primer recovery

[BigJakeJ1s]

My mom vacuumed up a live 22 LR round once. Just made a lot of noise, but no damage to the vacuum cleaner. Rattled the nerves of the operator of said cleaner. She was not pleased with my dad...

If I was going to deprime live primers, I'd do it with either an oversized sizing die (one for a larger diameter cartridge) or a universal depriming die. That way if the primer does go off, it has room to vent out around the outside of the shell. And I wouldn't risk my best sizing die, or a carbide sizing die on it either.

Beware that soaking in oil is not a reliable way of making a primer inert. I don't know that there is a proven, reliable way to do it. Funny how we take all kinds of extremes to make sure primers go bang when we want it too, but there's almost nothing that will guarantee it doesn't go bang when we don't want it to...

Andy

 

[Slamfire]

Primers are expensive and I am cheap. I had about 300 or 500 match rifle cases season crack at the neck due to deteriorating mil surplus powder. Each of those cases had a CCI #34 primer in it . Those are not cheap. I de primed each and every case being very gentle on the downstroke. And primed a bunch of 308 cases with the stuff, loaded a 168 Sierra with 42.0 grains IMR 4064 and shot the stuff. It shot MOA. It did not cluster as well as new primer brass shot that day during load testing. But it shot well enough for offhand ammo, maybe I will give it a try out to 300 yards.

I was also given a 5lb dishwashing detergent bucket full of primed WWII 30-06. The owner had pulled the bullets and dumped the powder, and was too chicken to knock the primers out. Well fools will run where angles fear to tread!. I de primed all of that stuff. Except for the one in twenty or one in thirty primer that pierced, or went off. The primer crimp around the primer just would not release some primers. You could actually see the cup being distorated, and at some point, the cup would be pierced or it would go bang!. The blasted stuff never blew the primer out, instead I would get a pierced primer with a lot of primer smoke going up the decapping die. On primers that pierced but did not go off, I tried removing the primer with a Berdan primer removal tool or a sharp tool. That was guaranteed to ignite the primer. Of course wondering if I would have fingers in the morning always made the job more enjoyable. A laugh a minute you might say. I finally chucked all the pierced primer cases. I could not get the primer cup out one way or another.

And I decrimped, sized, and trimmed all of those WWII cases and I will get around to loading and shooting them in the next millennium.

 

[JA]

A friend was a partner on a subcontract from http://www.talonammo.com/
to demil over 13 million rounds of 30 Carbine. Due to restrictions in Talon's contracts to demil US Army small caliber ammunition the work had to be done in West Virgina with workers referred by the state unemployment office. It was a federal/state "workfare" program.
So they used Rock Chucker reloading presses,bullet pulling dies,and depriming dies. They ran two shifts to demil the ammo. Once the bullets and powder had been removed they started working on depriming the cases. The first day they had two primers go off and two ladies quit working for them. But after the second talk with all employees explaining how that you can't "slap" the handle of the press. But once you feel the depriming pin touch the primer to use a steady even pressure to push the primer out of the case. After this second talk they didn't have a single primer go off depriming the rest of the 13 million+ rounds.
Less than 1 out of every 1000 primers would be damaged during removal from the cases. Which resulted in the anvil falling out of the primer. In testing the primers several thousand rounds were loaded using the dimilled componets with every round firing without a single dud.

 

[Ross]

A few years back my boss gave me the "opportunity" to remove 2,000 primers from new .45 Magnum cases that were to be shipped by mail to England.
There were no exciting moments in the experience. I still have those Win mag large pistol primers that I use for plinking, fireforming and such. None has ever failed me. I just can't throw away $45.ºº worth of primers that do not seem to present a hazard.
I used a .33 Winchester or a .348 Winchester sizing die to decap on an RCBS Rockchucker, thought he Bonanza Coax would have been better at collecting the primers.
With suitable care, paranoia is not required.
Cheers from Darkest California,
Ross

 

[Shoney]

Over the past 46 years of reloading, I have never detonated a primer in a press. I have put them in backwards, sideway, and deformed some horribly, but no kabooms. I have deprimed many hundreds of live primers over the years, and reused them without deterioration of accuracy. I used the majority of them for fowling shots. When I deprime live primers, I always put a 3/4 “ piece of plywood between the press and my body, just for safety.

Now for that “it’s only a couple of pennies” crowd, I’m willing to bet you are the same guys who will:

spend 3 hours searching for those last two wayward 45 cases (they’re only a penny a piece);

split out your $40 genes picking up range brass (but its only a penny a piece for the brass);

sprint 50 yards across live fire to claim that box of once fired brass that some guy just abandoned (but they’re only a penny a piece);

casually mention to your shooting buddy, so everyone within earshot will hear, that you shot the last guy that tried to pick up your brass (but its only a penny a piece for the brass);

get into a fist fight with your shooting buddy over the rights to go thru the last trash barrel at the range (but its only a penny a piece for the brass);

Thats my 2 cents.