Hard to seat primers. First time using a RCBS 90200 hand-held.

[eyeshot]

Not really sure what the "you'll develop a feeling or touch for how far to seat it" means. I have to go to full stop to seat between .002-.005. Is this normal?

I was using sized RP 9mm Luger but couldn't even get them off .000 for depth until I maxed the hand-held out. There is no touch to this but maybe that is the way it is.

I switched to sized Win and S&W and they primed better (easier) than the RP although they sized with quite a bit more effort than the RP. Roll pad RCBS lube was sparingly used for all three during sizing. Lyman carbide/sizing decaping die.

Do I need to ream these pockets out? Could my brand new RCBS #16 be out of spec? I couldn't even get the primers to seat correctly on my single stage. The S&W and Win seated really close to spec between .000 and .001 but wouldn't seat deeper. The RP seated at .000 or where you still feel the primer with your fingertip.

Hopefully, there is enough information for someone to tell me or guess at what is going on. I never, ever had priming problems using my single stage, rifle only, and this is strange to me.

 

[FROGO207]

Big question is what primers are you using?? Have you used these primers before with less problems?

 

[FROGO207]

When priming off the press using my old style Lee round hand primer I can feel the primer settle in the pocket,then pressing harder feel a small movement and that is the anvil settling into the primer pellet. It takes practice to feel this. Also doing it on either my Lee or RCBS press using a ram prime I do not feel the second movement at all. If you are seating the primer .001-.002 that should do it. You are checking for crimped primer pockets as well aren't you? Metric primers, CBC, TULA, Wolf,and cheddite are larger than USA made primers and require more pressure to seat them normally. Let us know.

 

[eyeshot]

Big question is what primers are you using?? Have you used these primers before with less problems?

Just like me to forget important information. CCI500. I've never used SPP before. My first go-around. Rifle guy moving into pistols.

 

[FROGO207]

They are a bit harder to seat than large primers but not THAT much different IMO. Is everything set up for small primers. On my hand held you remove several parts to convert. I have no experience with yours. You may actually need to do the squeeze it to death routine to get the primers in all the way. As long as they are down in a couple thou below flush and not getting the heads crushed flat you should be good. I would load some and try them before I loaded a bunch just to get things sorted out.

 

[eyeshot]

That is the plan. I just don't get why, when I switched to the press, the results were basically the same.

I've finished up my tasks for the day and it's time to go back and play with this.

They are a bit harder to seat than large primers but not THAT much different IMO. Is everything set up for small primers. On my hand held you remove several parts to convert. I have no experience with yours. You may actually need to do the squeeze it to death routine to get the primers in all the way. As long as they are down in a couple thou below flush and not getting the heads crushed flat you should be good. I would load some and try them before I loaded a bunch just to get things sorted out.

 

[AJC1]

That is the plan. I just don't get why, when I switched to the press, the results were basically the same.

I've finished up my tasks for the day and it's time to go back and play with this.

If your seeing the same problem on the press it's the shell holder, primer or brass. I would bet it's the brass. 9mm is the case I have found the most crimps when shooting pistol. I toss those cases. If your looking for a little taper to help get it started I have used a large drill bit to put a little chamfer on the hole. More is not better. I use a ton of cci primers and they have never given me issues, other than finding crimped pockets.i have never measured for depth because I dont think pistol fodder requires that level.

 

[Walkalong]

I have a two new RCBS hand primers, one that takes shell holders and one for the strips with the universal shell holder, both take a lot more hand pressure than my old one one.

 

[AJC1]

I have a two new RCBS hand primers, one that takes shell holders and one for the strips with the universal shell holder, both take a lot more hand pressure than my old one one.

That's funny I run the one variant you dont have. Sold the shell holder one and got the universal with tray.

 

[eyeshot]

I'm feeling the first restriction when the primer enters the pocket but the second needs to go to a full stop to seat.

Thanks, for all the replies. I have to play with this and there is no crimps that I can see on the cases. Any of the three brands.

 

[Charlie98]

I've got the Universal one, without needing shellholders. Looking at the picture of the 90200, I can see how it's quite different.

Shellholders are all different, I would try a different brand shellholder if the handle is bottoming out. Truth be told, my Universal bottoms out once in a while, usually with LP primers... but I'm mashing them into the pocket in some cases.

You might just have a slightly out of spec lot of CCI primers. CCI are known to have pretty hard cups, maybe the combination of that, and slightly large primers, with those tiny 9mm SP pockets is adding up to trouble.

If you are having problems with the press mounted primer, depending on which version you have... something is going on.

For reference, I loaded 200 RP 9mm cases on my ProJector progressive, with CCI 500's about 2 weeks ago... no problems whatsoever, and the Hornady does not have very good leverage against the primer pockets.

