Can anything else cause high pressure signs?

[Shaned76]

Hey guys, great forum and i've been soaking up your knowledge for a while, and now I've got a question. i have a Ruger super blackhawk .44 mag, and just got dies to reload, which i havn't done since I was a kid, all my primers are flattened, and some are "mushroomed" and the face is imprinted with the machine marks from the recoil shield. Problem is these are all factory loads, from remington & winchester 240gn jsp and jhp, and 1 box from federal 180gn jhp. This can't be common for .44 mag can it?

[frankenfab]

Post some pics if you can. Tool marks can mean you just have a rough recoil shield.

[btroj]

My BH in 45 Colt will always leave machine marks on the primers with healthy loads. I don't worry, it just shows that the recoil shield has some machine marks in it.

[44man]

Flat primers mean nothing in the .44. Neither do the marks from the shield.
Most have a little head space so the primer backs out a little, then the brass comes back and seats the primer again.
Forget the 180 gr stuff, the gun starts to shoot at 240 gr.

[Potsy]

In my limited experience, with strong modern brass, about the only reliable high pressure sign (and there could still be other factors) in a revolver is stiff extraction. And by the time you get to that point, you're WAAAY over where you need to be.
I "kinda on accident" loaded some 340grn. flat points to 1400fps one time in my .45 Colt Bisley. Pressures had to be in the 40-45,000psi range. Brass fell out of the chambers smooth as silk. No reason the same thing wouldn't have happened in an old SAA.
Kinda spooky.

[white eagle]

I have some 480 brass that is hard to put into the chambers
because of partial resizing
its even harder to get out once fired

[subsonic]

Yep. Excessive headspace, or "factory spec" headspace can cause just what you describe.

See how much feeler gauge you can get between a deprimed case and the recoil sheild with a cartridge lined up with the barrel.

[Shaned76]

Thanks for the replies, being a mechanic makes it easy to envision all the different things that can happen to my primers, and now im sure its because of my excessive "factory headspace". It's just hard to get past that first overload signs that dad taught me to never go past, when i first started reloading my .30-.30.

[stubshaft]

Yes it's normal.