.22lr. Anyone make priming compound?

[srk]

Howdy folks.
The whole idea has me curious.
Anyone have a "successful" priming compound formula/material
for the cases?
And is stable/safe.
I enjoy all my appendages! Haha.
Can't get pre-primed so that's out of the question.
And no, I don't want to hear any comments regarding the availability of .22's.
Just curious as to if anyone has had good luck?
Tanks!!!!

[Maven]

Take a look at this, srk: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...iming-compound

[contender1]

There was a company at the SHOT Show that had a complete reloading set-up for 22 LR. They also had plans for 22 mag, 17 HMR, 17 HMR2, & a few others. In the kit, you got a bullet mold, that also had a crimp station to properly seat a bullet. You got a powder dipper, with two different ends. And a pick tool to clean the area around the rim. ANd you got instructions on how to make your own priming compound. As a separate purchase, you could buy a re-sizing die as well for the cases.
AND, they offered a priming compound themselves.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to talk to the guy who was behind all this, as he'd left to get some award for his new product idea. I did pick up their flyers, and I have it in some of my stuff. I'll see if I can find it later & post the info.

[ofitg]

http://sharpshooter-22lr-reloader.my...iming-compound

Couple of cardinal rules - keep the quantities small (one or two grams) and NEVER grind the stuff after mixing (it should be safe to grind the individual components separately, before mixing).

[oldred]

There was a company at the SHOT Show that had a complete reloading set-up for 22 LR. They also had plans for 22 mag, 17 HMR, 17 HMR2, & a few others. In the kit, you got a bullet mold, that also had a crimp station to properly seat a bullet. You got a powder dipper, with two different ends. And a pick tool to clean the area around the rim. ANd you got instructions on how to make your own priming compound. As a separate purchase, you could buy a re-sizing die as well for the cases.
AND, they offered a priming compound themselves.


Unfortunately, I wasn't able to talk to the guy who was behind all this, as he'd left to get some award for his new product idea. I did pick up their flyers, and I have it in some of my stuff. I'll see if I can find it later & post the info.

This one maybe?
http://22lrreloader.com/design-details/

Nothing new about those kits as they have been around a while now, however they seem to get pretty bad reviews. At first it may sound like a good idea until you take a realistic look at it, they WAAAY over-simplify the process and in some instances they are just flat out dishonest if it's the outfit that has been discussed here before, the part about using strike-anywhere match heads for "easy economical" priming material. Those things, at least the real ones, have been gone for several years now due to Government regulation and what is sold for strike-anywhere matches these days are not only expensive but they simply won't work!!!! The makers of those kits have to be well aware of that fact yet they still suggest those useless match heads so what else are they being less than honest about?

All that talk of reloading bricks of 22s for $8 or so but think about that, all the steps involved in each one of those things that would require a great deal more time and effort than reloading common centerfire cartridges and it would have to be repeated 500 hundred times for that $8 dollar brick! And for what? If toy caps are used for priming as suggested then they would be VERY corrosive as is likely the priming compound they sell so for all that time and effort a person gets 22 rf rounds of questionable reliability and likely corrosive, it may be handy to have if 22s become completely unobtainable but otherwise it appears to be way overblown by the sellers. They have been around several years now but still they are not catching on and are not at all popular, wonder why that would be?

[Mica_Hiebert]

In the industry the priming compound is only stable and safe...er in wet state and even then is still dangerous. I mean no offense to any one when I say this but as some one who primes 22 cases for a living I feel any one doing this at home is either a moron or completely ignorant of the things that can go wrong and has no clue of the safety precautions that should be met while working with energetics... we work with 1/4 inch of water on the floor, conductive shoes keeping us grounded and in an environment that is 80% nominal humidity, if humidity drops below 60% we stop production, we test our conductive shoes.every shift to make sure they are working. Please don't loose a limb or your life priming your own cases!

[Hickory]

http://sharpshooter-22lr-reloader.my...iming-compound

Couple of cardinal rules - keep the quantities small (one or two grams) and NEVER grind the stuff after mixing (it should be safe to grind the individual components separately, before mixing).

I wonder how this stuff would work in percussion caps?

[oldred]

In the industry the priming compound is only stable and safe...er in wet state and even then is still dangerous. I mean no offense to any one when I say this but as some one who primes 22 cases for a living I feel any one doing this at home is either a moron or completely ignorant of the things that can go wrong and has no clue of the safety precautions that should be met while working with energetics... we work with 1/4 inch of water on the floor, conductive shoes keeping us grounded and in an environment that is 80% nominal humidity, if humidity drops below 60% we stop production, we test our conductive shoes.every shift to make sure they are working. Please don't loose a limb or your life priming your own cases!

