Primer Dust from Pulled Cases

[CQB45ACP]

After pulling 19 older 45acp cartridges of my loading, I resized the cases (without pin of course), expanded them, and placed them upside down in an MTM cartridge box to await reloading. This was a week or two ago.

Except for the MTM box, this is SOP for me when breaking down cartridges and have done so scores of times and have then successfully reloaded the cases.

But not this time—check out the picture.

When I moved the cases this AM, I immediately saw primer powder in most every compartment. Have never had this happen before OR have just never noticed. (The translucence of the MTM box lets in a lot of light so improves visibility.)

I do have a theory on how this happened—several years ago I ran loaded cartridges through bulge buster because they wouldn’t chamber reliably. These may be some of those. Others I’ve shot successfully albeit inaccurately. This is a story I’ve told in the past about Acme coated bullets.

Not sure what I’m going to do now but don’t plan to reload and will possibly fire off empty cases or decap and dispose of primers somehow safely.

There are a couple of experiments I’m tempted to try but won’t tell you cause you’ll freak out. If you never hear from me again you’ll know they didn’t end well.

 

[JmacD]

After pulling 19 older 45acp cartridges of my loading, I resized the cases (without pin of course), expanded them, and placed them upside down in an MTM cartridge box to await reloading. This was a week or two ago.

Except for the MTM box, this is SOP for me when breaking down cartridges and have done so scores of times and have then successfully reloaded the cases.

But not this time—check out the picture.

When I moved the cases this AM, I immediately saw primer powder in most every compartment. Have never had this happen before OR have just never noticed. (The translucence of the MTM box lets in a lot of light so improves visibility.)

I do have a theory on how this happened—several years ago I ran loaded cartridges through bulge buster because they wouldn’t chamber reliably. These may be some. Others I’ve shot successfully albeit inaccurately.

Not sure what I’m going to do now but don’t plan to reload and will possibly fire off empty cases or decap and dispose of primers somehow safely.

There are a couple of experiments I’m tempted to try but won’t tell you cause you’ll freak out. If you never hear from me again you’ll know they didn’t end well.

View attachment 1167146

I’m thinking set them on the concrete patio and toss estwing hammers at them… lol

 

[CQB45ACP]

I’m thinking set them on the concrete patio and toss estwing hammers at them… lol

Shhh! Don’t tell anyone.

 

[Blue68f100]

That residue would indicate that the primer pillow is not sealed. May have dried out some over 19 yrs. I would say that the primers are proably still good but you may loose some consistency in them, some lighter. Hard to believe it happened in loaded ammo, which is normally a sealed chamber.

 

[JmacD]

Shhh! Don’t tell anyone.

I used to work with an elderly gentleman, almost 20 years ago, (he has since passed on but at that time was 80 and still working full-time, and could do 20 chin-ups while wearing his framing tool pouch; I can only hope I’m that spry at 80!) and he used to tell how they would take nitroglycerin, when he was using it for gas wells and clearing logging roads, and drop a drop off of a toothpick onto a stump. They would then drop a sledgehammer on it, and it would throw a 20 pound sledgehammer up above your head. I don’t know if a primers gonna have that much umph. But, I was reminded of the old trick of taking an entire roll of bang caps for your cap gun(wow! Not at all a politically correct toy!!!) and hitting it with a hammer in the basement to scare the liver out of my folks

 

[drband]

I used to work with an elderly gentleman, almost 20 years ago, (he has since passed on but at that time was 80 and still working full-time, and could do 20 chin-ups while wearing his framing tool pouch; I can only hope I’m that spry at 80!) and he used to tell how they would take nitroglycerin, when he was using it for gas, wells, and clearing, logging roads, and drop a drop off of a toothpick onto a stump. They would then drop a sledgehammer on it, and it would throw a 20 pound sledgehammer up above your head. I don’t know if a primers gonna have that much umph. But, I was reminded of the old trick of taking an entire roll of bang caps for your cap gun(wow! Not at all a politically correct toy!!!) and hitting it with a hammer in the basement to scare the liver out of my folks

Been there, done that! I have no idea why we thought that was a good idea since it used up our caps at once, except for a few you had to tear out and pop one at a time.

 

[SingleActionAndrew]

I have 5 bricks of federal gold medal LPP where the primer material is that same color with no foil. I had to pull 50 rounds loaded with them and my bullet/powder catch was full of that bright yellow powder too

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

Are you reusing the pulled powder? I wonder what primer dust will do to the burn?

 

[CQB45ACP]

Are you reusing the pulled powder? I wonder what primer dust will do to the burn?

Great question hadn’t even thought of that but yes I already did and shot it Monday.

Can’t recall anything different

 

[JmacD]

Are you reusing the pulled powder? I wonder what primer dust will do to the burn?

I had just thought of that and came to ask the same question…

 

[JmacD]

I had just thought of that and came to ask the same question…

Just talking to myself, I wonder what would happen if you collected a lot of that, like enough to make a powder charge… It would have to be a rather fast burn rate, but I am wondering, just how fast theoretically…

 

[CQB45ACP]

Just talking to myself, I wonder what would happen if you collected a lot of that, like enough to make a powder charge… It would have to be a rather fast burn rate, but I am wondering, just how fast theoretically…

Don’t know but it has me worrying about the remaining bullets I need to pull. Problem is the only one of my pistols they’ll chamber in is tooo pretty to shoot. Was semi-seriously thinking of having a barrel for another cut to fit.

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

f free

Don’t know but it has me worrying about the remaining bullets I need to pull. Problem is the only one of my pistols they’ll chamber in is tooo pretty to shoot. Was semi-seriously thinking of having a barrel for another cut to fit.

Lend it to me. I’ll ugly it up for you.

 

[WeekendReloader]

How did you pull the bullets? Did you use the impact/hammer method? I'm guessing the primers didn't like all the impacts and some of the magic dust came out.

 

[CQB45ACP]

How did you pull the bullets? Did you use the impact/hammer method? I'm guessing the primers didn't like all the impacts and some of the magic dust came out.

Hammer

Used it many times one, two, or at most three whacks. But I’ve never till now checked for damage to primers nor have an ever had a problem with resizing/reusing a case or poping out live primer for reuse. Now I’ll be forever wondering and worrying…

 

[45/30-06OKIE]

Don’t know but it has me worrying about the remaining bullets I need to pull. Problem is the only one of my pistols they’ll chamber in is tooo pretty to shoot. Was semi-seriously thinking of having a barrel for another cut to fit.

This is the universe telling you to get a threaded barrel for it and use a suppressor on it. Haha.