Tight primer pockets

[igotta40]

I’m fairly new to hand loading, maybe going on 2 years new and so I’ve run across something new to me. I’m prepping some once fired 224 Valkyrie brass, Hornady & Federal. I’m priming with a Hornady hand priming tool. No issues with any brass I’ve primed to date. I’ve also loaded 300WM, 6.5CM, .243 Win & 6.5 Grendel. The Hornady 224V brass is being troublesome, I’m getting deformed primers, very hard to press in, so I stopped. I took a sampling with my calipers. The Federal primer pockets are .172- .173, no issues, and the Hornady are running .170-.171. So it looks like I’ve found my problem.

I see there’s quite a few tools available for primer pockets but I only want to buy the one that will work for me. Need advice, what do I need to get?

 

[AJC1]

So the Valk is notorious for killing primer pockets. You could ream them but that will make it easy this time but fall out the next. I would use my rcbs military crimp remover to make sure they have a good chamfer for alignment and squish them in. Hornady crimps pockets often.

 

[Reloadron]

Well on primer pockets you have two options, you can ream them or swage them. Reaming removes some metal and swaging sort of relocates some metal. So we have primer pocket reamers and swagers.Google may help you on that note. You ream you really don't want to remove much metal or the next go round you may have loose primer pockets.

Those nice people at SAAMI were kind enough to publish both primer and primer pocket specifications, they look like this:


Then we have this:


Using calipers is a good start and when doing so take a few measurements around the pocket for uniformity. I can' suggest swage or team unless I know which would work best for you.

Ballistic Tools makes a nice set of primer pocket Go/NoGo gauges. Worth the price and tells you where your pockets are before you are trying to beat a primer in.

Ron

 

[Blue68f100]

Are you using the right side seating pin?

 

[JT-AR-MG42]

Thought Hornady sources out their brass out of the 'ias'.
The folks over there probably need to check out their calipers.

JT

 

[AJC1]

Other things may work better for measuring pockets. First choice would be Guage pins. Most people don't have those laying around but a lot of guys have a drill index. Find one that fits tight and measure that. If you want to run a test, you may have a countersink that you can make a quick pass with to see if that fixes your problem.

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

I’m fairly new to hand loading, maybe going on 2 years new and so I’ve run across something new to me. I’m prepping some once fired 224 Valkyrie brass, Hornady & Federal. I’m priming with a Hornady hand priming tool. No issues with any brass I’ve primed to date. I’ve also loaded 300WM, 6.5CM, .243 Win & 6.5 Grendel. The Hornady 224V brass is being troublesome, I’m getting deformed primers, very hard to press in, so I stopped. I took a sampling with my calipers. The Federal primer pockets are .172- .173, no issues, and the Hornady are running .170-.171. So it looks like I’ve found my problem.

I see there’s quite a few tools available for primer pockets but I only want to buy the one that will work for me. Need advice, what do I need to get?View attachment 1120030

I’m going to suggest a kind of a silly little cheat: use the large seating stem to get the primers flush then go back with the small to finish seating them. Reason being the large stem will offer more support and more surface area to push the primer in. After one or two firings you won’t have to worry about it, the pocket will be expanded.

 

[ms6852]

This is what you need.
https://www.amazon.com/Lyman-777780...360-9f02-66b44fc1df93&pd_rd_i=B004MCMCYE&th=1

 

[Jonny2guns]

Try chamfering the primer pockets first, it looks like your primer is catching on a crimp gruve.

 

[igotta40]

Hey thanks for all the replies and guidance! The good news is I get to buy I new tool I didn’t have ;-)

 

[Soonerpesek]

Hey thanks for all the replies and guidance! The good news is I get to buy I new tool I didn’t have ;-)

Don’t worry…….at least there are no enablers here to agree with you ……

 

[bfalcon00]

Well on primer pockets you have two options, you can ream them or swage them. Reaming removes some metal and swaging sort of relocates some metal. So we have primer pocket reamers and swagers.Google may help you on that note. You ream you really don't want to remove much metal or the next go round you may have loose primer pockets.

Those nice people at SAAMI were kind enough to publish both primer and primer pocket specifications, they look like this:
View attachment 1120042

Then we have this:
View attachment 1120043

Using calipers is a good start and when doing so take a few measurements around the pocket for uniformity. I can' suggest swage or team unless I know which would work best for you.

Ballistic Tools makes a nice set of primer pocket Go/NoGo gauges. Worth the price and tells you where your pockets are before you are trying to beat a primer in.

Ron

I have a set of those go/no go primer gauges. They are awesome!!

 

[deadeye dick]

This is what you need.
https://www.amazon.com/Lyman-777780...360-9f02-66b44fc1df93&pd_rd_i=B004MCMCYE&th=1

This is what i use. Works for me on 223 crimps.

 

[AJC1]

Right tool for the job.