Primer issues - What could possibly cause this?

[7Acres]

So I'm loading 9mm with SPPs I've used before with no issue. It's been a while since I've done any reloading but the Christmas/New Years downtime seemed a great time to enjoy some reloading therapy. Got the press, projectiles, powder, etc. all set up and configured. Then I proceeded to load 50 rounds. Went well. So I proceeded to load another hundred or so. I figured I better fire the first 50 to make sure all is well. To my delight every round functioned perfectly.

Well the next several days I loaded about 600 more. Well, I decided to change my powder load. Loaded a few to do a test fire. First round "click" no bang. Ejected the dud and the striker definitely did it's job. Chambered the second round, again "click" no primer pop or bang. Third round went bang as intended. Then I dropped the first two round back in and tried them again. One fired normally the other was still a dud.

I had some theories and troubleshooting I worked through. Cleaned my gun, firing pin etc. Used a different gun. Same inconsistency. Loaded some brass with just primers to make sure there was no powder in the equation. Same inconsistency. Some would fire, some fired on the second try some would not fire no matter what. Of the ones that would not fire no matter how many re-attempts I successfully set them off via flame. They all popped.

So it seems my primer compound doesn't seem to be the issue. This brass is all brass I bought off here 1X fired. I tumbled it with the primers still in. And my Lee press pops them out with the first die while the new primer goes in immediately thereafter. So the primer pocket did not get tumbled clean. Could that (dirty pocket) be causing my intermittent issue with the primer's anvil not having the travel it needs from one round to the next?

I'm really scratching my head here. Thought I'd turn to the wisdom here. Any ideas what could be plaguing me?

[racepres]

Primer seating procedure and depth..

[7Acres]

Thanks racepres. So I'll share a bit on that. I'm a bit anal on primer depth. I want every one flush. None sticking out proud. I feel each one as I place the completed round in the ammo box. That being said, if one does fail the flush depth test I simply put it back in the press and mash it down flat.

I had wondered whether that was okay since by that time there could be some grains of powder that could have funneled down the flash hole into the primer pocket. Is that definitely an issue? Any other procedure issues that could be contributing I might not be aware of?

[Mk42gunner]

In actuality, primers should be seated a bit below flush. The legs of the anvil need to bear against the bottom of the primer pocket to provide proper resistance when the firing pin hits the primer.

This is explained in the front half of just about any reloading manual.

If your primers aren't seated deeply enough, some of the energy from the firing pin may be being used to fully seat the primer, not leaving enough to set off the primer.

Robert

[guzma393]

They should be seated all the way into the primer pocket. Did you try seating it deeper?

In my case, I was hand priming ginex primers which were a bit oversized so I let some that were "flush" pass. Those caused misfires (although they shot fine after the first strike) and even some hangfires.

For those primers, I seat them with the lee ram prime, making sure they bottom out with the primer pocket. Went bang everytime.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

[BigAlofPa.]

When i first started to reload. I had a lot of rounds that needed a second strike. Primers not seated all the way was the culprit. Now i make sure they bottom out when priming.

[Tim357]

Also, when reseating primers, the priming compound can be crushed a bit. Primers ignite more reliably when the priming pellet is a solid mass. If cracked or broken, they don't always ignite first go round...

[Outpost75]

Is brass sorted by headstamp or mixed?

Is brass decapped and tumble cleaned before being primed, charged and assembled on a progressive loading machine?

Are flash holes 100 percent visually inspected and cleared of any lodged particles of tumbling media before priming?

Using mixed, unsorted brass and then seating primers in a dirty primer pocket is sure recipe either for misfires or high and proud primers which could cause a slam-fife!

I decap and tumble clean, then hand-seat primers in a CLEAN primer pocket. Cases are then sized on the loading machine with the decapping stem removed, expanded, charged, bullets seated to length and separately profile-crimped, same as factory wadcutter match ammo.

[dverna]

Seat the primer just below flush and you will be fine.

I do not sort pistol brass...just a waste of time for plinking ammunition. Dirty primer pockets are not a problem, but lots of folks are anal about stuff like that. It is your time to waste if you want to sort brass and clean primer pockets.

KISS...seat primers properly first. I will be shocked if that doesn’t solve your problem.

[358429]

Are these the refrigerated primers?

[txbirdman]

I usually seat pistol primers with a Lee auto prime (old style). Have noticed that as the tool aged and tolerances increased the primer wasn’t fully seated. Got a replacement part and also got in the habit of double seating with the primer seating tool on my Lee Classic turret press. Since I started using this procedure I’ve had no problems.

