Warning : Major reloading Accident last night !

[GhostHawk]

Ok, you have made it through the worst of it. Parts should be healing, ego should be done shredding itself.
I know, I've done my share of stupid stuff.

I would like to recomend 3 tools.

A Frankford Arsenal hand depriming tool. Great tool, can be adjusted to deprime almost anything.
Simple matter of a plastic collet used to center the brass so that the pin is centered. For me the big plus is all brass is clean before it see's my dies. Second plus is you can do this watching TV with the wife.

B Lee universal depriming die, get yourself 2 or 3 spare pins, they are ridiculously cheap.

C RCBS Hand Priming tool, I have the universal, does not need shell holders. Does everything from 7.62x25 to the big .444marlin brass with no issues.

With this a short primer leaves fingers pulling the lever out away from the handle, so it is instantly clear that the primer is not seated or there is a problem.

I even seated a primer sideways with this once, crushed the primer almost beyond recognition.But it did not go off until I went to remove it using a depriming pin and a block of 2x2 with a hole in it. Scared me when it went off but did no damage.

This is not a cheap plastic tool. This is solid, aluminum with a plastic primer holder.
This tool has amazing feel, is easy on the hands, and primes quickly and easily.
You can't prime a case with the primer extending out without knowing it. You either add pressure and the primer gives and slides into place, or you discard to be deprimed and cleaned, swage the pocket, etc.

Not a cheap tool but the very best of the hand priming tools. But don't take my word for it.

Go look at unhappy customer comments about it. If you can find any. Then look at the same for any other priming tool.

Slow down, it is not about how fast you load.

It is about how safe. Think about it, and heal fast.

[M-Tecs]

Crimp primers are rather common in .223/5.56mm. 7.62x51mm and some 9mm. So I think its mostly military style cartridges but not just for automatic weapons

Correct, I have shot a lot of LC 38 Special Ball and it is crimped. I do not know this has a fact but I have read that crimping also makes the cartridge more waterproof.

[Don Fischer]

To water proof primer's I used to use a bit of finger nail polish. I had a primer go off on me many years ago in one of the old Lee hand tools. Drop a rod in to seat the primer and hammer it in! Blew the rod out of the case but nothing remotely dangerous. I have primer's no going in with my progressive press, Dillon Sq Deal and in sideways and never know it until the round come's out the other side finished loading. Before i do anything with those case's I pull the bullet's and take out the powder. I have not had good luck with this press so ordered a set of dies to load on my Rock chucker. I do my 38's and 32's that way with no problems and think i can even do them faster on a single stage press.

[Rick45Colt]

I used to own an RCBS PRO-2000. I had an incident where a whole strip of primers just went off. I had been having seating issues and could not get the timing correct. I then installed the tube kit and got rid of the APS strips. I never really felt comfortable with that machine and ordered a Dillon 650. I gave away the PRO-2000.

[bradley.moss72]

Glad you survived and mostly just hurt your pride and just a little of your hide.

I have only been loading on a progressive for a short period of time, so I have not ran into this specific problem with primers not fully seated in a loaded round. I run a few pieces of brass thru the priming station before I set the rest of the stations up.

I have had an occasion that a primer was not fully seated or seated backwards but always empty brass.

If you decide to prime off your progressive press on another type of machine I would add a suggestion for the Lee Ram Prime. (assuming you already have a single stage press) It will allow you to convert a single stage press to a priming station. It also uses standard shell holders. It is a little less expensive than most dedicated machines and provides an excellent feel while priming.

http://leeprecision.com/ram-prime.html

BW

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[1bluehorse]

Thanks for sharing your miss-hap. Glad the injury's weren't to debilitating. Very enlightening for us all. I also have "re-seated" primers on a loaded round. Not very many, but obviously more than I should have with your experience as a guide. I'll not do it again. As far as priming on press or off press, with a hand primer (which I won't ever use again) or a bench primer (I use one of these for my rifle rounds I reload) I don't see where any one is "safer" than the other (except for a hand held, no thanks) If a primer "pops" I'd much rather have it happen on a press or bench mounted unit than in my hand. I also don't buy into the "better feel" with a hand held priming unit. IMO a properly adjusted primer seating stem with a positive stop is far better than how hard you "squeeze" a handle looking for "feel"...like I said, JMO. Once again, thanks for the awakening, definitely will never do that again.

[pt4u2nv]

Well I finally had the time to check a few things out since the accident. First the PMC primers did mic the same as other brands I checked. They were all pretty much at .168". The primer pockets on the brass ( which were several different headstamps ) were .165". So I came to the conclusion this was not the issue. None of the brass was crimped either. My fix at this point is to deprime and prime off the press and use a RCBS bench primer on empty cases only. I also plan on running all brass thru my Lyman case prep center to insure all the pockets are in fact the same size and cleaned as I move forward to shoot another day.

My fingers and other wounds are healing nicely with very little discomfort. I am a lucky guy. Thanks again for all the words of wisdom and help getting me back on track.

