Soft Primer hits

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Captain Quack

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My Much Better Half shoots a Taurus 605 .38/.357. We've only gotten back into shooting recently and I had a bunch of .38 made up before we quit about 7 years ago. She's been running into a problem with soft primer strikes. They wouldn't fire the first time around but would fire the second time around. We ran 100 rds of commercial ammo through it today and had no problems at all. First batch of reloaded and she had 2 soft strikes. You can see where the primer has struck but it doesn't look like the normal dimple. This happens about 3 times out of every 25 or 30 rds. Anyone have any ideas on what I probably did wrong? The cases were all primed on a RCBS hand primer instead of on the press.

Captain Quack.
 
As ImtheNRA stated, run a thumbnail over the cartridge heads and confirm the primer is seated slightly below the level of the brass. If it’s slightly protruding or even flush it could be being pushed forward by the firing pin when struck. This softens the blow and leaves a shallow dent rather than the deep impression of a clean hit that smooshed against the primer anvil. The deeper seating from the “hammer push” is allowing the priming charge to be fired on the second go-round :).

Stay safe.
 
That makes perfect sense. Is it safe to guess it would be alright to just put it back in the hand primer and seat it a little deeper?

Captain Quack.
 
What if this happens with factory ammo?
In my experience over the last 50 years, the only time I have seen factory ammo that didn't light on the first whack with a firing pin, was because of a weak firing pin spring in the bolt of a Kimber 84m. Replacing the firing pin spring fixed the issue. It is possible for other mechanical issues with the firearm to cause such an issue, such as a broken or worn firing pin, exceptionally dirty bolt, heavy grease or excessive oil in the bolt while hunting in cold weather, etc. The possibility of factory ammo having shallow set primers is in all practicality, nil.
 
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That makes perfect sense. Is it safe to guess it would be alright to just put it back in the hand primer and seat it a little deeper?

Captain Quack.
Yes. Just don't set the primer with a sudden/hard strike. If you have arthritis issues (like I do) use both hands to make sure sufficient pressure is applied, but don't over do it. The primer needs to bottom out in the primer pocket. If you set it with more than enough pressure, you will see a noticeable flattening of the primer cup. This is not a problem unless it gets to be severe. A little flattening is ok, tho. My RCBS Universal Hand Priming Tool has a maximum travel that has never allowed over squashing the primer yet lets me feel the primer set all the way to the bottom.
I hope this is helpful.
 
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Primers can be flush to .008" below tbe case head, when fully seated.

The velocity of the firing pins forward movement can be slow if gun is dry or has crud.

Spray with some Kroil. 6416127-21.jpg

I normaly use WD40 , but dont tell any one. It starts a long debate. :evil:
 
1st clue: Multiple misfires with reloads.
2nd clue: No misfires with factory ammo.
Conclusion: The problem ain’t with the gun. See post #2.

FWIW, I have “reseated” many primers with a hand primer with no misfortunes. If I was concerned about a hand primer setting off a primer, I’d never use one. And RCBS probably wouldn’t sell them. ymmv
 
What if this happens with factory ammo?

One wouldn’t be a quick to point the finger at the primer seating step.

That makes perfect sense. Is it safe to guess it would be alright to just put it back in the hand primer and seat it a little deeper?

I can’t say that I haven’t done that but I started reloading when I was 13 and did a lot of things back then and along the way to today, that were not the smartest choice. I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone to do it.

There are some people that manage to set off primers seating them into empty pockets. I could only imagine that number going up with powder able to flow into the flash hole and be on top of the primer inside the pocket.

A primer going off is one thing a round going off outside a chamber will make a bigger mess as the brass case acts like a pop corn kernel as it gives away.

If you ever did light a loaded round off, trying to seat the primer deeper, I bet you would never do it again.

I’d also bet if you pulled the ammunition down and reseated the primers correctly, you would be less likely to make the mistake again.
 
Before you start blaming the ammo, please consider that when shooting a revolver, one has to allow the gun trigger to recycle. By that I mean allow the trigger to come back all the way forward before shooting the next round in double action. Many new shooters tend to keep tension of the trigger and it doesn't reset completely resulting in a misfire. Another way to test this, is single action fire by chocking the hammer and pulling the trigger. In so doing single action the problem should go away immediately. If I'm wrong, check out the type of primers used if possible. Federal and Remington primers are softer metal and work better in revolvers than all others.
 
I pick up a lot of light primer strike rounds from my local range & almost every one is not seated properly.
 
IMtheNRA is correct. First firing pin strike seats the primer to the bottom of the pocket and second fires primer. Forget "below flush" measurements, as long as the primer cup is not exposed to recoil shield dragging or slam fires, you are OK. Just make sure the primers are seated all the way to the bottom of the pocket. I seat primers until I feel it bottom out, and add a tad more pressure to make sure and to sorta "preload" it a bit. I can't remember a primer failure in a couple decades.....
 
Like Herman B said, depending on how many you already got made up, for range ammo I would just pull the trigger again on the ones that don't go off the first time.

Next time I reloaded, I would make sure to bottom out the primers though.
 
I'll keep that in mind. The main problem is that I have about 300 already primed ready to load. Just primers. No powder. Sit in front of the TV and just hand prime a bunch. In retrospect maybe not the best idea. Since they are just primers I'll take a chance on finding the raised ones and reseat the primer.

Thanks for all the help Guys. You saved us a trip to the gunsmith.

Captain Quack.
 
The main problem is that I have about 300 already primed ready to load. Just primers. No powder.... Since they are just primers I'll take a chance on finding the raised ones and reseat the primer.

That is great, no risk at all setting off a loaded round.
 
I went over the loaded cases and only found a few. She can just run those around the cylinder again to get them off. My major concern was that there was something wrong with the pistol. It's her EDC and if there was a problem with the pin or spring It was off to the gun smith. 100 rds of commercial ammo showed it wasn't so it had to be something I did.

Captain Quack.
 
CCI and small pistol loaded for .38. They are several years old. I made them before we stopped shooting about 7 years ago so I don't think they would have "gone bad" between now and then. I suspect it's primers not being seated properly so I'm going to go over them and look for the primers that aren't flush or lower and reseat them. That and just going round the cylinder again should deal with the situation. It's just a little annoying since she's working on getting all her rounds into the pie plate as fast as she can.

Captain Quack.
 
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