[poppy42]

I had a problem with cci spp about a year ago. A whole brick I have an extensive post about it. You might do a search and read it. 4 different guns same result, and it wasn’t primer depth. I decided it was a miss labeled box. Srp labeled spp. Srp have tougher cups. Also have you done a plunk test? What are lube are you using? Tumble lube?

[racepres]

@7Acres
Have you tried seating primers under flush??
I have been using the Lee AutoprimeII in the small Lee "C" press...Great "feel"... Never even a Slight Problem.. Course... Only been??? maybe 25 Years with that little Lee press... Whenever they First came out...so time is Approximate..

[mdi]

Primer seating procedure and depth..

98% of primer problems is due to improper seating. Probably more but there is the odd ball out there. I discovered a ram prime in the mid '90s and it worked great. I did have a few FTF in one gun with Winchester small pistol primers but solved it by "sensitizing" the primers. I then got 100% good firing (I call it "pre load", way back they callled it "sensitizing". It's just seating the primer all the way to the bottom of the pocket as all primers should be, and adding a little more" "ummph!", adding a little "crush"). With that one exception, the ram prime worked flawlessly. Once I learned to dump the primers on a paper towel so I guld pick them up easily, it didn't take long to prime 50 cases. In the thousands of primers I've used in 40 years I can only remember 5 or 6 that wre really "bad" primers from the factory, three with missing anvils...

[Old Caster]

I initially used a Herter model three for about 20 years and then bought a Lee plastic primer and then used it until I got an early 550. I never had any problems with primers going off until I bought some Wolf lpp about 20 years ago. It would be about 1 every three hundred or so and since they were real cheap, a lot of my friends bought some also and had the same result. Plinking, this wouldn't bother me but we were all Bullseye shooters so we couldn't have a misfire in anything but slow fire and it was a big risk to hope it would happen then. None of us ever deprimed and then cleaned the cases and never had a problem with it. If I have a primer that sort of hangs up on my 550 where it turns, it is obvious to me that the primer is not seated deeply enough and I redo it. 9mm is the most likely because many of them have to have the pocket swaged out and I might have missed it and years ago, 45 ACP were common too. Go ahead and reseat the primer if that is the problem even if the shell is already loaded because my friends and I tried to set a primer off in a 550 with every idea we could imagine including dropping a piece of shot under the primer and were never successful even when whacking it as hard as we could to the point of being ridiculous . I have used srp in pistol cases if i am out and no problems except in my model 27, 14, and 10 that I have worked on to lighten the trigger pull and for them I even need to use Federal spp. Don't know if Federal srp would work or not but I have never been in that position so haven't needed to try.

[7Acres]

This is all very good information. And it definitely is helping. I loaded 50 more with all the same components as before. This time 47 went bang. Much better percentage than what I was getting previously. I really put my body into seating the primers till they were more than flush. Checked every one to make sure they felt deep/concave in there; and I could see daylight under a straight edge. Of the 3 that didn't go off, 1 lit on the second firing attempt. The other two popped with flame.

Old Caster said, "...were never successful even when whacking it as hard as we could to the point of being ridiculous" That's pretty much where I'm at.

So my technique & depth were certainly a factor. But I'm bummed as I don't know how I could use more force, care and attention to get them seated any deeper than what I just did. These are TULA SPPs.

In an other note, the initial 50 that functioned perfectly in my OP, those were all SRPs. I noticed they seated nice and deep with my original basic/lacking seating technique. Those were Remington 6 1/2 SRPs.

So what should I do? Put the TULAs on the shelf and forget about them? And just consider myself a all-SRP non-TULA guy. Lol!

[Walks]

I hand seat all primers.
Seat once, rotate case 180degrees and seat again.
I only use USA made primers. Tried russian once, gave away the other 950.

[1006]

I had this issue many years ago with Wolf primers. I bought lots of them 5000 SPP, 5000 SRP, and 5000 LPP. The rifle and large pistol primers have been 100% reliable, the Small Pistol performed at about 95%—very frustrating. I quit using them for anything other than range practice drills.

[Outpost75]

Three misfires is unacceptable.

In factory ammo the expectation is perhaps one fail to fire in a million rounds.

[JimB..]

You should spend some time the duds. Put a straight edge across them to see if the primer is proud. Compare the firing pin indentation to a round that fired. When you pull the round apart does the primer have an anvil?