Spent Primer Kabooms!!!

[August]

I was putting some 45/70 cases in the tumbler this morning. Some still had spent primers in them. I was removing those primers, as I always do with a punch. One of them exploded. Now, here's the interesting part. The primer was expended already. The case had been fired. There was a firing pin indentation in the primer. There was no bullet or powder in the case. This round had been holy black.

I have never had a spent primer explode before. I'm betting none of you have either, but I'm posting this on the chance that someone has a theory. My own suspicion is that only part of the primer went off in the first place, leaving some of the priming compound in under the anvil. It's hard to imagine that, though, isn't it?

So, first thing, before you get out of bed in the morning, be sure to put your safety glasses on.

[StarMetal]

First question, did you originally fired the the suspected round, or is this brass you got from someone/somewhere else?

Joe

[BABore]

If it was a dud primer misfire, that had the bullet pulled later, you should be able to measure the case diameter below the bullet base to see if was really fired or not.

[August]

This round had been in my possession since new. It was one I had loaded, and fired, with black powder and 525 Postell. It gets even more interesting when you consider that I always dump expended cases in water immediately after firing.

[tom barthel]

THINGS HAPPEN. I'm thankful you were not hurt. I was recently seperating some surplus ammo with a kenetic bullet puller (hammer type) when a primer popped and just missed me. The garage door was open so, I tossed it into the back yard. I was a little concerned the powder was ignited and was just burning slow. A few minutes later I pinked the hammer with deprimed round inside and tossed it into a bucket of water. I gave it about an hour and finished seperating the componants. That has NEVER happened before or since. It did get the heart rate up a bit.
You just don't know. All you can do is take reasonable precautions. Things may still happen.

[versifier]

Possible cause: primer seated just a tad too deeply, crushing and breaking the pellet. When fired, only the part under the anvil exploded. A bubble of air in the flash hole could keep any water from entering, the hole is small enough for it to be held there by surface tension. With what kind of tool do you seat your primers?

[StarMetal]

versifier,

That bubble of air sounds good. Not disputing you, but wow, its hard to imagine part of the primer exploding/burning and some of it not, especially in such a confined space, inaddition to the flame from the powder blowing back in there too. That is really something.

Joe

[Ricochet]

I'd've never thought some of the primer could remain unexploded with the full charge firing.

[August]

I seat primers with my Redding T-7 press

[Bass Ackward]

Remember that primer material is packed wet, but it must dry before it will ignite. So is there a possibility that the rounds were stored flat so that gravity pulled the moisture down and part stayed wet and after the bullet was shot that air allowed the rest of the material to dry? Just guessing here.

I know that I buy primers in bulk so that they have time to .... age. In today's, "just in time" inventory philosophy, wet primers can be rushed to market. Many here will remember of tests that were done to primers and what I have found is more consistency from primer to primer regardless of brand, if you will allow them to .... age for lack of a better word. My .02.

[StarMetal]

John,

With countless number of law enforcement and soldiers lives depending on a primer firing, I sincerely doubt wet primers get even getting out of the room they were made in, alone the building.

Joe

[Bass Ackward]

John,

With countless number of law enforcement and soldiers lives depending on a primer firing, I sincerely doubt wet primers get even getting out of the room they were made in, alone the building.

Joe


Joe,

We would all like to believe that to be true. Primers can actract moisture and thus the storage recomendations. So it would seem that at certain high humidity times of the year, it would take longer for them to dry. Would they wait? But you are a trusting sole to believe that what YOU have access to as a consumer is the same as what goes into law enforcement or the government. :smile:

My last experience with this involved some 2 1/2 Rems from last year. 4 out of the first 18 failed to fire the first time and one never would. I hardly ever shoot Remmies for wheelers, so I put a piece of masking tape on the box, wrote duds and through it in the back of the drawer. Last month after opening and closing that drawer, the tape fell off, and I was unremberingly (:grin:) loading experiments out of that box. All shot perfectly. Is that conclusive or coincidence? All I can tell you is that the number of bad primers I have had over 40 years could be counted on my fingers and toes. Over the last 10 years, my rate of shooting has declined radically and yet I have had more primer problems that have been eliminated from "stored" bulk purchase.

Why I got a few boxes shy of a full case of CCI's LRs given to me because the guy said that customers brought them back because of duds. I said how long you had them? His answer was 1984. I kept the smile on my face under control and walked out with them. So far I am half way into the next brick and never had a dud yet.

Some vendors are having trouble getting stocks of Remington primers right now. Powder Valley has been out for months. I don't know what the circumstances are on that, but the demand is soooooooo high, that when the log jam gets cleared up, I won't want to be any where near Green primers for a couple of years.

[StarMetal]

John,

You said: But you are a trusting sole to believe that what YOU have access to as a consumer is the same as what goes into law enforcement or the government.

I reckon the manufacturers don't care that some folks load their own ammo for self protection AND that they also don't take into account that some big dangerous game hunters might load their own ammo too. But that's a smaller segment of folks to die compared to law enforcement and military because of bad primers. I for one also do not buy into that there is a totally different primer for the military or law enforcement, other then full automatic and some semi automatic weapons require a harder primer to prevent a slamfire. There are also military specifications for primer burn performance.

I really think you're all wet with this wet primer thing. Just my opinion though John.

Joe

[georgeld]

That's strange, over the last ten or twelve years I've bought and fired about 75,000 primers and had TWO duds.

All of them have been CCI's, that's all I shoot period.

Good luck with yours,

[Ricochet]

I've had a few dud CCI primers, but only when I was using the primer ram on my Lyman press to seat them. I thought I'd likely crushed the primers. I've never had one since switching to a Lee hand primer seater.