Decapping/resizing .45ACP question

S

Seamaster

New member
While reloading .45ACP the other night, I experienced a lot of primer seating issues, discovered that the bottoms of the spent primers were separating from the sides, leaving the sides of the primer cups in the primer pocket, preventing the seating of the new primer. This is new to me, do I have anything to be concerned about? The brass was PMC, tho most of the PMC brass I used worked fine.
 
This is known in the trade as a "ringer" because of the ring shaped primer cup sidewalls left in the pocket.
It is apparently a corrosion "welding" effect from wet chemical cleaning or weathering.

Commercial reloading equipment has Ringer Detectors to reject and discard such cases.
I have read of using taps, screws, and EZ Outs to pull out the rings. I would not bother with that unless it were some rare caliber. The few I see, I just trash.

If you are getting many, you should add a decap and inspect step. I have not had a primer to fire when crushed against the ring but it could happen.
 
Not sure I have enough to properly diagnose the problem from what you have written, but 1) was this small primer or large primer cases, and 2) did you check to make sure the brass was not crimped?

I haven't encountered very much PMC 45 ACP brass, but I have come across 9mm cases with a PMC headstamp that were crimped.
 
These are large pistol primers, no crimps. Had about 10 rounds in which this happened, using a Dillon 650 press I could "feel" pretty quickly that something was amiss, clear machine and continue. Discarded the brass.

Thanks for the replies, learning something new every time I reload.
 
Do you wet tumble with primers still in the cases? I've only ever had that problem when I did that, so now I just run all the brass through the 1050 with a decap die and then tumble. Never happened again....


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Had that with 2500 + 9mm cases, fired out of SMG's, acquired from the OPP TRU team(same as State Police SWAT) after they left a big mess on a CF range 35 plus years ago. Have to find 'em to say what brand of ammo. Always thought they'd been lacquered in. Never bother to figure anything else out.
 
Suggest you dry them as soon as they are tumbled and load as soon as they are dry so as to minimize the chance for corrosion to bond the primers in place. Can be hard to schedule, but otherwise you will keep running into ringers. Either that or decap before tumbling.
 
Great. I have been decapping before wet tumbling for the last year+, but finally decided that it is too much work for pistol brass, so I just wet tumbled about 4,500 rounds or so with the primers in for the first time in a long time.

One more thing to worry about now... Ugh.
 
I've come across this situation from time to time. Mostly, it's appeared in range pick-ups that have been well weathered and corrosion has melded the primer wall to the primer pocket wall. The center of the spent primer pops out, leaving the rest in place in the primer pocket.

Speaking for myself, I've just pitched those cases and moved on...
 
My son reminded me that we picked up a bag of 500 cleaned brass at a gun range in New Hampshire last summer and used it in our last reloading session, first brass I used not being responsible for cleaning it, since this brass was quite shiny inside and out, most likely it was wet tumbled and I now suspect corrosion to be the cause as others suggested.
 
You could try soaking them in mineral spirits or kerosene overnight to see if that penetrated enough to loosed the bond. If so, it will then just dry off over a day.

You could try ultrasonic cleaning in a 1% solution of citric acid, which will very rapidly (seconds) attack any brass corrosion it touches, to see if that penetrates and removes enough corrosion to help.

Another possibility, if you have a separate priming tool, is to try forcing the spent primers slightly deeper into the primer pocket to break the bond before decapping.
 
Jim Watson said:
Suggest you dry them as soon as they are tumbled and load as soon as they are dry so as to minimize the chance for corrosion to bond the primers in place. Can be hard to schedule, but otherwise you will keep running into ringers. Either that or decap before tumbling.
Click to expand...
When I wet tumble the brass before decapping, I found primer pockets still moist even the other parts of the brass were totally dry. Moisture just got trapped there, unless some means of power drying, considerable time in oven for instance, are used. Moisture in the primer is no good to seat a new primer.

That's why I wet the tumble after decapping.

-TL

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I found the same thing decades ago when I tried shaking cases in a jug half full of the old NRA vinegar and salt solution, followed by thorough rinsing. Where the brass would dry off sitting out overnight, I could find water in primer pockets up to a week or so later. Dry pockets required baking the brass in a low oven at 250°F or so (you have to get over 480°F before any annealing effects occur, so the low temperature is safe).
 
Yup.
A friend whose tumbler wore out decided he would save the cost of a new one and wash his brass. He did not dry it adequately and turned out a pretty good percentage of misfires.

I know a lot of BPCR shooters, who pretty much have to wash or wet tumble their cases, who find it satisfactory to leave the brass in the sun for a while. But I cook mine in the oven.
 
I also.wet tumble

Decap before tumbling.... wet tumble .. rinse and shake in a town to get exess moister out. Then i dry with a hair dryer and move the brass around to get evenly heated and dryed out... then use the cool down on the hair dryer to cool cases... inspect random cases for moister...
Repeat drying prosses if nessesary
 
Seamaster said:
While reloading .45ACP the other night, I experienced a lot of primer seating issues, discovered that the bottoms of the spent primers were separating from the sides, leaving the sides of the primer cups in the primer pocket, preventing the seating of the new primer. This is new to me, do I have anything to be concerned about? The brass was PMC, tho most of the PMC brass I used worked fine.
Click to expand...

I've come across this situation from time to time. Mostly, it's appeared in range pick-ups that have been well weathered and corrosion has melded the primer wall to the primer pocket wall. The center of the spent primer pops out, leaving the rest in place in the primer pocket.
Click to expand...

I see this too. I toss 'em. And, yes, it seems to be mostly old crudded up range scavenged brass.

Noting peoples' comments, I wonder if it's from range scavenged brass getting wet, either from getting rained on or (more likely here) dew in the morning.
 
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