Has anyone decapped live primers?

[WayneConrad]

Bottom Gun,

Ouch!

No, the primers I was setting off were not seated in a case... just set onto the floor. No case to fragment... just little bits of concrete dust being flung about.

But it's worth mentioning that my sense of danger may be just plain broken. My experiments with primers may be evidence of that. I'm glad you brought it up.

 

[TonyT]

I have done it with a SLOW push on the press arm.

 

[Alvin in AZ]

I got a story.

A guy told me a story on himself where he lined up a bunch of large rifle primers on a railroad rail that was inside a rail welding machine in Tracy California (SPRR) there were these rollers see? And the primers were supposed to scare the foreman. Guess what tho?

The roller mashed -all- the primers flat and not a single one went off.

If he had put what's called a "railroad torpedo" on the rail that day instead of the rifle primers, I prob'ly would have never met him at work.

Alvin in AZ

 

[Hikingman]

Yes, with a single stage press and universal decapping die. YMMV.

 

[280PLUS]

I know you've all done it and mostly without mishap but I was JUST reading about this in the "ABC's of Handloading" and they say it's a no no. They recommend snapping them off in your gun. They also say never store them together in a jar or tin. They might all go off at once.

 

[USSR]

280plus,

Of course they're going to say "don't do it". The author's lawyers won't let them say otherwise. However, once you start reloading and talking with other reloaders, you quickly learn what you can safely do.

Don

 

[WayneConrad]

"They also say never store them together in a jar or tin. They might all go off at once."

Now that is sound advice, not just some lawyer talking. It ain't that they might spontaneously go off. It's that if they do go off -- you drop the jar, say -- then there's enough primary explosive in one place to cause a world of hurt.

Check out the packaging that primers come in. It's carefully designed so that if one goes off, it won't cause other primers in the package to go off, too. Avoids that whole "world of hurt" problem.

 

[280PLUS]

Well, NOW I was just at the Dillon website and down in the info there in large letters it says,"NEVER DECAP LIVE PRIMERS". Just thought I'd mention it...