Flash-over incident using Hornady Hand-Primer

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I believe that Lee says not to use Federal primers in their auto prime tools for this very reason. That said I have loaded tens of thousands of Federal pistol primers using my Lee Auto prime and never had a problem. I do however always wear safety glasses.

I have had the odd primer feed at an offset angle and begin to jam when using an Auto Prime but as soon as I felt something was wrong I stopped and cleared the primer. One time when it jammed I took it outside, removed the other primers from the feed tray, put on a welding mask and squeezed the primer flat - just to see if it would detonate - it didn't.

I'm glad Scrumbag is okay!

 

[Kiwi Greg]

I had the same thing happen a few years ago now with the same Hornady hand primer with 50-75 215 Feds in the tray
Made a bit of a mess of both my hands, blew primers & tray all around my large workshop
Scared the c--p out of my employee who was near me at the time
Some stitches, bandages & it was all good, some wicked scars but...
I think a primer had turned side on when being put into Bertram 408CT brass which had nice tight pockets & required more force than usual
I use RCBS ones now with a flat bar that slides across to prevent sympathetic detonations
I hadn't heard of it before, but found out it wasn't that uncommon after it happened

 

[Scrumbag]

I believe that Lee says not to use Federal primers in their auto prime tools for this very reason. That said I have loaded tens of thousands of Federal pistol primers using my Lee Auto prime and never had a problem. I do however always wear safety glasses.

I have had the odd primer feed at an offset angle and begin to jam when using an Auto Prime but as soon as I felt something was wrong I stopped and cleared the primer. One time when it jammed I took it outside, removed the other primers from the feed tray, put on a welding mask and squeezed the primer flat - just to see if it would detonate - it didn't.

I'm glad Scrumbag is okay!

Yeah occasionally I got a double feed but usually felt very different. Didn't notice that on this occasion.

Scrummy

 

[Scrumbag]

I had the same thing happen a few years ago now with the same Hornady hand primer with 50-75 215 Feds in the tray
Made a bit of a mess of both my hands, blew primers & tray all around my large workshop
Scared the c--p out of my employee who was near me at the time
Some stitches, bandages & it was all good, some wicked scars but...
I think a primer had turned side on when being put into Bertram 408CT brass which had nice tight pockets & required more force than usual
I use RCBS ones now with a flat bar that slides across to prevent sympathetic detonations
I hadn't heard of it before, but found out it wasn't that uncommon after it happened

I have ordered and RCBS 90200 with the gate.

 

[CaptainMal]

Been using the RCBS tools for many years. Many times the small sized primers can turn on you in the tray. You can see that and fix it before one enters the ram. Always bring a primer up and look at it before putting a case into the shell holder.

Glasses on always when priming. Good reminder.

 

[yotehater]

I guess those small cuts were from flying anvils, tiny ninja stars. Glad your eyeballs survived. That RCBS unit is the same one I've used for decades. Good feel with it.