Loose primer pockets????

[UziLand]

I've seen several posts that mention "loose primer pockets".
In my decades of reloading I have not encountered this. I use an old single stage as my priming station so I don't get as much "feel" of resistance such as with a hand primer. So what actually constitutes a loose pocket?
Most of the brass I have scrapped was getting thin and/or starting to crack.
I am among those that don't mind reloading nickel plated pistol brass.
In fact I like to have a few in each batch because 99% of the time, they are the first to crack. I use light loads in my old age so the brass gets reused many times before reaching EOL stage.

 

[243winxb]

Loose primer pockets

In my decades of reloading I have not encountered this.

Not in my reloads. But last year a guy on the bench next to me came over. Ask if i knew why the primer fell out of his fired 300 Win. mag. brass. Easy answer, to much powder/pressure, reduce load. I have one loading that reachs book maximum. I stop when accuracy is good. People should buy a different cartridge if theres is not doing it for them. Trying to turn a 223 into a 220 Swift is not a good idea. Or a 308 in to a 300 mag.

 

[horseman1]

Every pass through loading up a couple hundred 223 loads of my Federal brass, I usually find one where the primer goes in a little "too easy". That case gets marked with a green sharpie marker and is pitched after being shot, rather than reloaded. I learned that trick from another member on the forum.... Well, I've pretty much learned everything I know about reloading on this forum . Primer pockets can get stretched out in my humble and limited experience. I have only had this occur on 223 and nearly all were Federals, although I think I had a couple Lake City brass that had been reloaded quite a few times. Never had this happen with pistol rounds, but I given enough time, they might do it too. But I cant say I have had it occur.

Somewhere on THR, I had a thread on this when I first encountered the problem and I purchased and reviewed a tool for checking primer pockets. I later received a message from the mfg of the tool that it had been improved since I reviewed it. I'll see if I can find a link to that thread...

H1

 

[UziLand]

The sharpie mark is a good idea. On 223,s I am sure I could feel if it was too easy. Especially the swaged one's that are usually a little tight.

 

[horseman1]

Here is the thread where I asked about it.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=729177&highlight=primer+pocket

I learned a lot in that thread....
Gamestalker and others provided some great writeups.

H1

 

[UziLand]

Thanks Horseman1, that thread was very informative.

 

[LiveLife]

If your primer pockets are loose, you can consider using Fiocchi/Tula/Wolf primers which are metric standard and have slightly larger cups to extend the life of brass.

 

[Dudedog]

I have had some 9mms get loose pockets. I also mark them with a sharpie but I use red for stop and toss. I don't sort 9mm brass by number of times loadedded it all just goes in a bucket, but I am fairly sure these cases had multiple loads before the pockets got loose.

 

[spitballer]

Thank you, uziland. I was beginning to think I was the only one who never got loose primer pockets, and this is after at least a dozen reloads. If anything the're getting more snug! The only thing I may be doing differently is rotating the cases a couple of times and re-squeezing, fully, for each primer.