Question on seating primers

I had a bunch of spent brass for 38 special that was giving me problems seating primers correctly---proper depth. After much ado here in the Firing Line, someone finally suggest a "primer pocket uniformer" to make sure the primer pockets were correctly shaped, depth ect. It was a PITA but after doing that to a thousand or so cases, I have not had the same issue with that caliber since.

I bought a couple hundred new cases of R-P 222 Remington brass a while back. Same thing happened--had no luck at all getting primers to seat properly. (Using an RCBS Hand priming tool.) Did the same thing and it cured my problems.
 
I had a similar situation but in my case it was not knowing any better and trusting what I am told is gospel. Such as.. ".223 brass primers aren't crimped". After priming problems, bending a few decapping rods and destroying a few primers, I found out differently.

Now I check ALL brass for crimps and/or any pocket imperfections before I prime them and run them through my Dillon 600 swager. Since doing this I haven't had a single problem since. So, in my case anyway, the pocket was the problem. ;)

Of course, I don't reload a ton of brass and it's more relaxation time for me. Since you are running a progressive I assume you are producing a lot of ammo and the time the extra steps/inspection require may not be desired.
 
The shell plate should not move backwards when you seat a primer. If it does that is because the primer punch is misaligned with the flash hole (shellplate is over advanced) and the act of seating the primer is forcing it into alignment. You may want to check indexing pawls and adjust as needed. If the indexing is good then there is another misalignment issue in play.


I CONCUR WITH THE ABOVE


THEWELSHM
 
I use Remington primers exclusively in my Dillons. Never had a problem.

I started reloading in 1965, and I've never cleaned a primer pocket.

However, any foreign made brass, other than Norma and LaPua, gets the primer pocket swaged before first loading.
 
It is very possible that you are running into crimped pockets on the brass. They do exist, Federal NT and Federal MK 309 Mod 0 (USCG load) are the only ones I have come across so far. The MK 309's I shot were headstamped FC 12. Tried to reload those and ran into the very issue you mentioned. Only after I started looking at which brass were giving me trouble did it dawn on me that they crimped those pockets.
 
Use Federal primers

I was a die-hard CCI primer user for many, many years. Never had a failure. But when I started reloading 45's I couldn't properly seat the primers using my Lee hand primer. I tried every primer available. Federal primers must be softer because I haven't had a single problem since (except trying to put a large pistol primer into a small-primer 45 case)
 
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