Removing unspent primers

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I’ve decapped probably 200-300 live primers. Never had one go off. Some were with the lee decapper and some with the press.

All have fired after being reinstalled.
 
I break down hundreds of cases due to others reloads, split necks, deteriorated powder, case verdigris, milsurp component recovery, black powder, and so on. And now to recover those valuable primers!!!!!!
I personally use a Lyman Spartan press to be able to gently press them out of bad cases! I reuse every primer recovered.
 
As the others have said, just go slow and easy and its not a problem. Safety glasses are never a bad idea. I'm a little more skittish when removing crimped in primers but so far I have not set one off. Slow and easy!
 
I have done a couple hundred without having one go off. Then I successfully re-used them with no apparent degradation in their performance. Reasonable standard eye protection is ALWAYS in order any time you’re working the loading bench. Components may never fail but people do make mistakes - you never know.
 
Archie said:
Nice device to simplify life. I may do that as well.
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I can deprime brass at the park while the kids play, at the lake chilling by the water, and even on the tailgate while the old bat is in the dr too long. All my brass is deprimed before tumbling and time I have in abundance, and I enjoy it.
 
Depriming live primers with a decapping die with proper safety wear ( glasses etc ) I believe is very safe. I have done this many times over the years. But let me tell you my story. About 8-9 years ago I wanted to get some shoulder bump measurements from my fire formed 30/378 Weatherby cases so as to set up my sizing die for a proper shoulder bump. Now the 30/378 case is a bastard case in that most everything in reloading will not fit this case. My decapping die was not big enough to suit the case. They would have to be done by hand with a Lee decaping rod. I then picked 3 fired case to remove the primers so I could get a more precise measurement for the shoulder bump. Held the first one in my left hand , inserted the rod into the case and tapped the primer out. Done the same with the 2'nd case only I made a mistake and picked one with a live primer ( Murphy's Law ). When I gently gave the rod a tap the primer went off and left the case. It went completely through my 4'th finger and fractured my little finger. There was blood everywhere and my wife almost had a heart attack. I ended up at our local ER and had to make up all kinds of lies as to how it happened because if I would have told them what happened there would have been all sorts of investigations due to it being gun related. I know this was all my fault. A stupid mistake and no one to blame other than myself. But it opened my eyes as to how much power a primer has and should be kept in mind whenever one is handling primers for whatever the reason. JME
 
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I strip down dud & dropped ammo from the range all the time. The only time I have had primers go off while removing is when the .45 auto large primers have had light strikes on them. I don't know why it's only the large primer .45s but that the way it has worked out.
 
Murray Brook, thank you for posting that story, a couple of posts above. It really drives home the incredible power of primers. It went all the way through one finger, and broke the bone in the next finger?! No doubt in my mind that they are to be treated with the utmost caution and respect.
 
A friend of mine while in Florida learned the power of primers the hard way. While loading in his garage he wanted to demonstrate to his wife how loud they were. On the cement floor of his garage he placed a LRPM and hit it with a framing hammer. It tore the hammer out of his hand, drove it up and through the ceiling, and left the hammer imbedded in the roof. Tough lesson learned. If you’re watching Larry, sorry I Iet the out of the bag. LOL.
 
Jackiesman said:
A friend of mine while in Florida learned the power of primers the hard way. While loading in his garage he wanted to demonstrate to his wife how loud they were. On the cement floor of his garage he placed a LRPM and hit it with a framing hammer. It tore the hammer out of his hand, drove it up and through the ceiling, and left the hammer imbedded in the roof. Tough lesson learned. If you’re watching Larry, sorry I Iet the out of the bag. LOL.
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I demonstrated the loudness of primers for my wife by losing one or two (or three or more) in the living room carpet. Suffice to say, vacuuming became my job and I was not to do it when she was home.
But at least I got a nice new vacuum at the same time. And when we remodeled all the carpet was replaced with tile. No problem.
 
hdbiker said:
the couple times I had to de cap loaded primers , I just shot them and was done with it
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Since I posted this I have resized/decapped/tumbled nearly 600 .223 cases and loaded 280 9mm.

Thise primed .338 cases are still sitting on my bench.

I think I will fire everyone of them prior to decapping. Call me a coward, but that’s the plan.
 
Jackiesman said:
A friend of mine while in Florida learned the power of primers the hard way. While loading in his garage he wanted to demonstrate to his wife how loud they were. On the cement floor of his garage he placed a LRPM and hit it with a framing hammer. It tore the hammer out of his hand, drove it up and through the ceiling, and left the hammer imbedded in the roof. Tough lesson learned. If you’re watching Larry, sorry I Iet the out of the bag. LOL.
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I have hit primers before, none had that much power. The shotgun primers have the most power & then never pushed back on the hammer.
 
AK Hunter said:
I have hit primers before, none had that much power. The shotgun primers have the most power & then never pushed back on the hammer.
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This was a Winchester LRP magnum primer. I helped him fix the drywall on the ceiling but (always a caveat) I wasn’t personally standing there watching him do it. His wife did, and echoed his actions. I believed him. My personal kudos to you for having the nerve to physically try it, I won’t!
 
I pushed out 2 primers from some old 7.62x54R this am. They were beginning to show verdigris deterioration.
I was able to do this because they were boxer primed brass cases.
The head stamps read “REMINGTON 17”
Now that is very old!!!!!
Powder looked good, but primers were corroded fuzzy white.
Bullets miked .310
Sadly the brass cases had split necks. Drats!
 
tightgroup tiger said:
I ran about a dozen .38 special primed cases through my ultrasonic with much stronger citric acid than you are using, and Dawn dishwashing detergent.
When I discovered this I set them up on a shelf for 3 weeks and left them dry out.
I loaded them as an experiment, they all fired and I couldn't tell the difference between them and new primers.
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I did the same thing by accident, had about a hundred .357 mag mixed into spent brass that were primed, went through at least 5 or 6 hot water/soap baths. Dried in oven at 150 degrees and after pulling out and sorting, found primed rounds. Shot a few with no powder/bullet with no problem, loaded a few again, no problem. Primers are pretty tough as long as not doused with oily substances.
 
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