I do sincerely hope this prevents others from having the same incident happening to them.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That's diameter, but I thought depth was more likely to be the problem, and what might require adjusting in your cases. Next thing would be to try a few different brands of cases, and see if the problem occurs with others. There is no danger in adjusting the primer depth in cases, after you have noticed protrusion, as long as they aren't pointing at you and you haven't loaded powder and bullet.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

One more point with unknown small primers, if there is any doubt about their being rifle or pistol. Since you have a revolver, you can test them in an unloaded case with a piece of copper sheet, thin enough to fit in the cylinder gap. With small pistol I found the sheet domed and slightly ruptured, but with small rifle the effect should be noticeably more pronounced.

[ironhead7544]

I would check your priming mechanism on the press. It is possible to get grit inside that will prevent the primer from being seated properly.
I had a problem with my Pro 2000 RCBS priming system. Was getting some high primers. Needed to adjust the system. It was easy to fix just by taking a good look at it. I have now loaded many rounds with no primer problems.

With the progressive, I check about every 10th round for primer seat. When finished, I put them all in 50 round plastic boxes and check for high primers. Hold it up to the light and you can spot any high ones.

It is possible to get a sensitive primer. Be careful.

[peachhead]

Glad to hear you are ok. Thanks for sharing because hopefully this will be a reminder for me the next time I have this type of issue. I've made my share of mistakes, fortunately nothing that has caused me pain or too much grief.

I don't have a problem with progressive presses. I use a single stage purely because that's what I have right now. I have loaded plenty of ammo on a number of progressives. What I am having to get used to right now more than anything is using a hand priming tool, since the new RCBS presses don't have the same primer arm setup as the old ones. My understanding is that the auto prime setup for the new presses does not work well so right now I'm stuck with a hand primer until I can maybe get a bench primer. In any case, I have had primers that did not seat correctly and I always tried to fix the issue right then or pulled the case to work with later (which while using a progressive press was a pain).

Also kinetic pullers scare the **** out of me, they always have. I have a collet puller and am much happier with that.

[ole 5 hole group]

I'm not at all familiar with your "progressive" but with the Hornady LnL, a high primer will stop the press. Didn't take the time to read all the suggestions - but I assume your primer pockets were basically clean when you started. Over the years I've know a few reloaders who never took the time to clean their cases or primer pockets and would experience an occasional FTF as the carbon buildup in the primer pocket probably contributed to the misfire.

[Whiterabbit]

Back to the immediate issues, I would like to know what you all are doing to reseat primers on loaded shells ( if doing it at all ) as I still have prob 20 cases loaded to reseat and am a little jumpy right now.

No basing from me. I re-seat primers that need it like you did. That practice will stop immediately.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I would check your priming mechanism on the press. It is possible to get grit inside that will prevent the primer from being seated properly.

Anything is worth checking, but two separate things happened here. One was the high seating of the primers, which could have been some quirk of the priming mechanism. But lots of people reseat them without a bang, small or big according to whether they have loaded the rest of the cartridge. It is inadvisable, and people here are realising just how inadvisable. But people usually get away with it. It may be that the OP is describing hard seating before the primer reaches its final position, which is also an argument against the problem arising with the priming mechanism.

The second thing that went wrong was the explosion. I still think the odds are on the size of the primer or pocket having something to do with that.

[JimB..]

I'm surprised that nobody has asked about the powder you used. My first guess would be that the press set the primer high, the handling of the round caused powder to trickle through the flash hole and onto the primer, and the final seating of the primer compressed that powder between the bottom of the primer pocket and the anvil which was then pushed into the priming compound with sufficient force to ignite it.

I would not reseat a primer even after emptying the case, you simply have no idea what's in the primer pocket.

[pt4u2nv]

I'm surprised that nobody has asked about the powder you used. My first guess would be that the press set the primer high, the handling of the round caused powder to trickle through the flash hole and onto the primer, and the final seating of the primer compressed that powder between the bottom of the primer pocket and the anvil which was then pushed into the priming compound with sufficient force to ignite it.

I would not reseat a primer even after emptying the case, you simply have no idea what's in the primer pocket.

I also considered this possibility as I am using AA5 which is a very fine powder. Also there is no primer adjustment on my press, sets the primer on the end of the upstroke by feel only, which is not real good taking into consideration the length of the press arm. It actually lowers the case onto a permanent stop that holds the primer.

[copdills]

glad your ok man, thanks for sharing this

[Good Cheer]

Me too, glad you are OK.

Reminds me of an incident years ago in Houston.
The primer went off, the explosion killed the guy and the house burned down.
The news reporting sounded like maybe he had the cartridge up inside a die reseating a high primer during the process of bullet seating. Couldn't prove that but it's what it sounded like.

[WILCO]

Thanks for sharing so others can learn from your experience. I'm glad that you are still in one piece and can continue with the hobby.

Same here.

[chloe123]

A tough read--glad you're ok. Bumping for the reminder. ...Pay the caution forward to other areas of life

Same here.