An unususl reloading problem

Muir

Well-Known Member
I got a phone call last night from an old friend who has a friend that is learning to reload. The friend had inherited his Dad's rifles and loading gear and decided to keep the tradition going. The problem he ran into was that on seating the bullet in the third of his prepped and charged cases, he was unable to remove the loaded round from the shell holder. After a long three way conversation is was determined that the primer had backed out of the case -evidenced by removal of the shell holder and actually viewing the primer. As it turns out, the brass he had was so old and work hardened that he (on advice of someone on a Forum) had removed the expander ball from the dies before sizing. This made for an overly tight neck. The real problem was that the brass -seemingly- had severely worn out primer pockets from some warmish loads his dad had favored. As near as I can tell, the seating of the bullet pneumatically pushed the primer out just enough to catch the shell holder. (He used a Lee Auto Prime and says the primers seated 'really easy, all the way') The shell holder was of an unknown make and didn't have that that set back relief groove in the face so I have know idea how far out the primer actually was.

I had him remove the seater die, replace the shellholder and cartridge. Run the ram up til the bullet was sticking out the top of the press where he could grab it with a pair of pliers while lowering the ram. He dumped the powder, reseated the primer using the RCBS primer seater on the press, and removed the case.

The usual advice to start anew with brass followed. I'm sorry he had problems but it was an interesting situation and one I don't remember encountering before. ~Muir

(That should read "Unusual", sorry. Not enough coffee)
 
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Pulling bullets out with pliers sound drastic and wasteful.


If I’d been in this situation & had an inertia bullet puller to hand (maybe not an option in your friends' case?) I’d have inverted the whole assembly (press shell-holder & loaded round) with the puller collet reversed in front, and salvaged everything …. apart from the duff cases.:D
 
Lucky it did not pneumatically pull the primer back in to place by vacuum when the bullet was extracted...how would you have diagnosed it then?

Alan
 
Pulling bullets out with pliers sound drastic and wasteful.


If I’d been in this situation & had an inertia bullet puller to hand (maybe not an option in your friends' case?) I’d have inverted the whole assembly (press shell-holder & loaded round) with the puller collet reversed in front, and salvaged everything …. apart from the duff cases.:D
It was the best arrangement that could be made at 9:30pm~Muir
 
Lucky it did not pneumatically pull the primer back in to place by vacuum when the bullet was extracted...how would you have diagnosed it then?

Alan
It may have! But we/they had already determined that the primer was protruding before the bullet was pulled. I was told that they could see the primer down into the hole for the seating/depriming. I couldn't see, of course, so I really have no idea as to the extent -or even if our assumption is correct. The 'fix' is still the same: buy new brass and start over. ~Muir
 
Sounds like you gave him sound advise, at a guess I would say problem would be with the original priming, either brass somehow had got way out of shape, or possible he had not seated the primer deep enough in the first place, if he hand primes this could be the issue, or simply a miss shaped primer? If he is a friend maybe you could get him around and go through what he is doing, I would think cocking up a primer is about as dongerous as it gets, so he should seek out someone to run through things if hes not confident . Thinking it through, I have had a case stick in the press, ( not that stuck) it was after timming, and I seem to remember tiny bits of brass in seater ?
 
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