can you make priming compound?

[Desertbuck]

Attachment 71457Attachment 71458 remove anvil from primer Attachment 71459Attachment 71460 remove firing pin dentAttachment 71461Attachment 71462Add Sulfur to your small mixing container I used a glass shot glass. I however do not think glass is the safest container to use for obvious reasons.But what I do like is that glass smooth surface will not allow the mix to stick to the sides of it. Attachment 71463Add Stibnite Attachment 71464Add backing sodaAttachment 71465

[Desertbuck]

Attachment 71466Mix well with ONLY the wight of a small long wood dowel.Attachment 71467Attachment 71468 Next add your Potassium chlorate mix well WITH ONLY THE WIGHT OF THE WOODEN DOWEL!!!! .Attachment 71469Attachment 71470 Attachment 71471Use a small pistol primer for a very small volumetric scoop.Attachment 71472Attachment 71473Attachment 71474Attachment 71475Press the mix down with ether a nail or punch you DO NOT need the hammer for this.

[Desertbuck]

Attachment 71476At this point I found you should give the now repacked primers a small tap to settle any priming mix stuck to the wall's of the primer. Attachment 71477 Give them a shot of hairspray and before they dry put them on a hairspray free plat or your going to end up sticking them to the plate you used to spray them on. Attachment 71478This is probable not necessary but I do put a disc of paper in my primers just in case some of the compound comes loose.Attachment 71479Attachment 71480Attachment 71481Attachment 71482Now place the primer with the loose anvil in your primer ram seat then deprime the case. Your anvil should now be set firmly in place.Attachment 71483Attachment 71484Store the now reloaded primers in your prevues empty primer trays. Attachment 71485

[Desertbuck]

Attachment 71486 Then reuse

[Oreo]

Thanks for all the pics. They all make perfect sense to me since I've probably read all the same source material.

It might be a good idea to find a pewter cup to do your mixing in though. Glass and even plastic can become shrapnal on the off chance a batch were to detonate while mixing.

[perotter]

Thanks for the pictures. They are very good and IMO don't need any or few words to explain.

Short of making a set of primer plates, the only thing I'd suggest is a drill a hole in a piece of metal to hold the primer when removing the anvil. A quick look at a drill chart will show that the bit needed is very common and available at most local hardware stores.

I have a write up about primer plates, but no pictures. I may see if I can just do some copy and paste, as I have nothing new to offer that wasn't done decades ago in the industry. I should be able to do it this weekend. They really do make it faster and easier.

[Nobade]

I would question the mixing of priming compound in anything. "Back in the day" I would mix it by rolling the powder on a sheet of paper, so that nothing touched the mix and if it did happen to ignite, no schrapnel produced but I might get burnt hands. Just wondering here.....

-Nobade

[Desertbuck]

Yeah the more I think about IF!!!! The more I want to get away from glass OUCH!!!
I'm going to give the paper folding a try.
All I can say to anyone planing on doing this you had better DO THE RESEARCH! AND MORE RESEARCH! AND MORE RESEARCH!! AND MORE RESEARCH!!! Learn the history of the priming mixes you intend to use under stand how stable the chemicals are what can be mixed what CANNOT be mixed.
And understand it comes with risks just like reloading itself. If you are uncomfortable going it DON'T do it. But if you go into it with a clear understanding and want to learn have at it.

[Bert2368]

Mixing priming or other very sensitive dry mixes is traditionally done by "diapering". Put the ingredients on a sheet of paper or other thin, flexible material. Alternately lift the corners of the sheet so the ingredients roll over each other, mixing with little chance for friction or grinding the mixture.

I have seen pictures of an old time factory where this operation was carried out remote from the operator behind a blast wall by pulling several strings attached to the sheet corners. A triangular thin rubber sheet was used, with the actuating strings run over pulleys above the mixing area and the operator observing through the blast wall via an armor glass view port.

[Desertbuck]

Got my first duds today ,four in a row. I did not even bother to try more. The primers went off my pp boolit's came half way out of there case a good sign I made these primers way to underpowered. I came home a little bummed out but the 30bl of range lead I found cheered me up a little. Looks like I'm going to have to make them hotter.

[perotter]

Desertbuck,

Did you fill the cup full and then pack them to 1/2 full? I've never had a chlorate primer not work well when doing it that way. IMO, a wet mix is really the way to go and the mix you are using was done that way when it was the standard US Army mix.

FWIW, a wet mix that has a gum binder in it will give a better result than a dry mix. In both repeatability and reliability. I more or less proved this to my satisfaction when make a couple of different non-corrosive mixes. Going from dry to wet, reliability went from 80% to 90+%. Adding gun to the a wet mix took them to 100% reliability.

[perotter]

Desertbuck,

Also, with the board you drilled out for the cup can you use that to level a pile of mix into the cups? If so, then the cups will be full of dry mix and you'll have the same amount in each one. I've actually only ever done mixes that way and never using a scoop to fill the cups, so I can't really say that the scoop method isn't as good.

[Bert2368]

Could you describe the types of gums used and quantity?

I have used a combination of gum Arabic as a binder with a small additional percentage of Guar gum to control the consistency of pyrotechnic wet mixtures. The Arabic provides cohesion, the guar makes the mix into a uniform pourable/paintable slurry without the tendency for the solids to settle out- kind of a waffle batter consistency. Using that much water without the guar and you end up with solids on the bottom and a layer of water on top.

