Foiled by a High primer.

[Santa Lee]

Well I sure threw a wrench into my reloading plans for the week. Here is my conundrum. I have a Lee Classic Turret, am reloading .45 Colt CCI 300 primers in a I believe Starline brass. I am using IMR 4227 so I have a tighter crimp on these than I use on my lighter loads with Tite Group. That tidbit comes into play in a second.
I had changed my set up for the differnt boolit and powder so I was removing my freshly primed bass so I could weight each charge. I did this four times in a row. Perfect! The fifth round went thru the circuit without me checking the charge. The sixth round went thru the circuit fine BUT, when I removed it the collet came with it. HIGH PRIMER! Dadgumit%$#&! Well I tried to remove the boolit by placing the collet in my vice and grabbing the boolit with a pair of vicegrips. No go...now remember the little tidbit on the tighter crimp I was applying? I do believe that I might have applied to tight a crimp.
So, two things here. Any ideas on why the primer is to high? It felt normal to me. Never had this happen b4. I am sorta new at this.
And, any opinions as best you can from my description on whether my crimp is to tight. My loads are as follows.

TiteGroup, 6.9 grn. CCI 300, 200 grn LRNFP
IMR 4227, 17 grn. and 21 grn, CCI350, 250 grn LRNFP powder coat and not powder coated.
Thanks Guys. I did order a new collet as this one may go up a a New shelf above my reloading station as a reminder to be, may I quote one of my hunting heroes. Elmer Fudd, "Be vewy vewy careful"! On a more serious note, have any of you had this happen? Thanks

[Outer Rondacker]

dirty primer pockets.

I have had it happen in the past. I simply seated the primer while the bullet was loaded. I know nuts right. I feel I know my limitations. I do not suggest you to do that. Dirty primer pockets will keep a primer from seating all the way.

If you want to pull that bullet and do not have a bullet puller then put the collet back into the press without the turret on. Raise the ram and now use your vicegrips on the bullet while lowering the ram. Or if that will not work put a sheetrock screw into the bullet first then grab that with the vice grip. If all this makes you uneasy toss the one piece of brass up on the shelf and do as you said.

I had a LNL press that would leave high seated primers from time to time. Once I got it sorted never happened again.

[JBinMN]

If I understand you correctly, what you call the "collet" is the "shellholder".

If that is the case. I would use the RCBS ram prime to fix the issue, even if the round was loaded, by placing the shell holder in the ram prime & seating the primer until I could get it out of the shell holder & investigate more.

At that point I would decide If I should pull the round apart & start over, or take the chance with ram or hand priming the round & just using it.

If you are not comfortable with doing what I just described , then using an inertia (hammer) puller, place the "collet"/"shellholder" into the end of the "hammer" & use it like you normally would. The shellholder will act like the collets" supplied with such "hammers" and I think better than the supplied collets, and pull the bullet & start over.

You can also use the technique described in the post above to pull the round apart if you so choose...

Anyway...

Your call & I wish ya "G'Luck!


P.S. -If you are using the term "collet" & it is not the "Shell holder" then I do not know what you are talking about when ya use the term, "collet" & cannot help.

LOL

G''Luck!

[osteodoc08]

Dirty pockets or you didn’t apply enough pressure to seat the primer. You should be able to index it around or pop the shellplate off.

[MyFlatline]

Grmps did a great how to on bullet removal with wire strippers. Bet that will work better than any collet puller around. Once that projectile is removed, just go back and re-seat the primer. I had that problem with the Hornady LNL. That is the main reason I now hand prime.

[Outer Rondacker]

If I understand you correctly, what you call the "collet" is the "shellholder".

If that is the case. I would use the RCBS ram prime to fix the issue, even if the round was loaded, by placing the shell holder in the ram prime & seating the primer until I could get it out of the shell holder & investigate more.

At that point I would decide If I should pull the round apart & start over, or take the chance with ram or hand priming the round & just using it.

If you are not comfortable with doing what I just described , then using an inertia (hammer) puller, place the "collet"/"shellholder" into the end of the "hammer" & use it like you normally would. The shellholder will act like the collets" supplied with such "hammers" and I think better than the supplied collets, and pull the bullet & start over.

You can also use the technique described in the post above to pull the round apart if you so choose...

Anyway...

Your call & I wish ya "G'Luck!


P.S. -If you are using the term "collet" & it is not the "Shell holder" then I do not know what you are talking about when ya use the term, "collet" & cannot help.

LOL

G''Luck!

HA you said it. I had it typed up and deleted it. LOL Im with him. I have had to hand check and fix high primers on over a 1000 357 mag rounds before when a nut came loose on my LNL. Loaded.

[Santa Lee]

Great ideas and much knowledge. Thanks Guys. JBinMN great info, OuterR thanks also. I did clean my primer pockets but will be more diligent in the future. So what do y'all think about the crimp, I think it might be a bit much since the boolit is so tight.

