I just made a whole lot of glass powder in a cheap walmart blender. Got an Oster with a glass pitcher. Chewed up the charcoal I made, then tried it on some glass. Used an empty glass olive jar, broke it up with a hammer and it ran through nicely.
My First Forum Post/Reply
First, a thank you for sharing information and experiences by many in this thread.
Having had surprisingly good results with remanufactured SP primers using German roll caps, like many, I'm now trying to graduate to the next level with the H-48 (ish?) compound sold as Prime-All. The company that sells it, appears to follow the gun industry standard of "give your customer as little information as possible, about the product that they're buying". Well anyway, to shorten the story, this weekend's testing involved using what I now consider as my SP primer test load in 9 X 19. Usually fired in a couple of PCC's and "old Frank" (Short for Frankenstein), my built from leftover parts 1911. The load consists of an SNS 125 Gr Flat-nosed Red Epoxy Powder coated boolits with some supplemental Lee liquid Alox+Johnson Paste wax. The idea being, to lay down a wax coating to keep the Potassium Salts off the interior surface of the barrel. This is propelled by 5.2-5.5 grains of Ramshot True Blue. It's a wonderful load. I fired over a hundred of these using Prime-all, glued in place with Hair Spray, Ethanol/Shellac, Plain Acetone, all using either gas station receipts, or thin wrapping paper tissue that you can almost see through. The only rounds that exhibited 100% reliability were the exact to the letter recipie from Prime-All with plain old acetone.
The rest had a roughly 8-10% first strike fail, but EVERY SINGLE ONE of those fired on the SECOND strike. I KNOW there's a story buried in here, about how to assemble this compound........... such as a higher compaction pressure or finally just wet load them (?)
Perhaps perotter could shed some light on this.
On a happy note, these loads had low extreme spreads, excellent accuracy, and an unusual but not objectionable smell.
Hi Optimus In making percussion caps with the prime-all I have pressed the powder with about 40lbs pressure. No accidents and all worked. I now just use hand pressure with the same results. Many leave out the off white powder in the little bag. It's presumed to be a binder. You sure don't need it if using other binders. Your binders mentioned work fine if not too so strong as to kill the charge. I did remake small pistol primers with the FA-42 mix using a very thin shellac and denatured alcohol mix. It worked but the pistol used suffered from a weak hammer hit. Even some factory primers didn't work in this gun.Sometime I will try again with a more robust revolver. I also now mix up using plain water.It's safer and I think I get a more complete mixing. I will not use ground glass anymore. You can feel the grit over everything including the gun from firing.
Thanks Mustang for sharing your experience with Prime-All. I quickly ran out patience with the mini-pooper-scooper mix method. I just went and started mixing it by WEIGHT using the trued and true H-48 recipe. (including the dash of baking soda). The bad news is it doesn't work any better. Good news is it doesn't work any WORSE. Much less of a test of my patience though, so I'm calling it a win.
ditto Optimus Primer. For me, weighing is much easier, and much more consistent. Unfortunately I haven't been filling any primers lately, but I have been making percussion caps and haven't had any duds yet.
AKA "Old Vic"
"I am a great believer in powder-burning".
--Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman
Rool caps through Tractor Supply $6 for 1200 caps.
Last edited by bbogue1; 09-22-2022 at 11:12 AM.
VOTE, VOTE, VOTE often. In dealing with potential dishonesty or corruption, Something you might keep in mind is a revealing quote by S.W. Erdnase in his book The Expert at the Card Table "Almost every ruse in the game is more or less dependent upon another one."
Politicians are like babies diapers, they should be changed often and for the same reason. Mark Twain
When you add up all the stuff you need it seems to me it would be cheaper just to bite your toe and buy some primers. But I also understand the good feeling we get when we make something with our own hands.
ACC
Mustang,
You may find this useful.
Last time I did a dive on making my primers more efficient. I also use 22reloader mix. Which has its own hardener.
