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Thread: Making Sparkplugs: My first 100 primers

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    Making Sparkplugs: My first 100 primers

    Hello all and I hope your Thanksgiving was a good one.

    Like some of you, I was pinched by the primer shortage. I have plenty small rifle and large rifle primers from my last big order years ago, but I simply shot up all my small pistol primers(I have no need of large pistol). While deployed overseas last year I started researching the feasibility of remaking used primers. I quickly stumbled upon Aardvark Reloading and looked through the extensive pdf available there. I got started partly because I need primers, partly because I wanted to see if I could do it, and partly to validate the process in case it becomes necessary in the future.

    Disclaimer: I will not sell them or take part in any other illegal activity, and I'm not interested in discussing illegal activity. I made these for use in practice ammunition only.

    In short, the pdf describes a brief history of primers and discusses a variety of different formulations. It turns out that primer compositions are a bit tricky. What follows is some information you already know, but probably haven't thought much about. They must be sensitive enough to ignite with the strike of a firing pin, but not sensitive enough to ignite when dropped. They must be extremely reliable. Beyond those obvious requirements, a few more characteristics come into view. It would be nice if they did not chemically destroy the brass casings when fired. Also, many older compositions were very corrosive on barrels. The H-48 "Prime-All" formula is of this type, requiring barrels to be cleaned immediately after firing. Newer lead-free requirements place additional restraints on primer compositions. Also, it would be great if purchasing the necessary chemicals didn't immediately put you on a federal watch list. The pdf gives quite a few different primer formulations, I haven't counted how many, perhaps 15-20 or so, and they are broken down in categories by type such as corrosive, non-corrosive, field-expedient(based on using toy caps or match heads) and even some lead-free formulations.

    To get to the point, I selected the EPH-20 recipe. It is a non-corrosive recipe that purportedly offers high reliability, relatively low cost, is non-corrosive, and seemed to be less technically challenging to make, in addition to being one of the safer methods since the formula does not become explosive until after it is packed into the primer cup, wetted and allowed to dry.

    Here is the CLIFnotes version:
    Materials:
    Sodium hypophosphite (ebay, $14)
    Lead Nitrate (Amazon, $18)
    rubbing alcohol
    distilled water
    glass beaker set ($20 ebay)
    Hotplate stirrer ($35 ebay) Not absolutely necessary, but makes the synthesis a little easier.
    glass stir rods and eye dropper ($10 ebay)
    ceramic mortar and pestle
    syringe with hypodermic needle. I happened to have a few from years ago when my wife needed blood thinner shots. I'm not sure where you'd get this, but it made wetting the mixture in the primer cups really easy.
    Leather punch (Amazon $15)
    forceps for removing primer anvils
    Steel punch that I made on my mini lathe for removing the primer dimple.

    I also bought a 3mm aluminum plate that I drilled with 100 holes and a #16 drill so the primers would have a place to sit while I loaded them. 3mm because the height of a SPP with the anvil installed is 3mm. A Flat punch will seat the anvil correctly when the cup is at the bottom.

    I won't go through the whole procedure, since you can just hop over to Aardvark Reloading and download the pdf yourself, but basically you have to synthesize Lead hypophosphite using the Lead Nitrate and Sodium hypophosphite using the beaker set and the hotplate stirrer. This part freaked me out a little, but I followed the directions and it seemed to work just fine. It took maybe an hour or so. I now had a small glass baby food jar half full of lead hypophosphite. I think I could make a couple thousand primers with this little batch, maybe 5k. If I ever ran out, I'd scale up the batch size and make enough for 50k primers and be done with it. I bought 100g of sodium hypophosphite and 500g of lead nitrate. This is enough to make I think 30,000 primers or so.

    So a few days ago, I whipped up my first batch of 100 primers. I set them out to dry, and yesterday, I loaded 5 primers into casings for a test fire with no powder. To my complete surprise and delight, all 5 went bang, though one of them was not as loud. perhaps I didn't fill that one as full with the composition. After that, I loaded 95 rounds of 9mm with 3.0gr Bullseye and some 130gr PC'ed boolits. I'm taking them to the range today for a test shoot.

    FAQ:
    So how hard is it really to make primers?
    It's a bit of work. Like reloading, getting set up takes time. The hardest parts were getting the anvils out, and grinding the pyrex glass powder with the nitrocellulose(Bullseye) The nature of nitrocellulose is that it is sticky and plasticky, and doesn't like to grind, so it took a while to get it to a fine powder. If you wanted to industrialize this, I sure a dedicated coffee grinder would speed this up. The best way to speed up removing the primer anvils is to throw a bunch of primers in a tumbler and let it run for a few hours. CCI SP's will reliably shed most of their anvils this way. If you use a lot of CCI, this will save a ton of time. Not many of the other brands shed primers as easily forcing you to pick each one out. In retrospect, the chemistry part to synthesize the lead hypophosphite was not too hard. I spent dozens of hours getting to the point where I could make the first hundred primers. Now, I can make 100 primers in about an hour plus the drying time. Most of the hour is flattening the primer dimples and grinding the glass/NC mix.

    What seems to be the most dangerous part?
    The lead hazards. I know we're all somewhat familiar with lead hazards, but here, we're dealing with powdered Lead Nitrate, which is very toxic and lead hypophosphite which is only slightly less toxic. There are beakers, stir rods, forceps, mortar and pestle, storage containers, and the actual primers themselves. Cleanup needs to be constant, and I'm still on the fence about how well I did it. The primer composition kinda gets everywhere. Not to mention the spent primers that need to be cleaned.


    Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by Castloader; 12-04-2021 at 09:11 PM. Reason: Math update

  2. #2
    Boolit Master WRideout's Avatar
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    Fabulous work! It reminds me a great deal of my general chemistry classes in college, only without the explosives. I once asked my professor how ammonium nitrate fertilizer could be explosive. He reluctantly gave me the short version.

    I think small pistol primers may be a bit fussy, but I am seriously considering making percussion caps for my new 1851 Colt Navy.

    Wayne
    What doesn't kill you makes you stronger - or else it gives you a bad rash.
    Venison is free-range, organic, non-GMO and gluten-free

  3. #3
    Boolit Buddy sparkyv's Avatar
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    A worthy endeavor, sir. Well done. I appreciate your writeup.

  4. #4
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    Nice write up. Waiting to hear how the range report went.

  5. #5
    Boolit Master


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    I'm watching this....
    Quis Quis Quis, Quis Liberat Canes

    /////////BREAKING NEWS////////////
    Millions and millions of American shooters and sportsmen got up, went to work, contributed to society in useful and meaningful ways all over the nation and shot no one today! How do they controll themselves?? Experts Baffled....


    I LIKE IKE

  6. #6
    Boolit Grand Master
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    Sir,
    That is THE BEST write up I have seen on the subject. Many folks here have done it but do not share the details as to cost, and time needed to produce.

    You have confirmed that doing this is not for me, but your post will certainly be beneficial to those who are in dire need.

    Thank you for laying it all out.
    Don Verna


  7. #7
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    As you can see, the dimple does not completely flatten out. I made the punch to flatten these on my mini-lathe. I turned a very shallow point on it. The punch face is nearly flat with perhaps a 5 degree chamfer or less. This flattens as much as possible, and helps keep the edge of the punch from belling inside the cup.

  8. #8
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    Thank you Sir! Since I'm in this far, I'll keep going, but it is not an endeavor for those in a rush.

  9. #9
    Boolit Buddy
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    Very educational. Thanks for the write up

  10. #10
    Boolit Master

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    there is a very active mewe group that do this and many of the members are advanced chemists and go out of their way to walk you through the stuff you need to do to be successful.
    if you are ever being chased by a taxidermist, don't play dead

  11. #11
    Boolit Master
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    I appreciate the time you took to write this up for us. I will be ordering supplies soon. I have plenty of primers, for now, but…
    8500' Wet Mountain Valley, Colorado

  12. #12
    Boolit Master Doughty's Avatar
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    rancher1913, I am behind the times I guess. What is a "mewe group" and where is the one you are referring to found?
    AKA "Old Vic"
    "I am a great believer in powder-burning".
    --Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman

  13. #13
    Boolit Grand Master bedbugbilly's Avatar
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    Great post! Thanks for sharing - excellent write up!

  14. #14
    Boolit Master 44Blam's Avatar
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    Great post! I was looking into this as well. I do want to hear how the range report.
    WWG1WGA

  15. #15
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doughty View Post
    rancher1913, I am behind the times I guess. What is a "mewe group" and where is the one you are referring to found?
    just google "mewe" and go from there. it is similar to farcebook but a lot free-er and no ads. mark and marshal from ardvark reloading are ramroding it and I believe they have a link on the ardvark site. the group is called "primer reloading" but I dont remember what it was under, thinking it was hunting prefix.
    if you are ever being chased by a taxidermist, don't play dead

  16. #16
    Boolit Master slim1836's Avatar
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    And then there are a few of us who strip the dots off of roll caps and essentially do the same. I have yet to fire mine with the exception of popping one to see if it went off, which it did. I have loaded some up (16) but have not been to the range yet.

    Congrats on your success sir.

    Slim
    JUST GOTTA LOVE THIS JOINT.

  17. #17
    Boolit Master



    MUSTANG's Avatar
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    Enjoyed the read. I have not found the small remaining dimple to be an issue (Large Rifle and Small Rifle primer rebuilds) other than making sure one knows and make any loaded ammo as being reloaded with rebuilt primers. After a couple of weeks, months, years - good record keeping pays off when the memory fades.

    I have not yet made EPH 20; as I have focused on the "Corrosive Primer" materials for rebuilding. Truthfully; although I have been on the periphery (home made products) of Chemistry for years - I have to date avoided synthesizing Lead hypophosphite; winter will soon be upon us full force and I may give it a shot.

    Keep us informed on results.
    Mustang

    "In the beginning... the patriot is a scarce man, and brave and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." - Mark Twain.

  18. #18
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    Returned from the range just now.
    The good news, 95 out of 95 rounds went bang! (I previously tested 5 primers with no powder or boolits). The bad news, 5 rounds require a second strike before ignition. I suspect that this is due to an error in seating the anvil into the cup. I used a punch to set the anvils, and later after they were dry, I realized that about 15 were crooked. I seated them anyway with my Hornady hand seater while pointed away from my face in case the shifting anvil caused a detonation. None of them ignited during seating, but a few were tough to seat. I suspect these are the same ones that needed some encouragement to fire.

    All in all, I couldn’t be much more pleased! I had a good time with my father-in-law, and got to burn some powder. The sense of satisfaction and success puts a smile on my face.

  19. #19
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    Pic of my father-in-law shooting one of these rounds in my Sig P365XL
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  20. #20
    Boolit Buddy

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    I second the honorable dverna’s statement. I also look forward to Castloader’s next chapter. His narrative is underscored with excellent photography.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check