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Thread: Making Sparkplugs: My first 100 primers

  1. #41
    Boolit Master


    Finster101's Avatar
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    Might picking up a used cheap food dehydrator work well for drying the primers?

  2. #42
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    I’m sure it would.

  3. #43
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    I am now engaged in developing a pneumatic Berdan deprimer. (Started a thread about it https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...s-of-springers)
    Hydraulic decappers or deprimers are easy to make if you have a lathe. But folks seem to shy away from them. I think it's because you get wet using them. Hence the work on a pneumatic dry version. I believe that BERDAN is the way to go...Most of the problems with reloading primers revolve around the anvils...There are several different styles and they aren't ideally interchangable. Not to mention the hassle of cleaning and replacing them.
    I would also like to build a set of drawing dies to actually MAKE the primer cups. I am very limited in machine tools though. It would be a piece of cake for a real machinist.

  4. #44
    Boolit Grand Master fredj338's Avatar
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    In a shtf situation I would rather scrounge odd ball calibers & break then down for components. Though I like the idea of being self sufficient, the hazards of dealing with some of the ingredients probably not worth the trip.
    EVERY GOOD SHOOTER NEEDS TO BE A HANDLOADER.
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  5. #45
    Boolit Master
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    You recently noted a concern that your methods may be mixing vendors with respect to anvil and cups.

    Doing a batch of nothing but CCI might help your overall consistency.

    My only small pistol CCI are magnum, but I am using quite a few in 38 Sp power level loadings. I should probably save back a bunch and store them in original trays. If this thread continues for a while, I could probably mail you a few hundred.

  6. #46
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by P Flados View Post
    You recently noted a concern that your methods may be mixing vendors with respect to anvil and cups.

    Doing a batch of nothing but CCI might help your overall consistency.

    My only small pistol CCI are magnum, but I am using quite a few in 38 Sp power level loadings. I should probably save back a bunch and store them in original trays. If this thread continues for a while, I could probably mail you a few hundred.
    Yes, in retrospect, I wish I had sorted by brand. As it is, I didn't even sort by type (rifle vs pistol and large vs small). I picked out all the large format cups and treated everything else the same. I know the rifle cups are thicker, but I don't have a good way to measure the cup thickness at the head. I think rifle primers have the same wall thickness, but a thicker base (or face if you prefer). When the ammo companies form the cups, they can control the thickness of the wall vs face independently.

    I would never turn down some trays or primers! I have a ton, but some sorted ones would be a blessing.

  7. #47
    Boolit Master
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    I went and looked at my stockpile of fired brass.

    I came to the conclusion that most of it has mixed brand primers. I did find one batch of a couple hundred 38 Sp with Fiocchi SPP. I decapped over 100 and tried to pry anvils. Took me a long time to get 70 separated. What a PITA. Possibly a different brand will do better. Might just be the tools or the operator.

    I do plan to start labelling batches of ammo with primer brand and then label and keep the fired primers. I shoot at a local indoor range with my younger son on most Fridays. If I pay attention to what I am doing, it will not take that long to build up a good size stash. One downside is that my son is "building" 9mm guns and they are making a mess of the primers. I will be focusing more on collecting primers from revolver loads.

  8. #48
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    CCI's are easy to ID. I'll try to get a close-up of the anvil. Plus, if you just throw them in a tumbler with no media, the anvils fall out.

  9. #49
    Boolit Buddy
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    Great information and thanks for sharing.

    I've been saving spent primers for years thinking some day I might have to make my own. What about mixing anvils and cups from different manufacturers? Over the years I've used Wolf, CCI and Winchester and they've been tossed into boxes and soda bottles. There's no way to tell them apart.

  10. #50
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mvintx View Post
    Great information and thanks for sharing.

    I've been saving spent primers for years thinking some day I might have to make my own. What about mixing anvils and cups from different manufacturers? Over the years I've used Wolf, CCI and Winchester and they've been tossed into boxes and soda bottles. There's no way to tell them apart.
    Well, so far it doesn’t seem to matter. I have the same problem, and I have no way to sort them out. I can’t even tell the difference between rifle and pistol cups. They’re all going bang at this point.

  11. #51
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    amen...."looks fun!!!!
    Any technology not understood, can seem like Magic!!!

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  12. #52
    Boolit Buddy
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    Quote Originally Posted by Castloader View Post
    Well, so far it doesn’t seem to matter. I have the same problem, and I have no way to sort them out. I can’t even tell the difference between rifle and pistol cups. They’re all going bang at this point.
    That's what I wanted to hear. Looks like I'm picking up a new hobby and thanks for your research.

  13. #53
    Boolit Buddy johnnybar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Finster101 View Post
    Might picking up a used cheap food dehydrator work well for drying the primers?
    Air rushing over plastic racks provides potential static charge buildup and I would not count on grounding the plastic to provide a 99.9999% safety factor for potential static discharge when collecting the primers. If you choose to do so, make sure you have around 50% humidity in the room. That will help a lot and really should be done for the entire primer making process. I am the last person to be an annoying safety nut but, 30 years of laboratory directorship taught me some lessons.
    Last edited by johnnybar; 12-01-2021 at 12:27 PM. Reason: Adding humidity recommendation

  14. #54
    Boolit Buddy
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    Quote Originally Posted by johnnybar View Post
    Air rushing over plastic racks provides potential static charge buildup and I would not count on grounding the plastic to provide a 99.9999% safety factor for potential static discharge when collecting the primers. If you choose to do so, make sure you have around 50% humidity in the room. That will help a lot and really should be done for the entire primer making process. I am the last person to be an annoying safety nut but, 30 years of laboratory directorship taught me some lessons.
    I don't plan on performing this operation in the house so I'd be at the mercy of whatever humidity exists outdoors. Should I be concerned or is this something that needs to be done inside. Today it is around 30% humidity.

