluffed-up wet newspapers and fire away (NO bullet). It will knock the sound down about 30%+, traps a lot of the particulate.

 

[Woodcarver]

Back when primers were plentiful (and cheap) and I shot a lot of SASS, cold weather was cause to set up some "stages" in the basement and shoot primer powered plastic bullets at cardboard targets from a Colt SAA. Great fun! Mildly louder than a good cap gun.
At .010" below flush, the only question is/was does your firing pin still hit solidly as your experiment showed it does. My question is, as I only use a primer pocket tool to knock out loose carbon, how much pressure do you apply to yours to actually cut the brass? Is this a step common for bench rest competition I'm guessing?

 

[JimSC]

fi you are really worried about th enoise use a plastic 2 litre bottle over the muzzle to dampen the noise and don't be surprised if it blows a hole in the bottom of the bottle