How Lucky are You?

[ronsatspokane]

I haven't lost any that I didn't find... that I know of. However, my nephews and their friends occasionally load in my shop. I monitor what is going on but short of doing it myself I need to have some trust in them once I see that they know what they are doing.

One day though I'm rolling a 50 gallon drum of diesel across the shop on the concrete floor. The drum was on a dolly with metal wheels. Bang! Not a big enough bang to cause problems but enough to make me think that I need to find out which shitbird lost a primer and didn't tell me about it. We were filling my neighbors tractor, he was shocked.

 

[Toddmack]

I wear the pants in my house but they seem to fit the wife better. When we put new carpet in the basement it ended up being semi-shag because she had apparently never been around shag carpet and legos! If she wants to vacuum my reloading room, "have fun"! If I'm priming cases I take them all upstairs to the "short carpet" like any logical person would do!

 

[Ernest T]

How about a wide magnet to float over the carpet?

They don't stick to magnets in my experience.

 

[jelenko]

Shag carpet. 5 pounds of lead shot is really hard to recover there. it is amazing how far a small part will jump when it fell between your legs.

+++
Seems impossible at times.

 

[Toddmack]

My now 10 yr old son knocked over a tray of 100 primers 3 years ago. I still find a stray on once and a while.

 

[Capt. Oblivious]

What ever you don't find are miniature land mines in the future. When ever I drop one, I don't stop looking until I find it. I've read of them going off in vacuum cleaners.

hahaha I have vacuumed up so many of them and unfortunately I haven't been able to get one to go bang. When my son was in diapers I couldn't let one stay on the ground otherwise he would smack it with a hammer if found, he thought it was hilarious his mom not so much

 

[jpx2rk]

I "usually" don't drop unfired primers, but have a bad case of rogue spent primers bouncing out of the press when I de-prime brass from the most recent range trip. I usually spend the time to find them as the wife's dog likes to sneak into the cave and snoop around. I have a child gate up to keep her out but sometimes I forget to close it, and she follows me in. I call her "nosy" amongst other names. LOL

 

[robert8904]

Never dumped a tray full, only a tube or two and that's been a while. I've vacuumed quite a few and only had one go off. I don't think the brush can set one off but the impeller sure can.

 

[AckleymanII]

Don't worry, A vacuum cleaner brush bar will find them all!

 

[gambleone]

They don't stick to magnets in my experience.

All these years,,, never knew that. Thank you.

 

[TC260]

What ever you don't find are miniature land mines in the future. When ever I drop one, I don't stop looking until I find it. I've read of them going off in vacuum clcleaners.

Until this thread I'd honestly never heard of vacuum cleaners and primers being an issue. It reminds me though of a story my dad told me once. He worked at a university and I can't remember 100% for certain what he said a student a vacuumed up but I think it was calcium carbide because years ago I know they made their own acetylene in the welding tech dept. Anyway, whatever it was he said it blew the top of the vacuum cleaner off and hit the ceiling! Fortunately nobody was hurt other than probably some soiled britches

 

[jcm800]

Was annealing some 300BO and one inadvertently had a live primer. Brass went flying into the wife's holiday bins on the other end of the basement. Didn't even bother getting out of my chair.
I did check the rest of my brass for primers though.

 

[Just Say Moe]

hahaha I have vacuumed up so many of them and unfortunately I haven't been able to get one to go bang. When my son was in diapers I couldn't let one stay on the ground otherwise he would smack it with a hammer if found, he thought it was hilarious his mom not so much

My 4 year old was smashing spent primers in my shop and "found" a live one - he was screaming and I was laughing!

 

[cheek9075]

If you don't know how many where in the tray then how would you know how many you didn't find? I would look for them, find all I could and lie to myself and say I found 99.99% . Lol!

 

[Nick Caprinolo]

How about a wide magnet to float over the carpet?

Won't work.

 

[MUP]

You better expect to recover every single one. So 100% recovery. Think of it this way, one day you or your wife is running the vacuum, and one goes off. I don’t want to be that guy.

I know a guy that it happened to. Slight injury to the face, ears ringing for a while. Definitely do NOT want to be that guy.

 

[Hatfield]

One day though I'm rolling a 50 gallon drum of diesel across the shop on the concrete floor. The drum was on a dolly with metal wheels. Bang! Not a big enough bang to cause problems but enough to make me think that I need to find out which shitbird lost a primer and didn't tell me about it. We were filling my neighbors tractor, he was shocked.

I think it would be hard to set a primer off unless the anvil is supported, but I can see how a 400 lb drum of diesel on steel wheels rolling on a concrete floor would get it done.
It's safety first when reloading. We have to respect the components because we're dealing with explosives.
When you spill primers, they love to bounce and roll everywhere. We've all done it. I try to find as many as I can, but I don't lose sleep over the rest. Like ronsatskokane said, " Not a big enough bang to cause problems'.

 

[nmkid]

Never had the problem of not finding dropped primers. However, I was wondering if my metal detector would find them. I'm betting on the detector!

 

[Tesoro]

At 10c each I get on my knees and grovel for them. When they were 1c i didnt bother.

 

[JimSC]

They don't stick to magnets in my experience.

Primer cups are made from austenitic stainless which renders the iron in them non non-ferromagnetic. My bench primer occasionally spits one out. Without fail it will roll under the gun safe even if it needs to take two 90 degree turns to get there