I know what you're saying and that makes me wonder even more about that "priming kit" those 22 reloading guys are selling, I have a hard time believing they can just sell an explosive compound these days that's sensitive and powerful enough to make a reliable priming compound. I have no doubt they have something in that kit that can be made to work in some fashion but as strict as the laws are governing explosives I am puzzled how they could simply mail order to anyone a compound that would make a decent priming material??? Could you just imagine unrestricted selling of the material you are working with?

After the flat out dishonest and mis-leading claims of using match heads I have to wonder just how honest they are being with that priming compound kit, sure the real strike-anywhere matches would work just fine but we can't get them anymore and those guys had to know that.

I notice they no longer push the match heads now (I bet they got a lot of complaints about that!) but still they picture matches with the caption of "economical", they no longer make any claims about matches directly anymore but just use a bit of underhanded marketing there! To top it off they picture Diamond "Greenlight" matches which are about as bad as they come, those darn things only have a thin painted on coating of igniter compound on the tip making them hardly able to light on the box and would be completely useless for primers.

[lefty o]

In the industry the priming compound is only stable and safe...er in wet state and even then is still dangerous. I mean no offense to any one when I say this but as some one who primes 22 cases for a living I feel any one doing this at home is either a moron or completely ignorant of the things that can go wrong and has no clue of the safety precautions that should be met while working with energetics... we work with 1/4 inch of water on the floor, conductive shoes keeping us grounded and in an environment that is 80% nominal humidity, if humidity drops below 60% we stop production, we test our conductive shoes.every shift to make sure they are working. Please don't loose a limb or your life priming your own cases!

agree 100%, its called an "energetic" for a reason. primer mix is not to be trifled with, it is incredibly dangerous if mistreated.

[ofitg]

I wonder how this stuff would work in percussion caps?

I know of one guy who uses the kit for that purpose. He made a dipper by soldering a wire handle onto a spent primer cup - he dumps one scoop (dipper full) of the mixed primer compound into an empty percussion cap hull, gives it a shot of hairspray to glue it in place, and lets it dry overnight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcBMVQafoRk

From what I've heard so far, I'm guessing that the kit ingredients are a close variant on the old H-48 primer formula -

https://www.northwestfirearms.com/th...ixtures.58110/

[footpetaljones]

In the industry the priming compound is only stable and safe...er in wet state and even then is still dangerous. I mean no offense to any one when I say this but as some one who primes 22 cases for a living I feel any one doing this at home is either a moron or completely ignorant of the things that can go wrong and has no clue of the safety precautions that should be met while working with energetics... we work with 1/4 inch of water on the floor, conductive shoes keeping us grounded and in an environment that is 80% nominal humidity, if humidity drops below 60% we stop production, we test our conductive shoes.every shift to make sure they are working. Please don't loose a limb or your life priming your own cases!

You're working with lead styphnate, not potassium chlorate. Different materials require different safety procedures.

While I agree that working with energetic materials is extremely dangerous, blanketly labeling anyone a moron or ignorant when you have no idea of their experience or education is very insulting.

[Geezer in NH]

Early 90's I worked in a FD that had a big think tank science firm. They were working on destroying the existing supplies of nerve gas. We had 3 weeks intense training on the stuff including injecting the antidote [servicemen remember this if you are old]. In the last day in the any questions time we asked how much will be here at a time and the answer was 1 gram of each component. Next we asked when and how being delivered and the security they answered by USPS a week apart.

[gwpercle]

I went to the 22 LR Reloading Site and watched a couple of their video's on doing it . The whole process seemed sketchy...especially the priming and bullet lube part. Making priming compound with match head scraping and some liquid ???The process wasn't clear or well shown. Left a lot to the imagination ....It didn't sell me on the process.
It might work , they need better instructional videos and written information....the video sucked big time.
Gary

[pcolapaddler]

What the 22lrreloader.com guys sell for priming compound is provided in 3 parts, each packaged separately.

[Mk42gunner]

Sorry guys, much as I like shooting .22's, I am not trying to reprime the cases.

I saw way too many explosive safety films in the Navy to ever want to mess with priming compounds.

If we could still buy primed cases, I might give it a shot, but not without them.

Robert

[oldred]

I went to the 22 LR Reloading Site and watched a couple of their video's on doing it . The whole process seemed sketchy... Making priming compound with match head scraping and some liquid ???....the video sucked big time.
Gary

That's the part that makes me think these guys are more than a little on the shady side, they have to know full well those matches (the real ones from a few years ago) are simply not to be had these days (except for left over old stock for obscene prices on Ebay). Even if a person could manage to "scrape" enough material off of what's sold today as "strike anywhere" matches it would be way to expensive when you look at what they cost per box vs the TINY amount of ignitor material the federal regulations allow on them! These guys have a good sales pitch playing on people's fears of ammo shortages but when a person takes a really good look at what they are REALLY selling it looks more like a classic case of Snake Oil!

