Denting my primers while loading

[Macchina]

I am loading my first handgun bullets (.44 Mag), and while pressing in the primers, they are all denting to the shape of the plunger on my Lee Auto Prime. The dents are not big, but every primer is deformed. They are CCI large pistol magnum primers. Will this affect anything (reliability, accuracy, safety)? I have 25 bullets loaded, this is to sight in my rifle, and test out two loadings for accuracy.

Thank you,
Michaelmcgo

 

[BeJaRa]

I doubt it will hurt anything, but I would try to find out why your autoprime is deforming your primers

 

[res45]

I have had that happen with some primers before using a real old Lee hand primer tool and even a new one it has had no ill affects on anything other than looks or have I ever had a primer misfire or go off accidentally.

 

[benchgrinder]

It is possible to render the primer a dud with a very severe dent, but smaller dents are not usually a problem at all, from my experience.

 

[The Bushmaster]

What's happening is that you are seating the primer using too much pressure at the end of your stroke. I use the Lee Auto Prime II also and do the same thing. Just push them in until they stop and let it go at that. The ding you are talking about is at the edge of the primer and usually a semi-circle. Right? Not a real problem. I haven't had one fail to fire even severly dented. I've even put them in sideways and for s**ts and giggles loaded the primed (only) case into my handgun and even sidways they went off...Primers are hard to kill unless you damage them enough to powder the priming compound and have it fall or dribble out of the cup...

 

[Bowfishrp]

Are you certain you are using the large primer seat and not the small one? It almost sounds like you are using the small one and it is denting the bottom of the large primers.

 

[rcmodel]

If it is a tiny dent in the center of the primer, your seating punch has a sharp tit on it from cutting it off in the screw lathe when they made it.

You can polish it off with some black emery paper on a flat hard surface, or use a stone or fine file to knock off the point.

And +1 on making sure you don't have the punch for Sm. primers in the tool when seating Lg. primers.


rcmodel

 

[ndh87]

I've had my lee auto prime do the same thing on .44 mag rounds, its usually just a small dimple, more like a blemish, but it hasnt hurt anything yet.

 

[StrikeEagle]

My Dillon 550B will do that, too... leave a little dimple in the primer if the primer punch has some little crud thing on it. I watch for that, though it's never caused any problems at all. I have an ink eraser with a brush on the end near my press so I can kind of 'polish' that punch if it gets stuff on it.

In my reloading career I've had my share of 'crushed' and dimpled primers. They're unaesthetic, and I daresay they don't give the best accuracy. But... they all go bang.

 

[redneck2]

Other thing that will happen is a single grain of spilled powder can end up on the punch. You'd think that it would just crush, but sometimes it dents the primer.

 

[Noxx]

Had a similar experience with an SDB while loading .45 ACP. Cleaned off the primer punch and it went away. All of the "dented" rounds performed fine.