Primer question

D

Danb6177

New member
Ok so this was my first go at reloading. I had 25 Winchester 38 sp and 25 S&B 38 sp. I cleaned them in a tumbler together and then separated them and resized and deprimed. I then cleaned the primer pockets with a tool. Id say the Winchester still had more carbon on them then the S&B did.

Any way I primed the Winchesters all with no issue. The S&B were very very tight. And I noticed that after seating the primer on them there was a little sliver of primer left in the primer holder. It happened on 15 of the 25 I primed.
Is this normal? They are all seated but why are the primer pocket so small on these rounds? Is it bad that the primers were forced in so hard that it took some off the sides lol?

For reference Im used the same primers on both. CCI500 and loaded them on a single stage rock chucker using the on press primer.
 
S&B, Norma and I'm sure a few other foreign suppliers are a very tight fit because they are about .002 smaller pockets. Not to worry, they won't cause you any problems, although the sliver of
primer left is not common. If you have trouble with the firing of these rounds, I would check the pockets carefully for residue left over.
 
L. Boscoe said:
S&B, Norma and I'm sure a few other foreign suppliers are a very tight fit because they are about .002 smaller pockets. Not to worry, they won't cause you any problems, although the sliver of
primer left is not common. If you have trouble with the firing of these rounds, I would check the pockets carefully for residue left over.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I was thinking as long as the primer is sitting flush in the pocket it should be ok.
 
Chamfer next time

Since you have a tight pocket on the S&B that is causing you some seating issues, run a light bevel on the pockets after your deprive with a case mouth chamfer tool. The primers should go in smoother next time.
 
Not all primer pockets are identical in size ... there are variations in tolerances and in makers specifications .
Simple fix ... a little hand tool , like the primer pocket cleaner , called a Primer Pocket Uniformer ... it cuts the pockets to a uniform diameter and depth ...Use the Uniformer then
Bevel the edge of the primer pocket opening ,just a little, and after that you will have no more primer seating problems ...

Also ... Look for crimped in Primers ... some ammo using led free primers and most military ammo have crimped in primers ... For that use a Primer Crimp Removing Tool , also known as a Reamer ... to cut away the crimp and bevel the pocket edge .

I have a set of hand tools from Lyman and another from CH4D ...
Check them out ... once reamed and uniformed a pocket is done ...
I also clean my pockets like you do ...Keep On Keeping On !
Gary
 
gwpercle said:
Not all primer pockets are identical in size ... there are variations in tolerances and in makers specifications .
Simple fix ... a little hand tool , like the primer pocket cleaner , called a Primer Pocket Uniformer ... it cuts the pockets to a uniform diameter and depth ...Use the Uniformer then
Bevel the edge of the primer pocket opening ,just a little, and after that you will have no more primer seating problems ...

Also ... Look for crimped in Primers ... some ammo using led free primers and most military ammo have crimped in primers ... For that use a Primer Crimp Removing Tool , also known as a Reamer ... to cut away the crimp and bevel the pocket edge .

I have a set of hand tools from Lyman and another from CH4D ...
Check them out ... once reamed and uniformed a pocket is done ...
I also clean my pockets like you do ...Keep On Keeping On !
Gary
Click to expand...
Thanks for this! I didn’t know the uniformed tool existed. My next purchase lol.
 
Ime with older versions of winchester brass, primer pockets can be conical. Using a flat scraper sized to the primer pocket only cleans the outside ledge where the primer is seated. The wire brushes do better. If you cut the bottom of the primer pocket flat, the pocket may be deeper than desired.
 
These did shoot just fine. It was nice to go through the entire process from brass to brass. I understand alot of this stuff way better now.
 
