I started reloading in 1970 (waaay pre web) and cannot remember any mention of preloading primers until the mid '90s when I was reading an old reloading text (1940, 1950s?). Not common knowledge, even today. I rarely if ever had FTFs using my Lee Loader or later priming tools, just making sure all primers were fully seated to the bottom of the primer pocket...
Servicios y Aventuras (SA) Primers
- Thread starter MoscowMike
- Start date
I started reloading in 1970 (waaay pre web) and cannot remember any mention of preloading primers until the mid '90s when I was reading an old reloading text (1940, 1950s?). Not common knowledge, even today. I rarely if ever had FTFs using my Lee Loader or later priming tools, just making sure all primers were fully seated to the bottom of the primer pocket...
I was taught to pre-load primers by my reloading mentors. Then I've heard it mentioned several times in this forum.
When I used to shoot PPC (early 80s), we'd always check our factory loaded wadcutters for primers that weren't seated below flush. I check that primers are seated below flush when I case gauge them in my Hundo 100 round case gauge
OrangePwrx9
Member
I second this. My RCBS single stage presses do an excellent job of pre-loading the primer. The Lyman turret presses do well too. Not so much the Lee presses and the hand priming systems do worst of all. It seemed a weak spot of the progressive presses I've used...the force needed could lead to disassembly of the press.
Some presses won't allow the operator to do this effectively. With well made domestic primers, it makes no difference.
Radom Guy
Member
I experienced the same sensitivity with my Hornady LNL. I do not plan to use more of these primers on that press. The primers were a little stickier going in when loading on my Lee Single Stage, but not causing hang ups like it did with the Hornady. They did pretty well with my Lee Classic Turret Press, too. I also used them with my Lee Auto Breech Lock Progressive. I cannot say for sure if they were problematic with that press because I had other issues going on, but I believe they a little sensitive with that press, too.
I’ll keep these primers for use with my Lee presses, single stage and Turret press. I don’t think I will mess with them with my progressives, though.
The most important part is that every single round with which I used these primers have all fired perfectly. And they were a great price from NormaShooting.
I'm a bit surprised at your experience with Lee priming. I've had very good luck with the Lee Auto Bench Prime with the ability to pre-load without much additional effort...the weak point being that it needs separate shell holders.
AS for Lee presses being able to pre-load primers when seating them, the Lee ACP is excellent with seating well below flush the default with normal operation of the handle
CQB45ACP
Member
Just finished priming/expanding 50 45acp cases and preloaded despite doubting my particular situation calls for it. Wanted to join the club.
As always used a SS Lee with their safety prime & Redding die.
As always used a SS Lee with their safety prime & Redding die.
GeoDudeFlorida
Member
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2020
- Messages
- 11,112
The only sticky primers I’ve ever encountered were those that got caught in a flood and were rescued weeks later. Slight corrosion on the brass made seating a challenge but not impossible. I used a Lee Ramprime for those and only lost about a dozen to seating problems - out of a couple thousand. Lost another two dozen to FTF because the priming compound was compromised. I do see the problem with rough surface or slightly out of round mostly and it makes me wonder if the Brazilian primers are possibly one or both?
OrangePwrx9
Member
I admit to having used only the Lee turret presses extensively. The Lee single stage units may be ok. I have a Lee Ram Prime from 20 yrs ago that I haven't used for at least 15 yrs. That did a good job mounted on a single-stage. Don't want to imply my experience is wider than it is.
I have found the most positive primer seating tool to be a ram prime. Definitely not the fastest, but in using one (among other methods) I have had no primer problems. Second best (?) was my Lee bench prime. I seated over 2,000 primers before I broke mine. A heavy box got knocked off a shelf above my bench and it landed on the shell holder slot of my Lee primer, breaking it off. I got an RCBS bench prime (I had seen a lot of RCBS fans touting how great they are. Had I known what a poor design it is I would have saved my money and bought another Lee). Ram primes are simple, show very good "feel" and are inexpensive. Speed or RPH never enter my mind when reloading and single loading primers is good with me...
Thank you for the clarification. Many other folks take their limited experience with a single tool and extrapolate it to include a manufacturer's whole line...which is really too broad a brush to be painting with.
Lee offers a lot of alternatives and some of their recent releases have been inventive and outstanding. I'm not saying they are the best, but for less than $100 they likely are.