[ofitg]

Bert, the KClO3-based mix used in the old .30-40 Krag primers included 2% shellac.

[Desertbuck]

Desertbuck,

Did you fill the cup full and then pack them to 1/2 full? I've never had a chlorate primer not work well when doing it that way. IMO, a wet mix is really the way to go and the mix you are using was done that way when it was the standard US Army mix.

FWIW, a wet mix that has a gum binder in it will give a better result than a dry mix. In both repeatability and reliability. I more or less proved this to my satisfaction when make a couple of different non-corrosive mixes. Going from dry to wet, reliability went from 80% to 90+%. Adding gun to the a wet mix took them to 100% reliability.

I used the small pistol primer as the measuring scoop. So no they were being filled three quarters of the way maybe. The priming compound was doing its job there just wasn't enough of it. Thanks Perotter

[Bert2368]

If they used shellac, did they pre-mix the chlorate prime with alcohol and dispense wet into the cups?

Alternately, could you fill and compress the dry mix and then put a drop of shellac solution into the cup on top.

Has anyone tried for centerfire primers the technique they use for eley rimfire ammo where the final reaction to produce the sensitizing primary only occurs after the mix is in position?

A closely guarded (and patented) secret, this new Eleyprime process had two huge consequences: It eliminated the risk of explosion from the preparation and dispensing of priming compounds, and it allowed the amount of priming material applied to each individual rimfire case to be very tightly controlled in a normal workshop environment using automatic equipment.


This last part is critical because it has long been known that case-to-case variation in the amount of priming material is the most important factor regarding variations in .22 LR rimfire performance. This is due to the fact that in small rimfire cartridges the primer is a significant portion of the actual propelling charge (much more so than in larger centerfire cartridges) and because conventional priming compound is too sensitive to be aggressively metered and applied.


The Eleyprime System allows exactly identical amounts of the inert powder to be put in each case. Then a round-tip rod is inserted down into the case to press the powder evenly into, and around, the rim, and a single, metered drop of water is added, which activates the compound over a several-hour period.


After drying, the cases can then be conventionally charged with precisely metered propellant (five rounds at a time on the TenEx loaders). Before Eleyprime, there was an average 31 to 39 milligram spread in the amount of priming material round-to-round in TenEx ammunition. With the Eleyprime System (EPS), the spread was reduced to only plus/minus 1.0 milligram. It was a stunning achievement, and in 1988 Eley received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Technological Achievement.

[Nobade]

Is it better to use shellac flakes dry and then wet out the whole mixture with alcohol, or make up the mix and then wet it with prepared shellac? I tried the latter and got 100% misfires. The mix wouldn't even work by hitting it with a hammer. I assume I used way too much shellac.

-Nobade

[perotter]

Could you describe the types of gums used and quantity?

In what I described, I used red gum and 1.5%. I know that this isn't what should be used, because is shortens the life of the primer. But it was what I had on hand that weekend. As I was testing a patentable compound that may have commercial use(it's green), I wanted to know if the mix needed changing, drop the project or buy more chemicals.

[perotter]

I used the small pistol primer as the measuring scoop. So no they were being filled three quarters of the way maybe. The priming compound was doing its job there just wasn't enough of it. Thanks Perotter

Your welcome.

If you weigh an empty cup on your powder scale, fill it with dry mix, pack it and then weigh it again you'll know how much mix was used. You'll very like find that the amount of mix you used matches what the military lists as to how much the mix should weigh. This seems to work with any mix there is.

If one goes to using a wet mix(for safety if nothing else), one really should(needs) do a weighing step when setting up. One can't fill the cup and then pack it down to 1/2 full. A wet mix has to be measured by volume. That is why using some type of matching primer plates are really needed for a wet mix. Sometime mix up a little batch of mix and then wet it. You'll see that your pile of mix seems to disappear. So the same volume can't be used. That will also show that the mix is more intimate and likely to work better.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying one needs to do wet mixing. Whatever shoe fits, is comfortable and works is fine. Assuming that we are all over the age of 10, each of us are capable of deciding these things for ourselves.

[perotter]

Has anyone tried for centerfire primers the technique they use for eley rimfire ammo where the final reaction to produce the sensitizing primary only occurs after the mix is in position?

Eley has 2 different processes using different chemicals for this. One I've done and the other not. The one that did will work for Berdan primers(according of a Olin(?) patent) but not Boxer. While a Boxer primers did go bang for me, I never tried them with powder and a bullet. I just figured that Olin(?) knew what they were talking about. And I don't really go looking for problems. But, it may be doable if one does a duplex primer method. Look back in this thread where I wrote some about non-corrosives.

So the one I monkeyed with, but not really used, can be done. The chemicals are available and I think one could get it working well for one's own use. For the duplex primer, I think putting a barium nitrate, aluminum and/sulfur and antimony wet mix to fill the cup after the anvil is put in would work. I'd have to say that the extra mix would need to weigh about 0.25-0.35 grains to work for a large primer. If nobody else does it, I might test how much can be added this way to satisfy my curiosity.

Their other method, as far as I know, requires buying a license from them and buying pre-mix from them. This is their lead styphnate mix. So it isn't really something I can do. FWIW, I think the ammo made in Mexico uses this for all their priming.