Tight primer pockets

[jsthntn247]

Ive never used anything but Lapua brass. I just loaded some Winchester brass for my 243 and some of the primer pockets are extremely tight. I have to white nuckle the hand primer to get some of them in. When working up a load I noticed some black gas leakage around some of the primers on starting loads and up to full pressure loads as well. Could the leakage be because of the tight pockets? I reloaded some of the brass that leaked and the pockets are still very tight, so they did not expand.

 

[RockyMtnMan]

Ive never used anything but Lapua brass. I just loaded some Winchester brass for my 243 and some of the primer pockets are extremely tight. I have to white nuckle the hand primer to get some of them in. When working up a load I noticed some black gas leakage around some of the primers on starting loads and up to full pressure loads as well. Could the leakage be because of the tight pockets? I reloaded some of the brass that leaked and the pockets are still very tight, so they did not expand.

Is the Winchester brass new? If purchased once fired from factory ammo, the primer pockets may have been crimped and will require swaging.

If new, swaging may help as well. Also try cutting them out with a primer pocket uniforming tool.

 

[jlow]

Don't know why you have tight primer pockets that leak, seems contradictory... But you have to watch those with "black gas leakage around some of the primers" that is not gas but hot plasma leaking and my guess is it has etched your bolt face.

 

[Park ranger]

What primers? Ballistic tools makes a cool primer pocket go/no go gauge to check things like this. Maybe off spec primer pockets.

 

[RockyMtnMan]

I've seen primers leak around the edges when forced into tight primer pockets. Case in point was crimped pockets that were not swaged. The sidewalls of the primers are shaved away by the primer pocket wall as they are forced in. This leaves a weak point that becomes exposed and ruptures as the primer is forced rearward to the bolt face during ignition.

 

[6MMsteve]

I was using Rem Primers then bought some CCI, The CCI's seat like butter Rem's are hard to seat

 

[asauer]

Yep as said above, hard primer seating can shave the primer or even fold an edge back on itself. I figured this out with using a deburring tool on lake city. Upon depriming live primers after extremely hard seating, some were questionable.

 

[CH Luke]

What primers? Ballistic tools makes a cool primer pocket go/no go gauge to check things like this. Maybe off spec primer pockets.

+1
Lapua should consider giving these away.

 

[Shaggy357]

The Remington primer cup is harder than many others. Forcing them in tends to swage the cup opening in so you have less bearing surface sealing primer/brass gap. Primer pocket uniformers, chamfering tools, and primer crimp removers can be used to help remedy this, but you have to select the tool that provides best result for the lot of brass/primers you are using. Chamfer tool A may work on LC 78 brass, but swage tool Y may work better on LC 84. This is one of the main reasons i try to keep all my brass sorted and boxed seperately.