primers falling out of brass ?????????

[philschoppers]

Today I was loading some once fired 308 brass that I had laying around . All of them are mixed headstamps so after I resized and deprimed them all I trimmed them to length and used my hornady large primer pocket reamer to remove the military crimp ,I like the slight bevel that it put on the primer pocket . Loading them on my Dillon xl650 is so much smoother . Well after loading a small batch I was going through and measuring the oal , weights and just generally looking them over . As I was inspecting them I came across a few of them where the primer was lose and a few of them that have fallen out . I was using winchester large rifle primers . I usually use cci primer but I have not been able to find any locally and I'm not about to spend close to $100 for a box of 1,000 . Do you think it might have been the primers or something else ?

Thanks

 

[XTR]

Were you picking up brass I left at the range? :

That brass has been either loaded many times and the primer pockets have finally given up, or it has been fired a few times at very high pressures and the primer pockets have expanded. This is one of the reasons that we hand prime. You can feel when the pockets are getting loose and segregate it into a practice or club match pile. If you know you have a batch that is loose a lot of guys will leave it on the ground. Then someone comes along and picks it up and gets what you got.

This is how shooters, particularly long range shooters who load very hot lose brass.

 

[Bmessy243]

I have noticed when reloading my 308 that all primers do different things. With this being said Remington's vs federal or cci they all feel different when putting them in. I yet to this day have not had one fall out some feel like they are lose but they don't come close to that. I yet have to use Winchester primers. I use RP brass and have close to 25 firings on the brass. Check to see if the primer is steel or brass. Just my 2 Cents.

 

[M-61]

Were you picking up brass I left at the range? :

That brass has been either loaded many times and the primer pockets have finally given up, or it has been fired a few times at very high pressures and the primer pockets have expanded. This is one of the reasons that we hand prime. You can feel when the pockets are getting loose and segregate it into a practice or club match pile. If you know you have a batch that is loose a lot of guys will leave it on the ground. Then someone comes along and picks it up and gets what you got.

This is how shooters, particularly long range shooters who load very hot lose brass.

+1
The brass laying around a range, in my opinion, is exactly where it belongs....on the ground. (Garbage can in the end).
If that's where it came from it's anyones guess what was done to it. Someone who shot it left it so that would be my first indication that it' not for me.

 

[jsn]

Were the loose primer pockets common to a particular headstamp only?

 

[Thud]

Throw them out all of them.
They will hurt you.

 

[BoydAllen]

+1

 

[philschoppers]

I bought 250 once fired 308 brass from fsibrass.com . The problem really wasn't with one particular brand headstamp

 

[tenring]

I would throw them out. You could try Wolf or Tula primers from powdervalley.com. They are a little larger and sometimes a good fit for expanded pockets.

 

[Down South]

I bought 250 once fired 308 brass from fsibrass.com . The problem really wasn't with one particular brand headstamp

Sounds like you bought brass that was fired more than once or fired once with a smoking load. Like everyone else said, chunk it.

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

If it was mixed headstamp, why did you feel it was necessary to remove the military crimp?

Could you tell us some of the various headstamps you have on hand?

 

[broncman]

Sounds like you got a little overzealous with the primer pocket reamer. I like to use only the swager type and maybe hit it with a case mouth chamfer tool if the crimp has left a sharp ridge...and then only remove as little as needed.

 

[CaptainMal]

This is ACCURATE SHOOTER, not Bang, Bang shooter. You can't get accuracy from a "mixed lot" of brass. Throw that stuff out.

Was curious about why you would use a crimp reamer on mixed lots. Are they all military? How did you identify that issue with all the brass?

If you just have to make that stuff go bang, that Wolf primer idea might work. Those darn things sure can stretch and ruin primer pockets with that slightly larger size.

 

[Erik Cortina]

Crap in = crap out.

Invest in good components. Brass is one of the cheapest components we use. Lapua brass cost is about $0.075 per shot if you get 10 firings out of the brass, and if you get 15 firings now you brass is costing you less than primers!

Buy the best brass you can.

 

[243winxb]

used my hornady large primer pocket reamer to remove the military crimp

Maybe to much was removed? Over pressure loads will expand the primer pocket also.

 

[Nik]

My Winchester large primer is smaller in diameter then others, just a little bit. That could be part of your problem.

 

[Jay Christopherson]

I gotta be honest. Having been on the wrong side of loose primer pockets, my first instinct when encountering loose pockets now wouldn't be to go find a slightly larger diameter primer to fit it. My first, and only instinct on fired brass that will no longer hold even one type of primer in a given class (small rifle, large rifle, I don't care who the manufacturer is) is to toss it in the bin and start over.

And when you are doing that to 100+ fireformed wildcat cases, it surely hurts. But not as much as the alternative could.

 

[philschoppers]

First off I bought once fired brass because it saves me a lot of money , I can't afford to go out and just buy all new 308 brass . Someone also thought I went a little crazy with the pocket reamer but im using the hornady large pocket reamer . It's pretty hard to mess that up . Some of the brass that I got was headstamped from lake city , hornady , Winchester , federal and a bunch of fionchi . I think it might have been a bad batch of primers .

 

[markr]

Believe me, I can identify with the financial difficulties.....however, sometimes, being penny wise is also being dollar foolish........please don't ask me how I know.
Mark

 

[Raythemanroe]

+1