[contender1]

oldred,,, you are correct in your post about the company I posted about. That's the one.
I apologize for the delay in my returning to this thread.
Now, like all of you,, I too had my misgivings about using match heads as a priming compound. Next, they did say they offered a package of stuff that would later be mixed & used as a priming compound.
But, I still had questions, and the guy at the booth didn't know much.

As many of us know,,, a priming compound is a pressure sensitive, dangerous thing to deal with. I too feel I could do better with loading a different caliber with safer components. It's just that there are so many .22LR firearms out there,,, that having the knowledge, and the ability to feed them if something really bad were to happen,,, makes me study this option. I like being educated,, and then I can decide what I'd do for my own purposes. Currently,,, I have NO reason to delve into this stuff,,, except to study it.

[ofitg]

...the part about using strike-anywhere match heads for "easy economical" priming material. Those things, at least the real ones, have been gone for several years now due to Government regulation and what is sold for strike-anywhere matches these days are not only expensive but they simply won't work!!!!

Yep, those days are long gone. Twenty years ago I used the igniter tips from "strike anywhere" matches in percussion caps, but they don't make 'em like that anymore.

Even the toy caps available nowadays are only a fraction as powerful as the ones sold a few decades ago.... which probably explains why Forster discontinued their Tap-O-Cap.

[oldred]

Yep, those days are long gone. Twenty years ago I used the igniter tips from "strike anywhere" matches in percussion caps, but they don't make 'em like that anymore.

That's what got me involved with the strike anywhere matches, making percussion caps. About the time the panic started I managed to find two boxes of Ohio Blue Tip matches on Ebay and they worked like a dream BUT they have been gone for several years now. Yes "Ohio Blue Tip" matches can be found today but they are a farce! Diamond match took the defunct name and logo to produce a PHONY version that is clearly an attempt to dupe the buyer into thinking they are getting a decent product when they are not!


The old Strike Anywhere matches had a generous glop of ignitor compound on the tip, usually white in color, and this could be chipped off with a knife or razor blade for use as priming compound (although highly corrosive!) but the new ones have only a thin coating on the tip as if it was nothing more than painted on. The match companies, in particular Diamond which is the most popular, color the tip in an effort to make them look the same as the old ones, it's nothing but a low life trick! Except for a thin painted on like layer on the tip the whole match head on the new Strike Anywhere types is basically the same unusable material regardless of the differing colors and instead of chipping off the tip and getting a chunk of usable material the best a person can hope for is scrape a tiny bit off and hope even that is not to contaminated with the unusable part. Even if a person is willing to take the time and effort to collect this material from these nearly worthless things the cost is ridiculous for the tiny amount of material produced per box, that outfit selling those kits seem to hide that fact and mislead the potential buyer as if the match heads are the same as they always were.

I guess I have about beat this subject to death but I despise scammers and I see those guys CLEARLY using shady misleading sales tactics to take advantage of folks desperate for a solution to the RF availability problem, this kit is NOT the solution! I suppose if it reaches the point of not being able to get RF at all at any price then it may be useful to make a few rounds but things aren't that bad yet. Far from being a way to easily produce cheap ammo this kit is nether cheap nor easy, it would be cumbersome enough to produce each round (look at the steps involved) but loading a 500 round brick would be very time consuming and a huge PITA all just for ammo of questionable reliability and corrosive priming. IMHO they are indeed simply Snake Oil salesmen with a highly over-blown product that "can be" made to work but not from a practical standpoint, when I see an outfit stretching the truth to the breaking point like they are doing (especially concerning those all but useless match heads) I feel it's best to steer clear of them.

[ofitg]

I don't have any personal experience with that .22 priming kit, but I have heard from two guys who bought it. One of the guys used it for percussion caps, I linked his video above. The other guy told me it contained four materials (in separate bags) labeled L, L2, S, and S. The kit also included a double-ended dipper, one dipper being about 50% bigger than the other.
He told me that the mixing instructions called for two large scoops of L2 (a white powder), one large scoop of L (a grey/black powder), one small scoop of S (a yellow powder), and one small scoop of the other S (cream-colored granules).


By volume, that works out to -

46% L2 (white powder)
23% L (grey/black powder)
15% S (yellow powder)
15% S (cream-colored granules)

I'm just guessing, but that sounds very similar to the old H-48 primer formula - these proportions by weight -

49.6% Potassium Chlorate
25.1% Antimony Sulfide
8.7% Sulfur
16.6% Ground Glass

No phosphorus involved, so it would be different from the match-tip igniter compound. I certainly agree with you that it would be a royal pain in the neck to re-prime .22LR cases, and I agree that this stuff would be corrosive.
I am rather surprised that the company can get away with shipping potassium chlorate in the same package with sulfur and antimony sulfide. Sounds like an accident waiting to happen.