[BigG]

I have only single stage reloaded but from other threads here I take it that some manufacturers use tubes to stack primers for their automatic feeds? Some of the posters say they keep extra tubes filled so they can speed up the process. To my thinking, that is something like having a bomb ready to explode. Say it ain't so! :uhoh:

[Jim Watson]

Nearly all primer feeds stack primers in tubes. They don't blow up very often and even then the user has probably done something stupid.

The exceptions I know of being the RCBS strip feed - which is apparently not selling well, I just read that CCI are raising prices on primers in strips - and the Bonanza-Forster bench tool which stacks them on edge.

I don't see the point in accumulating a bunch of prefilled tubes just so you can load at a high rate longer. They have to be filled sometime, so the overall production rate is the same. I like stopping every hundred rounds to do something else and look around to check the powder, brass, and bullet supplies.

[dickwholliday]

i have a couple of bros that managed to blow up a tube of p;rimers in their dillon 650's....the blast sheild prevented any injury but made a mess of the sheetrock over the tube when all the primers went up....DICK

[Bronson7]

Don't know about the 650, but I don't see how it could be possible on the 550. In fact I've never heard or read of it happening. I preload 5 tubes at my leasure ahead of time. While overall time is the same, it does save time while actually reloading.
Bronson7

[BigG]

They don't blow up very often... :uhoh:

[Edward429451]

but I don't see how it could be possible on the 550. In fact I've never heard or read of it happening

It can happen on a 550. I was in the other room when a guy set off a full tube in one. The ceiling looked as described above. I set one primer off in my 550, just happened to be the last primer.

[Navy joe]

The tubes themselves aren't going to go bang just laying about. I don't know how folks are blowing up a tube in the mag, but sometimes they do. My guess is that the little plastic tip of the feed tube is worn and an extra live primer falls down in the way and goes off when the handle is stroked to full down, igniting the primer in the way and any primer dust that has accumulated. Two contributing factors are being jekry with the ram rather than feeling what it is telling you about the case you are sizing and/or the machine and not keeping your machine clean. Mine seems to need the primer feed cleaned every few thousand rounds.

The common thing to the Dillon detonations in the mag that I have heard of is no damage to the operator, just a hole in the ceiling. The magazine is well built just for such a case. Loading the magazine plus 3 spare tubes allows me to have an uninterrupted 400 round loading session which takes about an hour. It would take a lot longer if I stopped to load each tube individually due to the fact of being in a rhythm while loading.

[Bronson7]

Edward, how did it happen? Any ideas? I'd like to know what contributes to it so I can avoid it. Thanks.
Bronson7

[Nero Steptoe]

I load on a 650, and my 650's feeder tube (the one in the machine) doesn't have any plastic on it at all. There is no plastic in the 650's priming system that I can find.

Concern about a loaded tube's blowing up all by itself, while just lying around is silly.

I don't see how a modern 650, with the disk-type priming system, could ignite a tube of primers, as the tube is separated from the primer being seated.

[Jim Watson]

I don't either, but I have read more accounts of 650s blowing the primer feed than all other Dillons combined. The wheel was supposed to make it really, really safe, but may not have. I haven't seen enough reports for stats, just to figure that it is very scarce anyway. I have loaded for years on an old C-H Autochamp Mk IV that I have been assured is a deathtrap but have never fired or even hung up a primer, much less gang-fired the tube.

[BigG]

No, but I can imagine somebody dropping a tube full on a concrete floor, for example. Fire one; fire em all. :uhoh:

[Jeeper]

Every one of these that I have ever heard of was a result of operator error. People feel some tension and instead of checking it and being safe they just force the handel. It think this is another one of those urban legends that has happened a few times in the couse of billions of reounds loaded. I dont think dropping a tube on concrete would set off primers either. I have done it by accident a couple times. Primes have to be ignited by hitting the anvil. It would be damn hard for that to happen by dropping a tube. THe entire primer would need to compress. I wouldnt even worry about this happeneing at all if you act safely and cautiously. I think the chance of shooting yourself is probably a million times more likely.

[Paul "Fitz" Jones]

I have interviewed over a thousand competitive shooters and sold about that many progressive reloaders mainly Stars and Auto Champs and automated reloaders. I have never heard of an explosion in a Star but a number of them in an Auto champ so I invented a blast shield for it as the main distributor of them. I also sold a half dozen other brands also.
In my helpful booklet included with my sales "How To Live With And Love Your Progressive Reloader" I discuss them and whether it was from a primer tube rolling of a reloading bench or a primer jam in a reloader all the explosions I traced down were caused by CCI primers.

I sold and personallu use a primer turret magazine that holds a thousand primers on my Star reloader and use Feferal primers exclusively that have never exploded since they were invented..

I have been reloading and selling reloading and bullet casting tools since 1952.

Paul Jones Retired
Fitz Pistol Grips
Jones Munitions Systems

[Nero Steptoe]

Not to be contentious, but until I see clear evidence that a modern 650 has fired off a priming tube, then I won't believe that it happens. The primer being seated is separated from the tube of primers by the diameter of the priming disk. (I'm not saying that it's impossible, just that I ain't gonna waste a nannosecond worrying about it!)

[Mike Irwin]

I knew a man who was almost killed when the primer tube on his RCBS went off in the middle 1960s. They were pretty much unshielded then. He had primers and shrapnel embedded in his face, chest, and neck, and lost the sight in one eye and most hearing in one ear.

Wash your primer tubes and feed mechanisms occasionally to remove any primer dust that might tend to accumulate.