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Posted: 10/2/2010 8:36:05 PM EDT
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I boogered up a primer (half inserted and mangled) in a .223 brass case. Can I use my decapping die and gently back it out without having to worry about it going bang?
Also, what about a normally seated primer. Is it OK to deprime those in a die? |
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Quoted:
I've done it lots of times. Go slow with the handle - and wear ear and eye protection. Never had one go off on me though. Works just fine for normally seated primers too. As stated above slow and easy. You don't have to handle it like dynamite either just don't hit it hard with the primer punch and ease it out with steady pressure. |
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Quoted:
I've done it lots of times. Go slow with the handle - and wear ear and eye protection. Never had one go off on me though. Works just fine for normally seated primers too. +1 First time I did it, I was nervous. Go slow and easy. I've done quite a few and never had one go off. I still wear eye protection though. |
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Quoted: same here... i was sweating as if i was shitting razor blades! Quoted: I've done it lots of times. Go slow with the handle - and wear ear and eye protection. Never had one go off on me though. Works just fine for normally seated primers too. +1 First time I did it, I was nervous. Go slow and easy. I've done quite a few and never had one go off. I still wear eye protection though. |
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What about soaking it with WD-40 first? Won't that stop it from going off even if it gets struck? Nope. Soaking in water, wd40, penetrating oil, etc, won't deactivate primers. It does make them a little less sensitive if soaked for a long time (days) but not enough to matter. A primer REALLY is not that dangerous. You want to wear safety glasses to keep any debris from your eyes, but a primer going off on its own is just loud, it's not like it's going to flatten the room. |
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The foil seal over the priming compound protects the priming compound against oil pretty well. It's possible a vinegar soak will kill a primer, but I haven't tried it.
There's never a need to kill good primers. Either size the case with the primer seated, or punch them out to use in a different case. The crooked primers I simply pry out with a pocket knife or small screwdriver, or even pull them out with needle nose pliers. |
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Modern primers are pretty hard to hurt. The "pellet" is placed WET (with water) and dries. Then a foil disc is placed over it, forming a very tight seal within the primer cup. THEN lacquer (or more rugged material) is dropped onto the foil to retain it and seal it even further. Then the anvil is placed on top of everything and often another drop of lacquer seals that in.
To get AT the priming compound, any external material has to get through the lacquer and past a very tight foil seal. So it has to be something that can dissolve the lacquer AND wick through the tiniest of spaces. Chemically, that's a very tall order to fill. OP, your mangled primers will pop out with a normal depriming pin. If they're sideways or otherwise boogered up, it will be nearly impossible to crush the priming compound between the cup and the anvil. As others have stated, I too have deprimed many live primers, including "oops I put the wrong one in" primers that were properly inserted. I have NEVER had one go off, whether using a sizing die with the deprimer cranked down, a universal depriming die, or a manual Lee Loader depriming punch. |
Not the greatest pic for what I'm trying to show, but the upper right case in the loading block has the primer upside down. Which means when you decap it the decapping pin contacts the side of the primer the firing pin normally hits. The primer was removed with a sizing die in a Rockchucker. Slow easy pressure was used, and eye and ear protection was on. Even with 30 years of decapping live primers once and awhile, I was a little nervous with this one. All went well and the primer was reused. If this technique seems unsafe to you, then don't try it. YMMV The pic was taken to show the 9 cases that didn't gauge out of the 1k batch I loaded. Catching a backwards primer that did gauge was just part of my QC. |
| I deprime them with a universal decapping die just like spent primers, just push them out(I go a little slower to where I dont just run into the primer but push it out just as fast), I did 50 the other day and not a single problem and was done in about 5 min's. |
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Like everyone has said.....nice and slow. My daughter was helping me collect all of my shot out 308's and she accidentally poured in a baggie of sized and primed RTL casings and sitting in the living room I was just decapping with my lee universal die and noticed the in spent primers in my waste cup and thought oh $hit. Fortunatly I only decapped 5 of the bag of 100. I resorted the box of 800 spent rounds and found the other 95 in the process.
