How can you tell when a primer pocket is too loose on the 1050?

[kryogen]

How can you tell when a primer pocket is too loose on the 1050?

Sometimes, when priming, you notice that a piece of brass just won't offer much resistance to priming, and you trash that piece of brass.

How can you make sure that primed brass is fine on the 1050, since you cannot feel it?
You have no way to make sure that the primer pocket is fine, unless you check them all with a gauge? But then you kind of loose the advantage.

Is the priming by feel on the upstroke a safer system to feel for any problems in primer pocket?

[Dan Cash]

I don't know how you would check for bad primer pockets with the 1050 but if you are not loading to the outer limits of sanity, case necks fail long before primer pockets. Hot rod loads are probably best done on single stage or turret presses and perhaps priming done on some specialized priming tool.

[opos]

I load on a single stage and prime on the press. Recently I had a couple of boxes of brass given to me (7x57 Mauser)..cleaned them up..inspected them..sized and trimmed them and began to prime them...they were quite loose but none had shown any leakage or any abnormalities before I deprimed and cleaned them...Just to see how loose they really were I decapped a couple of the live primers and while they were not tight, they did offer some resistance.

I only shoot a bolt action and it's a Mark X... I shoot very moderate loads. I went ahead and fired a few of them and there was no primer leakage, no primer backing out and nothing that would indicate any issues..Don't know what might happen with anything but a good solid bolt rifle but nothing at all bad showed up. I will probably not load these again as they sort of surprised me on the priming and how easy it was to insert and seat the primers...I doubt I'd be interested in any "hot loads" or with any "gallery loads" but with just a mid range book load, all seemed well.

[jmorris]

I check them when I post load tumble the brass to knock the lube off.

If they are still in, they are good to go. If they fell out, they were too loose.

[kryogen]

So you guys think its a non issue?

[jmorris]

It is an issue. I have seen an AR become inoperable from a primer falling out and finding its way underneath the trigger and making it so it would not function and the hammer could not drop.

Post load tumbling is just the easy way to know if they will fall out or not.

[kryogen]

I have a few winchester brass than I ran through my super swage a bit too tightly adjusted, and those were squished a bit, so the primer pockets are loose. I will need to find that brass.

Another way it could be done is to just deprime the brass, then clean it, and before loading 223, use the no go gauge in the primer pockets. if it goes, trash the brass. If not, reload.

I don't think that a vibratory tumbler is a good enough way to know if your primers are loose. (ok, there is drop by itself loose, but there is also "quite loose but not loose by itself...."

Either way, if I go 1050, I will check primer pockets(no go gauge) for looseness, and if I go 650, I'll check primer pockets for crimp (go gauge), and use the super swage...

Maybe the easiest option is still the 1050 and just check 223 brass before lubing. Probably wouldnt take too long to go through my pile of 1000.

[jmorris]

Another way it could be done is to just deprime the brass, then clean it, and before loading 223, use the no go gauge in the primer pockets. if it goes, trash the brass. If not, reload.

That would work but I think your missing the point of a 1050. The only time I touch a case is after it comes out of the post load tumble and is case gauged and inspected. If your doing a bunch of manual operations here and there you might as well use a 550 as you can have a bench full of them for the price of a 1050.


I don't think that a vibratory tumbler is a good enough way to know if your primers are loose.

I was just letting you know what works for me. Was not a guess, simply an observation I have made over years streamlining the way I approach certain tasks reloading.

[kryogen]

why do you case gauge? if one is fine they are all fine ?

[jmorris]

why do you case gauge? if one is fine they are all fine ?

I thought that for many years. Once you have everything right, all is good.

Loose one match from a single malfunction and everything changes.

Spend a few years and a few thousand dollars going to matches and it only takes one loss by a tenth of a second and your views will change.

I don't shoot a round "on the clock" that has not been case gauged these days.

[kryogen]

Right if you do matches that makes sense. What about plinking ammo?

[jmorris]

Oh, if I am just going to blast away like our machinegun shoots I won't case gauge them and sometimes don't even post load tumble but that is just for stuff that goes bang.

If it is practice or match ammo it is casegauged and boxed. Same goes for hunting ammunition or anything I feel is worth it to spend the extra few minutes time to know they are all perfect.