Have you ever set off a primer while loading?

[Farmer Don]

Twice! On a progressive press that swages primer pockets also. Crimped in spent primers from military brass sometimes stick to the deprime pin and get pulled right back into the primer pocket. Then the primer crimp removing swager will press that spent primer in and at the next priming station when you seat a new primer boom...blue flame as about 50 primers went. Kinda loud too The press is designed so it's not a problem ;^) I wear ear plugs now. Love those presses and will not name them here. I watch for the spent primer to drop NOW. I hope this helps someone.

 

[Infrequent Shooter]

Help me understand "crimped "

Left , right or both? Trying to figure out which needs to be reamed. The right has a slightly off centered lip around the primer pocket that has me stumped Thanks!!!

www.ncgunowners.com

this helped me understand crimped primer.

 

[ebb]

YES. I have always used an RCBS handheld primer tool, mine seems to have problems with the primers in the tray feeding into the ram portion of the tool so as I am priming, I tilt the tool so the primers slide into the metal part and onto the ram. Sometimes even that doesn't coax the primers to go into the tool so I have to shake it a little to make it feed. Sometimes two primers got stacked up on top of each other and when you push the handle you can feel it make contact with the case way too soon in the handle movement, so I stop and remove one of the primers. I guess I was distracted and didn't notice and pushed the handle even though two primers were in at the same time and one went pop. I think that RCBS should have designed this tool so that only one primer could go at a time. I probably need to stop using this tool and go to something different, but I refuse to handle each primer as so many of the trendy new primer tools require you to do. One of the guys here makes a good primer seating tool and at one time offered it with a tray so you could seat primers without handling them all, but he can't find someone to supply the trays. I Emailed him and asked if he ever finds trays to let me know and I will buy a couple of his tools. Heck if he would make the tool to fit an RCBS or Lee tray I would source the trays myself.

 

[neckturner]

I’m curious if anyone else ever has.

50+ years of reloading on my end. Never set one off.

Nonetheless, when handling primers I wear eye and ear protection. Because of stories like the ones here.

 

[Kracken McGraw]

50+ years of reloading on my end. Never set one off.

Nonetheless, when handling primers I wear eye and ear protection. Because of stories like the ones here.

I’ve added slipping on a leather glove when filling the primer tube.

 

[J_Hensley]

I’ve only been reloading for about 12 years. Reading through this thread will hopefully prevent me from ever having any incidents.

I have in the past hand primed a couple of pistol cartridges that were missing primers. I don’t think I’ll do that any more.

 

[Homerange]

I’ve only been reloading for about 12 years. Reading through this thread will hopefully prevent me from ever having any incidents.

I have in the past hand primed a couple of pistol cartridges that were missing primers. I don’t think I’ll do that any more.

With a failsafe loading procedure there should never be a need for that !

Prior to charging cases they should be in your loading block primer up where the primer (or lack of) is plainly visible and upside down can never contain a charge.

 

[SSL]

With a failsafe loading procedure there should never be a need for that !

Prior to charging cases they should be in your loading block primer up where the primer (or lack of) is plainly visible and upside down can never contain a charge.

Of course that only works with a non-progressive press. Kinda defeats the purpose otherwise.

 

[Homerange]

Of course that only works with a non-progressive press. Kinda defeats the purpose otherwise.

All the more reason to use one.

 

[Tempest]

Never priming.

Same as others. Did it once annealing. Had one that was primed and went bang. Get's your attention!

 

[Heavy Metal 1]

Never set one off accidently while reloading. As an experiment I set one off on purpose though. I put a primed case open mouth down in a vise then used a nail hit by a hammer to set off the primer. [DON'T DO THIS] Well, the nail pierced the primer and I got a shot of gas to my fingers and while there was no significant permanent injury it did hurt and that sucker was loud. It ripped that nail right out of my fingers. I was smart enough in this experiment in stupidity to wear my face shield. Again, don't do this. Primers pack quite a punch in a small package.

 

[searcher]

Had one when hand priming 5.56LC case that the crimp wasn't fully removed. It started a little tough then broke past the crimp and slammed to the bottom of the pocket. About a 2 foot flame shot out, my neighbor called me to make sure I was ok and the dog was scared shitless and never hung out in the loading room again after that. So glad I had safety glasses on over my prescription glasses and it was pointed away from me.

I had one go off when seating in a mil case that also wasn't completely de-crimped. I wasn't hand seating, rather using my trusty RCBS press, doing them one at a time. - and that was about 40 years ago. it was definitely my fault. Definitely wakes you up! Lesson learned.

 

[kiwijohn]

Yes twice. One in a Dillon 1050, the deprime punched the base of the cup out. Then when the fresh primer went in, it crushed and detonated. 9 mm case
Second was on a green machine , not sure how.....loading for a friend .357 case his press and unfamiliar with it.

 

[coorslight]

40+ years reloading and this happened 6 months ago, hand priming on a frankford arsenal hand primer. Primer went side ways and was stuck, used a dental pick to move it, BANG, broke the tip off the dental pick cut my finger and the anvil imbedded itself in the sheetrock wall. I was wearing safety glasses as always.

 

[Turpentine]

Only once. Doing 12 ga and I am guessing a pellet got into the hole for priming. Don't really know why, but boom. Luck was on my side because the MEC press is built so the bar is not in the powder position when it happened.

Sounds very familiar. I did it with my progressive 410 press

 

[Turpentine]

There are many things I will not do without eye protection but these two are based on my hands on experience. One is reload ammunition. The other is mess with lead acid batteries. When something blows up in your face it'll make a believer out of you.

 

[450BM]

I tore down about 130 cartridges over the last couple of days and didn’t have any mishaps. Well, other than I broke the screw on cap on the RCBS hammer bullet puller. Deprimed all of them last night with no problems.

I really appreciate all the responses, tells me how lucky I’ve been.

 

[divingin]

Never set a primer off while reloading (either de- or re-capping.)

However, twice in the past year I've heard of dropped loaded rounds detonating. The first was a gunsmith friend of mine, who said he dropped a 45ACP round that fell onto the nose of another round (He said he found the detonated primer which had a concave face where it hit the other round.) The second (incident caught on video) was an instructor who had a student drop a 9mm round on the indoor range that went off. The instructor caught a piece of (I assume) brass on his cheek, but wasn't significantly injured. Inconclusive on what that round hit to set it off, but there was plenty of spent brass on the concrete floor.