Danb6177; just one other thought, i don't know what all you may plan on loading. but if "for accuracy" is ever one of them, then the key word is "consistency" the more consistent your ammo the better the accuracy will be. cheers
 
georgehwbush said:
Danb6177; just one other thought, i don't know what all you may plan on loading. but if "for accuracy" is ever one of them, then the key word is "consistency" the more consistent your ammo the better the accuracy will be. cheers
Click to expand...
Yes thank you, I was focusing on that for sure. Something i did not expect was cases to weigh different. That threw me off a bit because i literally weighed every cartridge being that it was my first time. So it took a little longer but it made me happier lol. Had to weight the empty cartridge then zero (tare) and then add powder charge and weigh again. So I think i was real close to uniformity.
The 38s I reloaded and shot were very accurate. My factory bought 357 were ..ok. So curious now to see if the 357 reloads after I load them will be more accurate
 
The linked picture shows S&B .38 Special as the headstamp.

IF the Winchester brass does not have a caliber marking, it usually means it was produced under/for a military contract. GI ammo has the year, and a code for who made it, and normally, nothing else. For example, WCC 12 would be Winchester made in 2012 (unless you've got something from the 1900s.)

GI headstamped brass is frequently on the civilian market either as fired brass or new ammo due to surplusing, contract cancelations, and production overruns. Its nothing special.

GI spec cases may have different case capacities than commercial brass, not a big issue with .38 special, but could be very important with rifle brass due to the higher pressures involved.
 
As an experienced reloader, I find most primer pocket tools to be a total waste of time. I’ve owned reamers, uniformers, brushes and cleaner tools.

I do like to chip the carbon out of precision rifle rounds with the RCBS brush tool. Even this has no basis in an actual impovement. It makes me feel good.

When you look at it logically, all of these tools are hand aligned and hand driven. This is a recipe for in accuracy. The uniformers datum off the base, but seating is based on the upper rim surface. So, what is it doing. People that measure these things say nothing, even in precision rifles.

A uniformer will deepen and square the bottom. A reamer will cut a lead in where cases can be crimped.

Might be interesting to try a primer pocket go/nogo gage.
 
nathan; for the most part i would totally agree with you, performance wise there is probably no benefit. in most cases.

on the other hand i have had some cases where range brass has proven the benefit of primer pocket tools that will resize the pocket that might otherwise be too tight or too shallow.

and as i do use a lot of "picked up" brass, i like to have a primer pocket uniforming tool.

granted it is a one off use there, after the initial use it only serves to clean the carbon out the bottom of the pocket. but yes the first time use can on occasion be a good thing.
 
S&B, being European are typically sized to metric dimensions - which are VERY close but not the same as US made - it's the same with shotgun primers, Euro ones are a smidge larger
 
I reload a lot of 7.5 Swiss. The only source of brass I found was PPU

As has been noted, the pockets are just a tad small. Over time they loosened up.

A unifiromer helped a bit but not a complete answer. The larger size may work better than small primers as a bit more latitude.
 
I've made measurements of IMI new, never-loaded brass (no crimp, therefore) and found primer pockets about 0.0004" smaller than the U.S. sizes. Not a lot, but enough to cause stiff seating, so I run it through my Dillon swager before loading it. I have also found foreign-made primers sometimes hard to seat, even in a U.S. spec primer pocket. The Russian primers from the Tula plant, in particular, were like that when they were still available. This seating resistance can be caused by the primer cups being fatter or thicker, of course, but more insidiously, it can also be caused by the cups being rather crudely trimmed to height on something that leaves marks like a belt sander would on the lip of the cup. If they aren't tumbled long enough after that sanding and before they charge them and add the anvils, the wire edge burr created by the "belt sander" can fail to be removed completely. This wire edge can sometimes break off during seating and be left as a bit of primer cup scrap. I don't know what primers Danb67 is using, but I mention this to point out they could be part of the problem.


Danb67 said:
Thanks for this! I didn’t know the uniformed tool existed. My next purchase lol.
Click to expand...

A watch out here: There are two kinds of primer pocket uniforming tools. The one usually called a uniforming tool is a primer pocket depth uniforming cutter that cuts the floor of the primer pocket to achieve uniform depth. It won't do anything about seating resistance. The other is the kind that uniforms the profile of the primer pocket, and it is usually called a primer pocket reamer. They are available both as separate hand tools and as an accessory to the Wilson trimmer, among others. You also have the pricier option of using a primer pocket swaging tool for this function.
 
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