BC17A
Member
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2018
- Messages
- 420
This talk about "pre-loading" primers had me wondering what the difference was between it and the normal seating of a primer. Using my Ram-Prime I tried giving these primers a stronger than usual seat pressure and had the same result as before. The lighter hitting strikers still failed more often than not. I got to thinking that this pre-load idea needs to actually push the cup into the priming compound deeper like good reliable primers do just by seating them into the brass like normal. So I decided to make a new punch for my Lee Ram-Prime with a crown on top to slightly concave the primer cup after seating. Success! A true preload. I tested ten primed cases through my lightest striking pistol and all went off on the first pull. Going to load a couple hundred more for a good range test next week.
Pic on the left is after seating a primer, and pic on right shows the primer after preloading it with the crowned punch.
Pic on the left is after seating a primer, and pic on right shows the primer after preloading it with the crowned punch.
ballman6711
Member
I prime on my SS press, and once a primer is seated, I "lean" on the press handle a little bit. I have yet to have a primer fail to go bang in 4 1/2 years of reloading.
chris
chris
CQB45ACP
Member
I just started this too.
stonebuster
Member
You can buy them on GB for $75/1000 + $19.50 shipping. I've shot 300 of them in 38spl with no issues. No issue seating them on my Lee Classic turret either.
OP
OP
MoscowMike
Member
I have loaded SA SPP in 9mm and 38 Special now, and had zero failure to fire in a SIG P365, an Argentine Hi Power and a S&W Airweight. Not a lot of rounds in any of them, but at least it isn’t a big problem for me.
What is a headache is loading them in my Hornady LNL progressive. I normally use CCI primers and have very few issues. On the Hornady press, primers come down through a tube into a slide which moves them from below the tube to under the shell plate, where a ram pushes them up into the decapped casing.
With the SA primers, fairly regularly the slide sticks in the out position, where it is supposed to be picking up a new primer, and the spring can not push it and the new primer back under the shell plate.
I have tried cleaning and lightly polishing the slide and the bottom of the primer tube support as well as adjusting the amount of movement the slide has, with no improvement. Hornady customer support didn’t have any suggestions.
Next step is to carefully put a bit more radius into the bottom of the casting that the primer comes down through, because it looks like the primer is catching on that, but I don’t want to cause problems for other brands.
It will give me something to do until spring!
What is a headache is loading them in my Hornady LNL progressive. I normally use CCI primers and have very few issues. On the Hornady press, primers come down through a tube into a slide which moves them from below the tube to under the shell plate, where a ram pushes them up into the decapped casing.
With the SA primers, fairly regularly the slide sticks in the out position, where it is supposed to be picking up a new primer, and the spring can not push it and the new primer back under the shell plate.
I have tried cleaning and lightly polishing the slide and the bottom of the primer tube support as well as adjusting the amount of movement the slide has, with no improvement. Hornady customer support didn’t have any suggestions.
Next step is to carefully put a bit more radius into the bottom of the casting that the primer comes down through, because it looks like the primer is catching on that, but I don’t want to cause problems for other brands.
It will give me something to do until spring!
Sounds like the timing/dwell of the primer slide is slightly off and the primer doesn't have enough time to drop squarely into the slide.
Have you checked the timing/travel of the cavity pass the end of the tube?
Is it stopping it's rearward movement centered or slightly off...either short or pass?
Do you just eyeball that the slide lines up with the tube or do you use something like a Primer Slide Alignment Tool ?
OP
OP
MoscowMike
Member
Currently the Mark I eyeball. Thanks for the suggestion. I have dropped them a note to see which version my older model press needs.
Viking painter
Member
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2023
- Messages
- 73
I’ve been through 20,000+ of these since they started showing up around the end of 2021 and I’ve only had maybe 10 that required a second strike and 3-4 that didn’t go off at all. This was all in the first 2 thousand I bought and think the first batches of compound might have been a little off on the mixture and also the cups were a little thicker than the current batches. Tried them in 9,38,45,32, even a few 5.56 and noticed the velocities,es and sd #s were nearly identical to the cci primers I normally use. They seat just great in my lee classic press, they have just a slight crunch when they go in just like the cci spp. Being that the cups are ever so slightly thicker, if you have brass that has been shot 3-5 times and the pocket gets a little looser, these fill the void better than say a federal primer with thinner cups and also seem to suffice for srp in a pinch. I will not use these for any SD/HD or hunting type ammo but most likely wouldn’t be a problem,still not taking the chance of a ftf when it really counts. For the $50 a 1000 + hazmat and shipping, they average $.058 a piece and that is the cheapest primers I’ve seen since 2019. Last order I got 10,000 of these and 5000 cci spp so should be able to stretch them through this election cycle. Buy with confidence, these are just as good as most and priced right.
