Primer Detonating

[jfh]

I picked my parents poorly, and I ran a .22 range with ears only on one side for a summer--about 40K rounds worth. IOW--

I popped one primer in a press. NBD--and I thought it was about like the "good" quality caps for my cap guns when I was a child.

However, when I was about twelve or so, we used to use a hammer to set off the entire roll of fifty....

Jim H.

 

[Sam1911]

Never set one off in my whole reloading career. Until a couple of weekends ago.

Loading 9mm brass in my friend's Dillon 650, using my very soft Federal 100 small pistol primers.

A few pieces of the brass we were using were military crimped. If you didn't pick up on the extra force it took to decap one and tried to prime that case, sometimes the primer would squash instead of seating.

One did detonate. It didn't take a huge percussive force. Just the rather irresistible pressure of the primer seating ram moving just a hair faster than the other times (apparently).

It went "bang." There was a small flash that I only noticed as I happened to be staring right at the case when it happened.

My bud said, "whoops." I said, "yeah." And we went on about our business.

Not terribly exciting.

-Sam