  15. #55
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mvintx View Post
    That's what I wanted to hear. Looks like I'm picking up a new hobby and thanks for your research.
    Yes, I was happy to see this as well. I'll keep posting updates as I continue to fire additional batches. One of the reasons i put a shallow bevel on the punch that I use to remove the dimple, is so the cup will be sure to be thin enough for pistol use. I'm making standard or even low pressure rounds for practice, so I'm not particularly concerned about pierced primers.

  16. #56
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by johnnybar View Post
    Air rushing over plastic racks provides potential static charge buildup and I would not count on grounding the plastic to provide a 99.9999% safety factor for potential static discharge when collecting the primers. If you choose to do so, make sure you have around 50% humidity in the room. That will help a lot and really should be done for the entire primer making process. I am the last person to be an annoying safety nut but, 30 years of laboratory directorship taught me some lessons.
    I hadn't thought of that, I honestly think the Instant Pot is going to be my go-to. I'm not overly worried about lead contamination with the primers in a separate clean glass jar, nor about a mass-detonation of 100 primers. Some may disagree with me, but that's my personal comfort level. I can control the exact drying temp which I like. Perhaps at some point, I may arrange a controlled detonation of a batch of 100, just to see what kind of damage to expect. I may also make a blast cup to direct the force upwards as another level of safety.

  17. #57
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    Safety update

    I did a test just now dropping a live primer from about 5 feet onto concrete. I dropped the same one 20 times in a row with no detonation. I suppose I could do this 50 or 100 times, or repeat with 5 or 10 primers. I'm interested in thoughts about what constitutes a reasonable test. I'm not planning to spend an hour dropping primers. What seems reasonable?

  18. #58
    Boolit Master almar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by P Flados View Post
    Percussion caps and berdan primers both save you the trouble of messing with anvils.

    And as far as re-using cups, the other choice would be to make new cups. Just this year I made 7mm and 30 cal one stroke gas check makers.

    I am confident an aluminum cup berdan primer for a low pressure pistol target round would work.

    Now just to find brass ....
    some time ago, I got into making primers a lot. One of the problems I found with certain firearms was the lack of reliability. This was partly due to the work hardening of the primer cup. I tried annealing them but that cause them to deform when pressing in the anvil, they didn't fit in the cartridge and the anvil was loose. So the other option was to make cups. I made some dies that would basically make a small gas check, this was a failure because they need to be perfectly even. Another obstacle was the dimensions required to fit the anvil and also fit the cup into the cartridge left only about 0.010 for material thickness and this was much too thin for the base. The base needs to be 0.030 and the sides need to be 0.010 or so. So that means that the cups need to be drawn and trimmed, this is another ball game entirely. Making such dies is beyond my abilities right now. So I used the die I already made to draw out spent .22 lr cases that are everywhere on my property. It worked, I trimmed the end and made a good working cup out of it. The anvil fit perfectly and it fit into the case perfectly. I loaded it in a 45 acp cartridge and shot it, it worked well, no problems. Then I shot it in a medium pressure 460 Rowland case, the pin strike dent flattened out. In the 500 magnum, a brand new cup pierced from the high pressure.

    Another problem I encountered with homemade primers, and this could be due to the fact that I use the H48 mix because (perchlorate is a moisture sponge apparently), is the likely susceptibility to humidity. I would try a batch one day, they would be great, one week later 1 in 3 would fire...not good. So since then I use duco cement dissolved in acetone to seal up the mixture. This seems to work perfectly in my percussion caps. if you don't have duco cement, you can dissolve a tiny bit of smokeless powder in acetone overnight, it forms a thick goo that can be diluted.
    “It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
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  19. #59
    Boolit Master
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    For now, the only application I would consider for making my own cups would be low pressure berdan SPP.

    I would only do this if I could locate a source of berdan primed brass for 38 Sp and/or 32 S&W Long (if anyone has a clue, please speak up).

    For the current situation, the ability to load medium power 38 Sp or full power 32 longs (to be fired in a 327 revolver) would make for good target shooting without burning up my stash of factory primers.

    But then there is the other aspect. Complete loss of access to new primers (SHTF or US Fed Government tyranny). The raw chemicals do not sound expensive. I see a real potential to set aside enough raw materials to make a huge amount of primers (on the order of 100,000). This plus the right tools would make enough full power 38 Sp and/or hot 32 longs using berdan cases and new cups for a lot of shooting even with no new primers. My existing stash of boxer primers could also be re-charged for higher power guns (pistol and rifle) using the more tedious methods involving removing and re-installing anvils.

    If I were to get into game of making / recharging berdan primers, building a 7.62x39 version of an AR might become more tempting.

  20. #60
    Boolit Grand Master
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    Castloader has started an excellent thread that may become a sticky. Recharging of primers is not for everyone. But if things deteriorate, it may be a viable option for those who had not stocked up on primers. It is wise to have options if things go south. And as PF noted above, the raw materials are not expensive to have JIC (Just In Case).

    I feel the same way about making black powder. I would never do it unless there was no other choice. But it is comforting to know it can be done.
    Don Verna


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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