For foil I use cigarette paper. Very thin and disappears/burn reliably. I did think about using old receipts but they seem to have a waxy coating which I didn’t want to be a possible issue.
For glue I use a 15% solution of nitrocellulose glue from archery supply stores online. Diluted with acetone or alcohol. I noticed little difference in reliability except for drying time.
Nitrocellulose adhesives are highly flammable.
Guncotton is a form of nitrocellulose.
For pistol primers I use .3 grains of the mix.
I haven’t really tried it with the 223/556 AR15 stuff.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I know this thread is about the H48 / Prime All stuff, but based on my EPH-2X experience, I am betting actual cost is dirt cheap when you find better sources for the raw chemiclas.
I got set up for making the non-corrosive EPH-2x stuff for a couple of hundred dollars. Initial chemicals and consumables can be had for less than $150. The results however was enough stuff for over 20K SPP primer reloads from this initial spend. Future cost based on materials only will be less than 1/3 of a penny each. First hit reliability in some of my guns has been 100% with lots of rounds fired.
If you check out ardvark reloading and the MEWE site, you can actually save some money by using some loner equipment.
For a really nice uniform primer mix, GONRA suggests putting a
small vial of ingredients into a small Harbor Freight Gem Tumbler,
with 100 ft. extension cord. Typically get a fine greyish powder
with a few larger ingredient crystals floating on top.
(Verked great for making 1 gram batches FA959 mix for
9mm Soviet Berdan primers. 2 grains mix/primer.)
(If yer gonna use "recycled" primer cups PLEASE be sure
to wear nice safety goggles when shootin'!)
Here are the tools I use (not shown is a drill press vise and a hammer. The powder loading measure (an empty primer case on a wire) is in the middle. The 380 Auto case I use to measure the alcohol and shellac is on the articulated wire on the right. That wire is 2 pieces to allow it to reach the bottom of the alcohol bottle and store using less space. I abandoned my old inaccurate way when I read your tale. Post 25 is the key.
VOTE, VOTE, VOTE often. In dealing with potential dishonesty or corruption, Something you might keep in mind is a revealing quote by S.W. Erdnase in his book The Expert at the Card Table "Almost every ruse in the game is more or less dependent upon another one."
Politicians are like babies diapers, they should be changed often and for the same reason. Mark Twain
I have found this thread very interesting. I realize many think it a waste of time or foolish, to reload primers, but I don't think so. I found myself in the situation of having to pay $250 for a thousand primers (which I did ONE TIME out of necessity) presently primers are running about $120/ thousand and I am sitting on 4 thousand, but those won't last long. I doubt we will ever see $30/thousand again. I have been loading my plinking ammo with "reconditioned" primers for a while now with I think great success. I use prime all. Yes, it is tedious and is not going to replace my regular ammo saved for defense purposes. Reloading primers, casting my own bullets, processing the cases to me is for a SHTF situation , a way to keep shooting when these "shortages" make ammo unavailable, and most of all I enjoy the satisfaction of making my own things. I'm a retired machinist, used to making all my own tooling and equipment. I have tried all the methods posted here and they work for the most part. I just ordered a die set from NOE that will resize and reshape the primer cup back to its original "condition" using a single stage press to prepare the primer for reloading. This set does large and small pistol primers. The cost is $52. I am going to try this to see if it makes the process any easier. I can buy 9mm for $15 a box of 50 cartridges at present. The cost of Reloading is $11 a box using the expensive store bought primers. The cost using reloaded primers, my casted bullets, and reconditioned cases is $6.75 a box. ( that does not account for all the time, but I don't count that because this is a hobby to me done for enjoyment. I cast my own bullets and reload for the challenge and just to see if I can do it.
I'll let you know how this die set performs as soon as I try it out.
Mark
With the help of Lee, NOE and a kit of etsy, reloading primers has gotten a lot more reasonable.
https://rumble.com/v1ocr7b-primerpro...nd-tricks.html
These men and their hypnotized followers call this a new order. It is not new. It is not order.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |