Dropped primers!!!

[fusil]

Salut mes ami,
I dropped a box of CCI primers on the kitchen floor yesterday..[smilie=b:
After picking them all up and putting them back in the primer tray I was thinking! :confused:Is it still OK to use them?
I've read in books and on forums you should never touch the primer. What may/may not happen?
Thats what you get for reloading after a :evil: day at work. No one to blaim but me!:violin:

fusil

[Throckmorton]

they should be fine,I've handled primers by hand now and then and they all go bang.
Would I trust my sefl defense ammo with them? prolly not,but most of my ammo is 'blasting ammo'

[jcwit]

Dropped primers will be just fine. There are priming tools available that only prime with one primer and one shell at a time. Obviously you have to pick up one primer at a time to use these tools.

Been reloading for 40 plus years never had a problem yet with primers. Even dropped some in the Kitty water dish once, let them dry out for a period of a couple of days and lo and behold they still went bang, every one.

People are way to skittish regarding primers and are WAY to afraid of how powerful they are.
Much more likely getting injured with your lawnmower.

Just my 2 cents.

[fusil]

Merci,
you've both have put my mind at ease.:drinks:
Bon weekend.
fusil

[jcwit]

Glad to help. Load those babies up, and have a very good day/evening over there.

[mooman76]

Primers are too valuable to discard now adays without good reason. You might want to take a quick glance to make sure the anvil didn't fall out of some. Otherwise should be fine.

[DLCTEX]

I primed some 7mm mag. cases a few months ago, then later decided to clean the lube off by using brake cleaner. First mistake was spraying them in a plastic block, melted the plastic some. Then when I turned them over to drain, I saw the primers. Let them dry a few days and they went bang. Really makes me question if spraying them with WD-40 or such will kill them. I've used primers that were stored in a shed for 25 years through 100+ degree weather and below zero winters. They all go bang. Primers are tough!

[fusil]

Primers are too valuable to discard now adays without good reason. You might want to take a quick glance to make sure the anvil didn't fall out of some. Otherwise should be fine.

Salut,
I've read that primers are hard/expensive to get in th US.:evil:
Just ordered 5000 CCI small primers for €99+€7 postage.
Thats about $142, is that a good price vs US prices?

fusil

[schutzen]

That is higher than I have been used to paying, but I bought 6K last week for $156. That is pretty close to the same. Mine were 5K of Winchester Large Pistol and 1K of Wolf Large Rifle.
The Wolf is a new brand for me. I have been using Winchester for the last several years. Several of us were buying as a group and paying $15 to $20 per K depending on the size of the order. Looks like those days may be gone.

[testhop]

Dropped primers will be just fine. There are priming tools available that only prime with one primer and one shell at a time. Obviously you have to pick up one primer at a time to use these tools.

Been reloading for 40 plus years never had a problem yet with primers. Even dropped some in the Kitty water dish once, let them dry out for a period of a couple of days and lo and behold they still went bang, every one.

People are way to skittish regarding primers and are WAY to afraid of how powerful they are.
Much more likely getting injured with your lawnmower.

Just my 2 cents.

now i can tellthe house boss it is to dangerous to cut the grass.

[jcwit]

Good one, just don't tell her why. Maybe you can get her to do it.

[RugerSP101]

Salut mes ami,
I dropped a box of CCI primers on the kitchen floor yesterday..[smilie=b:
After picking them all up and putting them back in the primer tray I was thinking! :confused:Is it still OK to use them?
I've read in books and on forums you should never touch the primer. What may/may not happen?
Thats what you get for reloading after a :evil: day at work. No one to blaim but me!:violin:

fusilI have a ram prime so I have to handle all of my primers and it doesnt seem to have affected them in the least so far. I do make sure that my hands are very clean and dry before I start priming :)

[Recluse]

Fusil,

Your primers are fine. CCI's, in particular, are very tough and very resiliant. And, what you paid for 5K was a very fair price considering where you live. Shoot, it's a fair price RIGHT NOW where I LIVE.

Load, shoot, enjoy and let your heart not be troubled by handling the primers.

:coffee:

[shdwlkr]

When putting primers or for the matter cartridges in oil to make them safe you have to leave them there for a long time so the oil soaks into the primer and powder. We have an oil bucket at our range and it does make them useless.

[JDFuchs]

If your hands were clean when you touched them so the oils of your hand did not get into the priming compound you should be just fine. The only primer problems I have had yet in my 4 years reloading was a box of primed 243 brass that I got at a garage sale. They had been in just a cardboard box in the guys trailer that he was using for storage. I think the temp changes finally got to them. To an extent it might have been the blue dot I bought with it. After banging the second squib load out of the 243 I gave up on the 30 unshot rounds of the 50 I had loaded.

Hears something of interest showing how oil can effect primers.
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot39.htm

[mdi]

Until reciently, I've always handled primers individually. As long as my hands are clean, no oil, they will work. My only primer problem lately is with Wolf primers, two actually. Wolf primers seem to be a bit larger in diameter (haven't measured them yet) and are harder to seat. The package the Wolf primers comes in doesn't keep the primers in the tray very good. I've dropped a bunch, on different occations, when handling the 100 pc. package. Never had that prob with CCI or Fed., the Wolf wrapper seems to be thinner and softer paper. May be trivial, but trying to pick up 20 primers with my blunt fingers (30+ yrs mechanic) from a light brown wood floor, on my knees, is a REAL P.I.T.A.!

[longhorn47]

thanks for telling me about wolf primers I have been trying to get imfo on how they work or how they seat I use a star press and win or fed work great not hard to seat but as you know primer are hard to get now so I thought worf would be ok Pat Kalifornia

[shooterg]

Nothing wrong with the Wolf primers as far as performance. Many service rifle shooters are burning 'em up with good success in HP rifle matches(mostly using the small rifle magnums). The large pistols do seem to seat firmly - some of my brass is so old and worn that might be a good thing !

[shdwlkr]

I loaded single primers for decades and have very sweaty hands never had one not fire because of my sweaty hands. But I was careful as to what I was doing also. Now I use a primer tool that is much faster and more fun.

[rhead]

Physical shock is probably the most likely thing that could harm a primer. The wafer could crack and the primer would still work as far as firing the round, but aaaaaai'm not sure about accuracy. I would hesitate to use them for long range hunting, serious competition, or self defense. I would use them not discard them.

[BruceB]

Folks;

The way some of you are writing, you think primers are verily as sensitive as maidens' morals, and the SLIGHTEST jar or miniscule bit of contamination will cause them to give up the ghost or become unreliable at best.

A few years ago I did a test of primer resistance to contamination, and posted the results on the predecessor of this Board. I submerged some primers in baths of gun oil, WD-40 and Hoppe's #9....SUBMERGED, I say, meaning under the surface of a pool of liquid. Over a period of days, I removed samples every 24 hours and tried to fire them. As I recall, it took about three days before ANY primer demonstrated any reduction in force in comparison to an un-contaminated primer fired at the same time! D'you REALLY think that an invisible trace of skin oil is going to affect primer reliability?

Another test at the same time involved spraying the primers of a box of fifty .45 ACP reloads with WD-40. You know, the stuff that is reputed to kill primers if you whisper its name near them? These rounds were bullet-down in a cartridge box, and the WD-40 was POOLED on the primers. An identical box of reloads from the same batch was set aside for comparison testing against the sprayed rounds. Over the next NINE MONTHS, ten-round samples were occasionally fired from each box over the chronograph. To the day I fired the last of the rounds, there was virtually ZERO difference in average velocity, extreme spread or standard deviation between the WD-40-contaminated rounds, and the "control" ammo....NONE!

Primers are not nearly as sensitive as many seem to think. A dropped box is nothing to worry about, as there's not enough mass in a primer to create enough impact force to affect the primer in any way.

Kudos to Mike in CO for raising the problem of storing explosives in SEALED strong containers (on another thread, but worth mentioning here). Steel ammo boxes are wonderful for many uses, but I too believe that they are merely BOMBS when filled with primers. Primers will store very nicely for decades on a shelf in a reasonable environment. My ammo boxes are used for ingots, and my primers live in open air where their violent possibilities are much lessened.