I have seen similar experiments where the primer was seated proud and the firing pin actually pushed it deeper into the pocket and didn't initiate a slamfire. I've not seen it done in a way that would prevent the primer from being pushed in but I haven't really scoured the internet either.
Take a gander at this article:
Mysteries And Misconceptions Of The All-Important Primer
I consider it a great article. If you read it, you see that high primers are the most common cause of misfires. The author explains that the primer anvil has to be firmly seated, and the anvil gap set, or the primer will no go bangie! If the primer is high, the anvil is not going to be resting on the bottom of the primer pocket.
I want to say, I lived through the period, where the Army Ordnance Bureau and their stooges at the NRA promulgated a lie that only high primers and your worn out receiver bridge could cause slamfires. The Army Ordnance Bureau pretended that the M14/M1 rifles and ammunition were perfect, and that any problems that did happen, were all due to user misconduct. The NRA was fully behind this. Both of these organizations deliberately misdirected the problem of slamfires away from primers and primer sensitivity for decades. Quite literally, there was no such thing as primer sensitivity, a primer was a primer, was a primer. This worked when the only semi automatics that civilians could get their hands on were M1 Garands and M1a's. And even then, there were not many of those out there.
From the in print trail, the coverup started just when civilians highpower competitors were getting their hands on Garands, which would have been the late 1950's early 1960's. At the time, you could get a National Match Garand from the DCM by attending the National Matches at Camp Perry and buying one. It took a lot of work to get a Garand.
Civilians were duplicating their bolt gun reloading practices, because they did not know better, and were having out of battery slamfires. I can't tell you how many shooters told me they neck sized their long range ammunition for their M1a's, which I thought suicidal. They thought, because they had read it in gun magazines, that neck sizing produced more accurate ammunition. No one had warned them that the firing pin was tapping on the primer before the lugs were engagement. Shooters just did not know better., and frankly, did not want to know better. It bothers people when they are not in total control of all situations. However, you cannot create a higher probability event of a slamfire in a Garand mechanism than to neck size your brass and use a Federal primer. Federal match primers were very popular among match rifle shooters. (anything with the word Match sold like hot cakes!) Also, less sensitive primers were not on the market so there was not much choice between primers, but then, no one knew. The guys at the NRA were not talking about it, they were covering for industry. CCI did not introduce their military primer product line, that is CCI #41's and #34's till 1999. Up to then, the only primers on the market were the more sensitive commercial primers with the most sensitive primers being Federals.
The Garand/M14/M1a/M1 carbine/Mini 14 all have a free floating firing pin and that firing pin can contact the primer before cam down. More out of battery slamfires have been reported with this family of actions than any other. In 1961, Springfield Armory is fighting for its M14 rifle, and for its life, against the Colt M16, and that is when the first American Rifleman article appears "proving" the only causes of slamfires are worn out rifles and high primers. That is, the rifle is perfect, and the only faults are due to user created issues. (Boeing claims the same thing in their Boeing 737 MAX crashes) Slamfire deniers do not acknowledge primer sensitivity as a cause.
More or less, this decades old lie got pretty thread bare when civilians bought AR15's in the millions, sometime in the mid 1990's. The AR15 does not have a receiver bridge (Garand/M14 slamfire deniers call it a safety bridge) and plenty of reports surfaced of brand new AR15's slamfiring with factory ammunition. If you want to run into ardent slamfire deniers go to
www.m14forum.com. The only allowed causes of slamfires on that forum are user caused: high primers and a worn rifle.
During the Reagan administration lots of foreign semi automatic rifles arrived on shore, and lots and lots of slamfires due to primer sensitivity have been reported for military service rifles, such as AK47's, SKS, FAL's, MAS 49's. A particularly bad one is the FN 49. For such a rare rifle, it is easy to find accounts of ruined FN49's due to out of battery slamfires.
A high primer can cause a slamfire if the primer pocket is shallow, or if spaces are inserted into the bottom of the primer pocket. Then the anvil is fully supported and the primer is above the case, and if hit hard enough by the bolt face, it will ignite. That's how Wayne Faatz did it in his article on slamfires in the M1 Garand.
https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/m1-garand-slam-fires-potential-causes-solutions/
Wayne spent so much time and effort getting his primers to slamfire, that his early point about primer sensitivity were forgotten by readers. Wayne could not get his high primers to ignite until he inserted spacers under his primers. This article was provided with each Springfield Armory M1a as a warning against high primers. Which, even then, is a misdirection. The primary cause of slamfires in the Garand mechanism is sensitive primers, not high primers. But blaming high primers for slamfires allows the manufacturer a certain level of deniability to the customer. They can, and do, argue that the design is perfect, the manufacture is perfect, and any slamfires that happen to a customer are his fault. When in fact, something intrinsic to the design is that the mechanism allows firing pin contact with the primer before bolt lug engagement.
This is something that Stoner did not allow. The AR design only allows firing pin contact with the primer if the lugs are in battery.
However, the AR will slamfire out of battery, which was totally incomprehensible to me. Until a poster pointed out the issue of bolt bounce. What happens is the firing pin contacts the primer when the lugs are in battery, ignites it, but the ignition is slightly delayed, and due to carrier/bolt bounce, the lugs are rotated out of battery just as the full ignition starts. Out of battery slamfires in the AR mechanism are extremely rare, but they happen. And therefore, I recommend not using sensitive primers in the mechanism for any reason. It is better to use mil spec primers, which reduce the chance of a slamfire, be it in or out of battery. The probability of a slamfire with any primer type is still finite, because primer sensitivity varies within the lot, but the less sensitive primers will slamfire less frequently.
Never chamber a round in a semi automatic with the muzzle pointing at anything you don't want to put a hole in. Bottom line, you are not fully in control of the ignition of these things.
. Perhaps a titanium firing pin would be a good investment. I don't routinely use federal primers (although I have some from the panic of 2008-16), I usually use Winchester or CCI 400s. I've never had a slamfire and I don't want that experience.
