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View Full Version : Large pistol primers for reloading paper and plastic shotgun hulls



Hang Fire
07-07-2012, 01:41 AM
I have been thinking of buying a .410 shotshell reloading press. Lee no longer makes a reloader for the .410 (and Lee confirmed in an email today they have no intentions of doing so) so the next choice was a MEC JR. But the 170-190 dollar price was a bit of a put off.

I spent some time today on the web researching alternative methods of reloading the .410 and found several different means of doing so.

Afterwards was fooling around with a .45-70 310 tool and inserted a 2 1/2” fired .410 plastic hull into depriming die to see if it would deprime it. As I squeezed the handles shut, was evident it could not, as there was nowhere for it to go. But it did do one thing, It started to push out the inner primer only and not the entire 209 primer. I removed the hull, sit it on piece of a aluminum plate with a hole drilled just large enough for the inner primer to pass through. I took and pushed an old deprimer rod into the hull and felt pin go into center of the 209 primer, tapped the rod with a plastic hammer and the inner primer came out. I took a look at it, then miked it and a large pistol primer and found them to be the same .210” OD.

I then seated the LPP (anyone familiar with the old Lee reloader knows how) flush in the now empty former 209, it fit tight and looked perfect.

As the .410 rim OD was .530”, using a 1/2” mill I sunk a hole about .125” deep in the aluminum plate and with judicious use of the mill table X-Y, enlarged hole to .550”. I then drilled a 15/64” hole in center of the milled counter sink and on through the aluminum plate. It was then a simple matter with the depriming rod pin to remove the spent center primers from several other fired hulls and reprimed with LPP.

The wife involuntarily lent me the the use of her Taurus Judge to test with. Loaded five of the primed only hulls, and it was bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, with wife in shop grimacing at each bang. Redid the hulls and followed with about 20 more bangs without a misfire. All the LPP stayed in original position, with none moving forward or backing out.

So, my next step is to set up reloading with one of the, or, my own, alternative method of reloading .410 shot shells. Using the LPP, I will start off with light loads and if things look good, incrementally increasing until arrive at a satisfactory load as to power and shot weight.

Others no doubt have tried using the LPP as I did for paper or plastic hulls, but found nothing on the Web except about use in the brass shotshells.

geargnasher
07-07-2012, 03:33 AM
Interesting. I've never popped apart a 209 primer, is the inner primer the same depth as a LPP? I guess it would have to be close if you can seat one back in the cup and compress the anvil enough for it to go bang.

Gear

Janoosh
07-07-2012, 07:14 AM
There used to be called "Primer Caps" to reload/rebuild shotshell primers. Older reloading manuals mention these. I have about 2000 of these made by Alcan. There is an anvil already in the shotshell primer. The "Primer Cap" is nothing but a Berdan primer. I'm glad to see that your experiment worked out.

Hang Fire
07-07-2012, 10:06 AM
Have found I was using the wrong wording when searching Google.

I refered to using LPP for loading shotshell hulls.

But, when "rebuilding shotshell primers", bingo.

There is even a patent for a device to do such.

SHOTGUN SHELL PRIMER REBUILDER
United States Patent 3750528

Oh well, NNUTS (nothing new under the sun) prevails again. But it is good to know it has been done before.

hornetman
07-07-2012, 02:44 PM
I have a tool to decap the 209 primer and load the replacement caps into the primer body. It looks somewhat like a small arbor press except with a linkage-painted a vile shade of light green. It has no name on it anywhere. I also have 1000 of the replacement caps (by CCI). I've never used it so can't vouch for how well it works.

Hang Fire
07-07-2012, 02:54 PM
Is this it?

http://www.prior-ip.com/patent/23821057/reloader

hornetman
07-07-2012, 03:29 PM
My tool is much simplier than that- only about 7 inches high, not counting the handle, and has little dies that fit in the base. Went to look for it so I could give a better description, but seem to have misplaced it. Will try again and also look through some old Herter's catalogs. I believe they had a similar tool in the mid 60's

Mike W1
07-07-2012, 04:18 PM
Seems like my old MEC 400 has some provision for replacing just the "cap" and in fact did have some of those at one time. However I never used either the tool or the primers. Seemed like just too much of pain in the rump to me.

Also far as shotshells, after some careful studying of the Lyman Shotshell manuals, I decided that experimenting with shotshell loads is potentially a hazardous operation. I decided with all the tested loads I could probably find one to accomplish whatever goal I had at the time.

rbwillnj
07-08-2012, 09:55 AM
Interesting,.....but why?

Cost of 209's is pretty much the same as LPP.

Hang Fire
07-08-2012, 01:15 PM
Short answer, because I want to.

True, the cost of the primers are almost equal. I have also wondered why that is? The 209 is more complicated with several more components involved, which only serve to allow the seating of a LPP.

I can understand the reasoning for the 209 design. With a shotshell hull of paper or plastic construction and without the the 209 extended outer housing tube, the soft material in that area would be exposed to destructive cutting gasses. This could lead to gas escaping around the primer or metal base and would not be a good thing.

IMO, the shotshell hull makers could incorporate a simple extended metal tube at time of manufacture, but they are not about to do so.