[dverna]

I doubt a dirty primer pocket is an issue. I have never cleaned one on a pistol cartridge.

[JBinMN]

I do not crimp semi auto like 45acp/9mm/380ACP , etc, with anything more than just enough to make sure the boolit/bullet will not move when I press it on the edge of my reloading desk/bench & try to push it further into the case. I reckon if it will not move in, then it is not going to move out much as well. I also try to see if I can rotate it in the case. If it doesn't move, I think it is good, although if it does move just a little bit, I may try to crimp just a little tighter on any that happens to, but will finish up the other rounds & come back to work on the ones that will rotate at the end of the run...

It all boils down to start with a light crimp or little crimp & then progressively tighten down the die until you reach the crimp that you desire.

I am sure there are others here who can put into words what I am trying to say, better than how I am saying it. So, I will leave it there & see if anyone else can help out in a better way.


G'Luck!

[Santa Lee]

I actually cleaned these!

[Santa Lee]

Thanks

[Wayne Smith]

Does the Lee Classic Turret use a shell holder or a shell plate? I don't use progressives so really don't know, and if the 'collet' is not a shell holder I also don't know what you are talking about. Nomenclature matters.

[JBinMN]

Does the Lee Classic Turret use a shell holder or a shell plate? I don't use progressives so really don't know, and if the 'collet' is not a shell holder I also don't know what you are talking about. Nomenclature matters.

Shell holder

[Santa Lee]

Shell holder

Yep, that would be a shell holder.

[mold maker]

In my entire loading career, I've never had a high primer make it to the next station, I hand prime and check each as I remove it from the priming tool. You quickly develop a feel without even looking.
If the primer backed out after correctly being seated, the brass has outlived its usefulness. Your boolit crimp should have absolutely no effect on the primer depth. Break the offending round-s down and determine where you really encountered the problem.
Rember, forcing the high primed round out of the shell holder is placing pressure that could cause a detonation outside of any protective chamber. Don't apply force until the brass is empty and pointed where no damage can result if it fires.

[jdt81]

There are many one this forum with far more experience than me, so take this with a grain of salt, but I personally know someone who lost his hand and filled his chest full of bird shot and shrapnel when his loader exploded while he tried to reseat a primer in a live round. I wouldn’t recommend it.

I have had that happen several times (primer seating too high) and also have a Lee loader (two in fact). Maybe it’s a Lee thing. I have found this to be from dirty primer pockets, or sometimes cleaning medium gets stuck in the primer pocket. To prevent this I always deprime after I clean.

To get the boolit out, remove the die holder plate, lower the handle, and grab the boolit with a needle nose pliers as it comes up through the top of the turret. Use pliers that have a wire cutter at the start and sqeeze hard enough that you bite into the soft lead. Grab it as low as possible without destroying the brass. I use needle nose pliers ecause they are long enough to span the entire opening where the turret goes. Then just raise the handle and the shell and boolit will come apart. Rather than trying to reseat the primer, I’d pop it out and see what was going on there.

You might still be able to use an impact puller even with the shell holder in place if you are creative.

Good luck and stay safe.

[ukrifleman]

I load 45 Colt with Starline brass on a Lee classic turret and always prime my cases on-press with a Lee auto-prime in batches of 50 before loading.

As each case is primed, I remove it from the shell holder and visually check that the primer is seated right way up, then run my finger across the primer to ensure it is fully seated.

Once I have my batch of 50 primed I load them.

It might slow things down a tad, but I don't have primer seating problems

ukrifleman

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I doubt a dirty primer pocket is an issue. I have never cleaned one on a pistol cartridge.

I'm inclined to agree with that, unless maybe a bit of tumbling media, or a detached anvil or something got in there. Insufficient pressure seems the most likely thing.

Many years ago I had one just high enough to feel a little tight on the shellholder as it was removed. (Yes, heaving it out with more interference is dangerous - maybe not likely to cause trouble, but big trouble if it did.) So I drilled a piece of metal to poke the case through up to the rim in my bench vice, and inserted a piece of steel rod, just small enough to go through the shellholder, in the end of my workroom broom. If it happened again, I would have been ready to push the primer in flush from broom's length.

Still, I have just parted company with the Landrover I bought nine years ago, after a friend had to tow me off his hill-farm road a couple of times in snow. I never saw a snow-covered road again, nor a high primer either.

Alternatively I might have put my little electric hotplate outdoors, with a metal bowl over it for safety, to see what a cooked-off round looks like.

[merlin101]

I rarely clean primer pockets other than tumbling them. I have had high primers and that has almost always been from a short stroke on the handle. When priming on my Lee 1000 or the Lee turret it seems easy to do, it does take a bit to learn the feel of when the primer is seated. If your primer is just a bit high then just grab the round with some pliers and slowly slide it out with a twisting motion, I've never had one that wouldn't come out but then again I don't know how high your primer is.