All the primers I have the anvil legs stick out of the cup a tiny bit, preloading gets the cup all the way to the bottom of the primer pocket, pushing it down over the anvil.
That puts all the firing pin energy into smashing the priming compound in between the cup and the anvil, none is wasted pushing the cup down over the anvil to the bottom of the primer pocket.
Think about it like this:
Put a piece of 2x4 wood on concrete and hammer a nail into it. Easy, all the hammers energy goes into the nail.
Now put that 2x4 on top of two inches of foam on the concrete and hammer on it. Lots of wasted energy and the nail takes longer to hammer in.
LV Gun
Member
They are good primers I have used 7000 of them already I purchased mine from Powder Valley and when I need more I will buy them again have not had any problems with seating but have had a FTF here and there, no better or worse than domestic primers .
LiveLife
Member
Walkalong is correct as primers are assembled with anvil feet sticking out of primer cup.
Pre-loading primers is seating primer cup deep enough in the primer pocket to push up on the anvil feet to set anvil tip against priming compound so firing pin/striker hit will set off primer instead of seating the cup deeper (If primer goes off on second strike, likely it was not seated deep enough) - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-and-discussions.778197/page-11#post-12417636
Seating primer is a two (2) step process:
- Initial resistance we feel is the primer anvil feet hitting the bottom of primer pocket
- Second resistance we feel is the primer anvil feet pushing against the bottom of primer pocket setting the anvil tip against the priming compound under the cup.
Your primer cup SHOULD be seated until secondary resistance is felt or about .004" below flush.
As to primer seating depth, .004" below flush will usually bottom out primer cup and set the anvil tip against priming compound but continuing to seat the primer deeper will start to flatten top of primer cup (But in my testing, all the primers seated .004" to .008" below flush were reliably set off) - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-and-discussions.778197/page-11#post-12576848
FYI, I found slightly larger sized Metric primers can be difficult to seat even to flush in some once-fired brass like S&B/RWS and now I reserved these brass with tighter primer pockets to be primed with domestic brand primers.
BTW, here's US Army AMU's take on primer seating depth - http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2016/01/primer-seating-depth-uniformity-and-accuracy/
"Here at the USAMU, we ensure our rifle primers generally run -0.003″ to -0.005″ below the case head. Maximum primer depth is -0.006″ and minimum is -0.002″."
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LV Gun
Member
Thanks for the great information, I do the same thing you do with S&B brass I segregate them out then run my Lee Primer pocket swage through them and use domestic primers. I talked to a CS at Lee as I had them make me a custom PTX expander plug in .358 for use in my 38 S&W PTX die that I use for 9mm . I asked if they had any new stuff coming out he mentioned there will be a new press on there website in 2 weeks I have been following what you have been posting on here for Lee Precision. Thanks for doing that. FredWalkalong is correct as primers are assembled with anvil feet sticking out of primer cup.
Pre-loading primers is seating primer cup deep enough in the primer pocket to push up on the anvil feet to set anvil tip against priming compound so firing pin/striker hit will set off primer instead of seating the cup deeper (If primer goes off on second strike, likely it was not seated deep enough) - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-and-discussions.778197/page-11#post-12417636
Seating primer is a two (2) step process:
If you stop at step #1 (Above flush or flush, depending on depth of primer pocket), then first primer strike may not ignite the priming compound and just leave a shallow dent on cup while pushing the primer cup deeper and second primer strike will ignite the priming compound.
- Initial resistance we feel is the primer anvil feet hitting the bottom of primer pocket
- Second resistance we feel is the primer anvil feet pushing against the bottom of primer pocket setting the anvil tip against the priming compound under the cup.
Your primer cup SHOULD be seated until secondary resistance is felt or about .004" below flush.
As to primer seating depth, .004" below flush will usually bottom out primer cup and set the anvil tip against priming compound but continuing to seat the primer deeper will start to flatten top of primer cup (But in my testing, all the primers seated .004" to .008" below flush were reliably set off) - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-and-discussions.778197/page-11#post-12576848
FYI, I found slightly larger sized Metric primers can be difficult to seat even to flush in some once-fired brass like S&B/RWS and now I reserved these brass with tighter primer pockets to be primed with domestic brand primers.
BTW, here's US Army AMU's take on primer seating depth - http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2016/01/primer-seating-depth-uniformity-and-accuracy/
"Here at the USAMU, we ensure our rifle primers generally run -0.003″ to -0.005″ below the case head. Maximum primer depth is -0.006″ and minimum is -0.002″."
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