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Posted: 10/28/2009 11:51:50 AM EDT
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I decided to redo the headspace on about 25 older .308 reloaded cartridges. I pulled the bullets and removed the powder and resized them. The primers were decapped during the resizing.
The primers look OK. Does anyone have any experience in reusing primers that have been seated and then decapped? |
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It would make me nervous to try and reuse them for a couple of reasons:
When new in the package the anvils are not seated against the primer material, this is done when they are pressed home the first time, in essence arming the primer. Your dealing with a armed primer from step one now...while not a huge charge they are certainly capable of doing harm to a finger or eye. Just not worth the safety risk to me. Second if you choose to reload them their ignition is questionable at best both from the reliability stand point of even going off and their ability to uniformly ignite the powder. I know primers are hard to come by now but I don't feel its worth the risk. |
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It would make me nervous to try and reuse them for a couple of reasons: When new in the package the anvils are not seated against the primer material, this is done when they are pressed home the first time, in essence arming the primer. Your dealing with a armed primer from step one now...while not a huge charge they are certainly capable of doing harm to a finger or eye. Just not worth the safety risk to me. Second if you choose to reload them their ignition is questionable at best both from the reliability stand point of even going off and their ability to uniformly ignite the powder. I know primers are hard to come by now but I don't feel its worth the risk. Good input. This what I figured but I just wanted to see if anybody had any experience. |
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So what is the worst that can happen? They may not seat as well as primer diameter may be changed due to seating twice and decapping once.
Go for it. It is not breaking the pellet so much as the speed it is broken at that causes it to fire. As the priming pellet may be broken, I would not use them for match grade ammo or home defense ammo. Use the old primers for plinking. What ever happened to learning by doing? |
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So what is the worst that can happen? They may not seat as well as primer diameter may be changed due to seating twice and decapping once. Go for it. It is not breaking the pellet so much as the speed it is broken at that causes it to fire. As the priming pellet may be broken, I would not use them for match grade ammo or home defense ammo. Use the old primers for plinking. What ever happened to learning by doing? this, ive done it a hadful of times with no issues but as stated above, wouldnt use it for match or defense |
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So what is the worst that can happen? They may not seat as well as primer diameter may be changed due to seating twice and decapping once. Go for it. It is not breaking the pellet so much as the speed it is broken at that causes it to fire. As the priming pellet may be broken, I would not use them for match grade ammo or home defense ammo. Use the old primers for plinking. What ever happened to learning by doing? this, ive done it a hadful of times with no issues but as stated above, wouldnt use it for match or defense +1 |
| I've done the same thing with .40 cases that don't fit the case guage after reloading. I pull the bullets and then very carefully re-size, decapping the live primer in the process. I think it's generally the decapping that's dangerous, since you're putting pressure on a live explosive compound... after they're out I re-prime them into practice brass and generally shoot them at the range, just target shooting. I wouldn't use "pulled" primers in match ammo or even something I'd fire rapidly in case there was a problem. I havn't had a problem yet, I've saved maybe 75 primers this way over the last year or so... I know that's not statistically much, but I'm just putting it out there to say it's been done. |
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I've been using recycled primers for years. http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/P8030257-1.jpg http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/P8030259.jpg I use them for case forming loads, or blasting ammo. No problems here. I have used decapped primers with no problem. Just push them out of the case with the decapping pin and reseat them, they've always went bang. I don't do it often. |
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I've been using recycled primers for years. http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/P8030257-1.jpg http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/P8030259.jpg I use them for case forming loads, or blasting ammo. No problems here. +1 I've done it with .223, 22-250 and .243 with no problems. |
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So what is the worst that can happen? They may not seat as well as primer diameter may be changed due to seating twice and decapping once. Go for it. It is not breaking the pellet so much as the speed it is broken at that causes it to fire. As the priming pellet may be broken, I would not use them for match grade ammo or home defense ammo. Use the old primers for plinking. What ever happened to learning by doing? Well, in my case, after I set a few off while priming, I developed primer'ers flinch. Now, I know I look silly priming with earmuffs and the big polycarbonate face shields on.   Hopefully the flinch will soon pass.
PS: What is wrong with removing the decapping pin when resizing, after dumping the powder, to avoid pushing out the originally seated primers? |
If headspace is the problem, why decap them in the first place? Remove the decapping pin and resize it and away you go? Unless i am missing something? 
dammit, beat by several posts... guess i should read all the replies before i think i'm the first one to figger shit out.
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If headspace is the problem, why decap them in the first place? Remove the decapping pin and resize it and away you go? Unless i am missing something?
dammit, beat by several posts... guess i should read all the replies before i think i'm the first one to figger shit out. Beat me to the anwser also. But to add: I always just screw the decapping pin up in the die so it doesnt decap the case when sizing, I do this anyway because it puts the expander up higher in the case so it is more supported when the expander is pulled through the case neck for less run-out and I decap on a universal decapper. So most of my dies have the decapping pin removed and the expander run up high, just under the neck sizing section of the die so when extracting the case from the die the expander comes through the neck as soon as it comes out of the neck sizing section of the die. |
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