When I separated my brass by headstamp after a range trip, I had one Winchester in with the Starline (all 45 LC).
I put the Winchester in the box of already loaded Winchesters and forgot about it. After reloading some other brass, and putting my powder away, I looked in the Winchester box, and realized that I had one empty round. For the heck of it, I decapped and primed it.
At the range, I fired it to see what a primer only load felt like. I was safe - I treated it exactly as a live round.
I was surprised by the results - I shoot a Blackhawk, and I could barely turn the cylinder to get it out. When I go the round out, the primer looked "polished" - it had been scraping against the frame.
When I thought about it, it made sense. When the primer ignites, it tried to push itself backwards, out of the primer hole. Normally, a very short time later, the hot gasses pushing the bullet forward also push the shell back - "re-seating" the primer. Since there was no bullet or gunpowder in the round I shot, the shell was not pushed back, so the empty primer was not "re-seated".
Somewhat interesting.
Mike
I put the Winchester in the box of already loaded Winchesters and forgot about it. After reloading some other brass, and putting my powder away, I looked in the Winchester box, and realized that I had one empty round. For the heck of it, I decapped and primed it.
At the range, I fired it to see what a primer only load felt like. I was safe - I treated it exactly as a live round.
I was surprised by the results - I shoot a Blackhawk, and I could barely turn the cylinder to get it out. When I go the round out, the primer looked "polished" - it had been scraping against the frame.
When I thought about it, it made sense. When the primer ignites, it tried to push itself backwards, out of the primer hole. Normally, a very short time later, the hot gasses pushing the bullet forward also push the shell back - "re-seating" the primer. Since there was no bullet or gunpowder in the round I shot, the shell was not pushed back, so the empty primer was not "re-seated".
Somewhat interesting.
Mike