Note: I decapped with some speed and they didnt go off however.....slow n easy! |
| How loud is a primer going off, w/o any gunpowder of course? Does it just sound like a cap gun, but louder? What would happen if I put a primer in a case and put it in a gun and pulled the trigger? Just a loud bang, right? Also, if you punch out a live primer, is it OK to reuse? I've thrown them away in the past, but as tough as everybody seems to say they are, maybe I was wasting them. |
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Quoted:
How loud is a primer going off, w/o any gunpowder of course? Does it just sound like a cap gun, but louder? What would happen if I put a primer in a case and put it in a gun and pulled the trigger? Just a loud bang, right? Also, if you punch out a live primer, is it OK to reuse? I've thrown them away in the past, but as tough as everybody seems to say they are, maybe I was wasting them. I've fired primed cases-wax bullet stuff. It's LOUD, but not like a loaded round. There is a LOT of energy in a primer, though. A small rifle primer will punch a really large dent in some substantial steel-I did that with a paint can once while testing a "maybe it's corrosive" primer. PRIMERS ARE NOT TOYS OR CAPS. HANDLE THEM AS IF THEY COULD CAUSE SERIOUS DAMAGE. With that said, if you don't deform the cup when you push out a live primer, you can reuse it. I would use it only in a plinking round, because there could be some question about whether or not the anvil had been compressed into the cup, but it'll go bang pretty much certainly. And if you wasted some primers, just to be on the safe side, just how much monetary value are you out? You cannot put a price on safety, and I'd throw away a whole brick of primers without batting an eye if I thought they weren't safe. |
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Quoted:
How loud is a primer going off, w/o any gunpowder of course? Does it just sound like a cap gun, but louder? What would happen if I put a primer in a case and put it in a gun and pulled the trigger? Just a loud bang, right? Also, if you punch out a live primer, is it OK to reuse? I've thrown them away in the past, but as tough as everybody seems to say they are, maybe I was wasting them. I have not done this myself, but I know others on this board have done so safely. |
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Quoted:
How loud is a primer going off, w/o any gunpowder of course? Does it just sound like a cap gun, but louder? What would happen if I put a primer in a case and put it in a gun and pulled the trigger? Just a loud bang, right? Also, if you punch out a live primer, is it OK to reuse? I've thrown them away in the past, but as tough as everybody seems to say they are, maybe I was wasting them. I have laid them on the concrete and hit them with a framing hammer before and they sound about like a Black Cat fire work going off when you hit them, no shrapnel or bad repercussions from doing so(just experimenting and had no problems at all with about 20 Mag primers). |
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Thanks dudes. I popped it out without any problems!
A small rifle primer is actually pretty loud. Maybe even a tad louder than a blackcat. I fired mine in an empty case in the gun. As far as spitting flame/fire 6 inches or feet, I am going to have to call bullshit on that. |
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As far as spitting flame/fire 6 inches or feet, I am going to have to call bullshit on that. I AM IN NO WAY RECOMMENDING THAT ANYBODY DO THIS, but I can believe 2 feet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_46IC_1sEE And from personal experience. Jammed a decapping pin in a .223 IMG case one time during resizing - the first week I'd gotten a progressive press. The primer came out, but the pin didn't. Anyway, the case ended up being loaded and I had to weigh 300 cartridges to find the one that was about 6 grains heavier than the rest. Pulled the bullet, dumped the powder, but couldn't make myself throw away the case with the live primer and decapping pin. Came up with the brilliant idea of using a nail and a hammer to set off the primer - 'shooting' the decapping pin out of the case. Short version is the pin did come out as planned. The unplanned part was the primer shooting out the other way and slicing a gash across my left thumb. So after a trip to the emergency room, an Xray making sure there was no metal embedded in my thumb and having to convince the Doc I didn't shoot myself and he really didn't need to call law enforcement, I have a healthly respect for the power of primers. I'll still deprime a live one, but I'm not about to hit any more with a hammer. |
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Quoted:
Thanks dudes. I popped it out without any problems! A small rifle primer is actually pretty loud. Maybe even a tad louder than a blackcat. I fired mine in an empty case in the gun. As far as spitting flame/fire 6 inches or feet, I am going to have to call bullshit on that. Don't. You should fire several different makes of primers before you call BS. |
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Here's another forum that has pictures of primers going off. 18 inches easy
Primer Pics |
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Quoted: I boogered up a primer (half inserted and mangled) in a .223 brass case. Can I use my decapping die and gently back it out without having to worry about it going bang? Also, what about a normally seated primer. Is it OK to deprime those in a die? If it was just one or two, I would just put it off to the side and take it to the range with me, and fire it off (no powder, no bullet), now you have a fired primer, no problems. I would NEVER ever use a live primer again after seating it then trying to deprime it. |
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