 

[Suedenflames68]

I was just chasing primer depth issues with my new press with 9mm. Some of the brands brass had pretty shallow primer pockets. FC win and pmc were all pretty shallow. .001 or .002 was fully seated and I was trying to get em deeper. Blazer had deeper pockets and sunk right down to .006 like nothing, all with the cci spp. Didn't try rp tho so can't say on that. Any other head stamps u can try?

James

 

[Suedenflames68]

Ok, it was gonna bug me if I didn't do it. Grabbed a Rp 9mm case and primed it. .001 was fully seated to me. Calipers can vary, but based on my 1 case you won't get it in there very far without crushing it some. I was catching some high primers measuring oal length in the calipers because case would spin on the primer instead of the case head. Could definitely feel the difference

 

[Skgreen]

The 90200 came with my 'RockChucker' press kit.
I have a batch of bottle-neck PMC that is a pleasure to seat with the 90200,. Got gobs of 9 and 45 that are 'all over the map' relative to how much effort it takes.
The 90200 works, but I prefer to use my LNL AP, even if priming is all I'm doing on that pass.

As far as Crimped pistol brass, Winchester is what I see the most of, but still so few I just chunk 'em.
As I mentioned in another post, I never have measured primer depth. I don't purposely make an attempt to 'feel' that 2nd little bump when seating either.
I just ram it home and move on.

I believe LiveLife had 'something like' a version of a Mythbuster thread that contained pictures of primers seated at various depths.
Unclear what metrics he used to determine the effect of those differences in depth, or if that was even an aspect of the myth in question at the time.

If memory serves, about all ya see is the primer start to develop a flat spot on top, with same flat spot getting larger, and larger.
When the primer sides reach the bottom of the pocket, well, there ya are. Crushing the top downwards is about all that happens thereafter.

Of course, some folks will want/need to move the anvil up against the pellet, and do it within a tight set of tolerances, but I tend to believe those same people are most likely not shooting a bone stock / 100% OEM firearm on the short course next to John Q Public on a Sunday afternoon,,,

As always, YMMV

 

[FROGO207]

As I stated earlier small primers wether rifle or pistol are always slightly harder to seat to me than the large variety. If you think those are hard to seat wait until you try some of the foreign/metric ones. Good on you for noticing the difference though. A lot of reloaders just soldier on through without thinking about it being harder therefore different. There is a learned depth you seat them to that you will get the feel of in time. Between having to hit them twice to go off ( finishing the seating) and crushing the top of the primer.

 

[eyeshot]

I was just chasing primer depth issues with my new press with 9mm. Some of the brands brass had pretty shallow primer pockets. FC win and pmc were all pretty shallow. .001 or .002 was fully seated and I was trying to get em deeper. Blazer had deeper pockets and sunk right down to .006 like nothing, all with the cci spp. Didn't try rp tho so can't say on that. Any other head stamps u can try?

James

I just have a few of the S&W and Win. They work better than the RP in the handheld and press but something still isn't right. Probably me but I never had issues reloading rifle. Learning curve I guess.

 

[eyeshot]

I just have to work my way through this and find the culprit. I thought I was ready to reload when the primers came in but noooo. I'll get her handled and report back. Even if it's something dumb on my part.

Thanks, one and all.

 

[rskent]

Not really sure what the "you'll develop a feeling or touch for how far to seat it" means. I have to go to full stop to seat between .002-.005. Is this normal?

Pretty much. When I use the (old style) RCBS hand primer it mostly bottoms out. If I don’t like the way they look I rotate the case and squeeze again. There also seems to be a lot of variance in shell holders. I have some that work well and some that don’t. I have had three of the hand primers, so I must think they work.

As far as feel, I think the most you can hope for is to feel if primer pocket has opened up. Might be a good idea to separate those from the rest.

 

[Walkalong]

I pretty much bottom them out with my handheld RCBS priming tools.

I was shooting a PRS one day match recently and a college kid was having misfires. He showed them to me and I asked if he was reloading them, yes, he was, and I told him the primers were most likely not seated deeply enough. He said he had very carefully seated this batch, so I gave him the old it's hard to crush a primer enough to damage it, but very easy to not seat one deep enough to fire. He said, hmmm, I've heard that before. A little while later he came to me and said he had been thinking about it and he had been just seating as far as the tool allowed, but with this last batch he was being very careful to try to just seat the to the bottom of the pocket by feel, and added he had some more of the previous batch and was going to try them. Well, he did, and guess what, he stopped having misfires using rounds from the earlier batch where he just seated them hard.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...primers-before-shooting.832434/#post-10757047

From the link:

Primers need to be seated until the anvil legs touch the bottom of the primer pocket (Minimum), and then a little more so the cup pushes down around the legs, up until it hits the bottom of the primer pocket (Maximum).

