Author: W.R.Buchanan
Subject: Blown out primer!
Posted: October 19 2014 at 1:25pm
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Zed: I just had my first blown primer in 40+ years of reloading. Luckily it was in my Ruger Guide gun which is not only new but really strong as well.
Subject: Blown out primer!
Posted: October 19 2014 at 1:25pm
Zed: I just had my first blown primer in 40+ years of reloading. Luckily it was in my Ruger Guide gun which is not only new but really strong as well. Your primer blow out was a relatively minor one. My blow up was a little more severe than yours.
All of that primer (no longer in the picture above) and resulting debris exited the gun thru the relief hole on the side of the gun.
Needless to say this scared the livin' ship out of me!
It took a while to actually figure out why this happened and the result was a loose primer pocket.
This was once fired Federal .30-06 brass but still there were 7 more loose pockets in that batch I found and I ended up measuring every single one. I also pulled 50 more loaded rounds only to find 3 more loose ones.
I had seated all of these primers on the machine, which was a deviation from my normal method of using a hand held RCBS Universal Priming Tool. The advantage of the hand held tool is that you can feel the pressure needed for each one as you are doing it. With the loading press ,,, Not so much.
So my caution is that if a primer takes little pressure to insert,,, the case is probably bad. It should go in with a firm press fit.
The primer pocket should measure .211-.212 +.000 This one now measures .251! Boom!
Randy