If seated to little (Anvil legs not touching the bottom of the primer pocket), the firing pin has to seat it fully and then have enough energy left over to crush the priming compound between the cup and the anvil. Sometimes it does not, these are the ones that so often fire on the second try. The first try seats them fully, the second try fires them.

bds has some great primer pics here somewhere that shows the cup and anvil and how they are positioned with each other prior to seating. The anvil legs are sticking out of the cup just a little bit.

After fully seating the anvil's legs and the primer cup is hard against the bottom of the pocket, it takes a great deal of pressure at this point to damage the primer so much it fails.

It is fairly easy to seat a primer too soft, not fully seating it, so that it misfires, but difficult to seat them so hard it damages them to the point of not firing. This statement is based on my decades of seating primers with various tools. I have never had one fail from being seated to hard/deep. Not saying that with some primer tools and some gorilla grips it can't be done, but it is 100/1000 times less likely to happen than seating one too shallow/soft.

We have threads here all the time when failures to fire end up being primers seated too softly/shallow. I can't remember one where it turned out someone managed to crush a primer into submission. I would suggest to all to try it. Some priming systems simply cannot do it for mechanical reasons. Some might have enough travel to do it if you have the strength, That cup surrounded by the brass primer pocket is tough to crush. Very tough.

I use a one at a time adjustable priming tool to seat match primers, and they have been set up very carefully and the primer pockets have been uniformed. Everything else is seated with my RCBS priming tools and I squeeze until the tool stops. My old RCBS tool got so much wear it would not seat LP primers deep enough any more and I made a new tad longer seater stem for it.

 

[Charlie98]

Interesting.

I only have primer seating issues with one cartridge... .41MAG... on my ProJector. For some reason, it will not seat primers deep enough. Not always, it's been a gradual deterioration of some sort, but now, after loading cartridges on the ProJector, I have to reseat every primer with the RCBS Universal tool... and I'm not shy about it... I mash those son of a guns in there. That is the instance above I was referencing where I bottom out the handle on the primer tool. Looking at the seated primers, you can tell they have been squished in there... they are flat and slightly deformed... but they ignite 100% I don't believe I've ever had a failure to fire in 3 different revolvers and the Marlin.

 

[Otto]

.
Do I need to ream these pockets out? .

No, not unless they're crimped. And I've never seen a RP case that was.
I have both RCBS primer tools..one requiring shell holders (which I never cared for) and the Universal that holds the case by spring loaded jaws. The Universal provides better feel and doesn't bottom out as much. If possible, I'd return the 90200 and get the Universal 90201.

 

[GW Staar]

I have a two new RCBS hand primers, one that takes shell holders and one for the strips with the universal shell holder, both take a lot more hand pressure than my old one one.

You've mentioned this before.....guess it took me awhile to be curious enough to ask, but which tool was your old one, that took less pressure.

I started out with the original Lee, one at a time, worked with the thumb. Then I upgraded to the next Lee version, where the tray was added. I gave that one away when I bought my own RCBS APS version that uses strips. I never noticed any of them being harder to push than another. I still have my original Lee one at a time. Will have to experiment.

The one thing I can say, is that I right off noticed that I liked the four finger squeeze better than wearing out my thumb on the old one. But once I got my bench mounted RCBS APS version with the spring that holds up the handle, I only use the hand primer, for testing. Too old to want extra exercise.

 

[eyeshot]

No, not unless they're crimped. And I've never seen a RP case that was.
I have both RCBS primer tools..one requiring shell holders (which I never cared for) and the Universal that holds the case by spring loaded jaws. The Universal provides better feel and doesn't bottom out as much. If possible, I'd return the 90200 and get the Universal 90201.

I bought it used, awesome deal compared to new. The plastic inserts were like new with the white never having been used.

I'm going to buy another shell holder and search for the factory dimensions on RCBS #16 just to eliminate a possible machining error.

Thanks!

 

[eyeshot]

I pretty much bottom them out with my handheld RCBS priming tools.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...primers-before-shooting.832434/#post-10757047

I use a one at a time adjustable priming tool to seat match primers, and they have been set up very carefully and the primer pockets have been uniformed. Everything else is seated with my RCBS priming tools and I squeeze until the tool stops. My old RCBS tool got so much wear it would not seat LP primers deep enough any more and I made a new tad longer seater stem for it.[/QUOTE

Thank you, for that link and feedback.

 

[AJC1]

I know there is a possibility of every single kind of ftf but primers have never given me an issue so it really is hard to understand. With ram priming you have so much leverage it seems impossible not getting them seated hard. Are all these problems with hand primers? I bottom out my tool and they are good every time. I can only conclude that people believe primers are delecut and dont give it the power required. Point the case away from your face and give it all you got. If ever you set one off you have gone to far but I dont find that likely.