No Bang???

Mikey said:

Well they are as fully seated as I can get them with my press. Not sure if some primer pockets are not as deep as others or if there is some crud in the way or if my press needs some adjustment that I am not familiar with. I am optimistic as the 25% that are not flush are barely not flush and you really have to examine them to tell, at the volume that I shoot I really want to avoid hand priming.

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Are you cleaning the primer pockets? I have a small round ss brush on my prep station that all of them get hit on.

I don't clean my primer pockets on thousands of .38's and 9x18's and have no trouble, but have no experience with other calibers. I personally did have inconsistancies when using my press to prime cases, many folks don't.
I obviously enjoy hand priming, and it really isn't slow at all, takes about two - three seconds per round, I just do a couple hundred, put em in a tupperware continer till I need em, I have several hundred that sat for years, and have had no issues when using them.

Mikey said:

Silverwolf - They are large pistol primers for sure.

Guthook - Thanks for the info.

Oreo - No the firing spring is stock and works fine with factory ammo. I shot about 200rnds of winchester this weekend without issue. This tells me that my winchester primers should not be the problem either unless I managed to get a bad batch or if winchester doesn't use their own primers.

Smokey - Thanks for the advice I am going to take your (and others here) advice although in a different order. I checked the striker channel and its clean, the gun only has about 4-500 rounds through it.

Last night I went over my press and the shell plate was oh so slightly loose. I gave it a 1/4 turn or less to tighten it back up. Then loaded a few rounds, of these rounds there was about 25% of them that I could not get the primers 100% flush but they are close. I will not get a chance to shoot them till Friday so I will report back on how they worked. If this doesn't work I will try different primers.

Thanks all for your help.

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Hi Mikey, I've loaded thousands of rounds of both large and small pistol on my LNL AP and I've never had an issue with primers not fully seating. My most common brand of primers are winchester, but I've also loaded, CCI, Federal, and Wolf.

It may be true that the feel of seating the primer is slightly better with a hand primer, but the mechanism on the LNL is just a spring loaded punch pin (the same as a hand primer). On the LNL the bottom of the punch pin contacts the press frame, and as additional pressure is applied it compress the spring and drives the pin upward into the primer and then the case.

I believe it was mentioned somewhere, but can you confirm that you changed from the small primer punch to the large primer punch when you started loading the 45s? I'm assuming you changed the primer slide because you're not having feeding issues.

Bottom line I dont think you have a press problem. If your punch pin was damaged that could cause it, but it would happen all the time. You could have a bad shell plate where one holder is out of spec, that seems unlikely (but could explain a 20% problem). Assuming no obstruction between the sub plate and frame to prevent full range of motion, that only leaves the brass and the primers. Of those two my money would be on the brass.

How do you have the press mounted? I have mine mounted to a reasonably heavy 2" solid maple topped bench and I've run into some primer/brass combinations where it felt like I was going to lift the bench off the floor to seat the primer, but they seated. In some cases I was using my left hand to hold the bench down while seating the primer. I upgraded to a angled roller handle to resolve this problem by creating greater leverage.

Hope this helps

Every couple thousand rounds I need to clean the primer punch on my LnL. Some brake cleaner & a tooth brush does the job well. Might be something to consider.

Baumer - Yes I did change to the large primer punch. Press is mounted to a cheap craftsman workbench. It is fairly solid but not perfect. Brass could be the culprit as I have a hodgepodge, however I can not see a pattern in which cases cause the primer not to seat 100%.

Oreo - Thats not a bad idea, I am going to pull the punch out and clean it tonight along with the shell plate.

Mikey, just for fun I converted my press over to large primer last night, just to make sure I know what I'm talking about (been shooting a bunch of 9 and 38). I loaded up 100 rounds of 45. I used winchester primers and mixed (at least once fired) nickel plated brass. No problems what so ever getting the primers to seat fully. In fact I'd say the feel is a little better than the small pistol. The only other thing I noticed in the process that could possibly be causing a priming problem is the spring on the spent primer tube. You might want to just look to make sure it's not somehow deformed. Here's a pic of the rounds I loaded.

Make sure that you do not have tumbler media (crushed shells/corn cob) in the primer pockets. This can cause primer seating issues.

Just a thought.

Boxcab said:

Make sure that you do not have tumbler media (crushed shells/corn cob) in the primer pockets. This can cause primer seating issues.

Just a thought.

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Been there, done that

Baumer - When you load 45, are all the primers 100% flat? I agree that you can feel the primer going in place with the LP. With SP I could not feel much but they always worked.

Where is the "spring on the spent primer tube"?

I was playing with the press last night and tried tightening up the primer punch which of course resulted in me destroying the LP punch. It looks like I am going to be on a first name basis with tech support. So far I have nothing but good things to say about them.

Boxcab - I tumble my brass with the primers in place. Thats a good thing to watch out for if I ever decide to start depriming before I tumble.

I can feel a good primer insertion when using my Dillon RL 550B. Additionally, when I rotate the plate from the decapping/priming stage to the powder stage, it won't rotate or very well if the primer is protruding.

I love Hornady customer service...I call tell them what stupid thing I did now and they send me replacements. The guy at tech support also said that I may need an extremely slight adjustment on the paws that could be causing the punch not to line up 100% with the primers. Hopefully my most recent batch of ammo will work and no adjustment will be necessary.

Mikey said:

Baumer - When you load 45, are all the primers 100% flat? I agree that you can feel the primer going in place with the LP. With SP I could not feel much but they always worked.

Where is the "spring on the spent primer tube"?

I was playing with the press last night and tried tightening up the primer punch which of course resulted in me destroying the LP punch. It looks like I am going to be on a first name basis with tech support. So far I have nothing but good things to say about them.

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Yes - the primers are absolutely flat. I was trying to show that in the photo where the rounds will sit flat on the bench. No wobble.

The spent primer tube runs from the sub plate down through the frame and connects to the plastic tubing. When you raise the ram you should see a spring between the sub plate and the frame with the spent primer tube running through it. It's about 5/8 in long. On the upstroke (priming) this spring along with the primer punch spring are compressed.

Dont worry about breaking stuff. Once you've established you rep with the guys at tech support they'll just send extra spare parts in anticipation of your next mistake. At least that's what I've heard

the primers did not ignite. if the primer ignited, it would have squibbed the bullet.

so IMO there are only two real answers:

1. there are light strikes (they look good on the photo)

2. primer is dead/comntaminated/flash hole blocked

could be oil, tumbling media, no priming compound in the cup... etc.

break some of the rounds apart and look.

the only other answer i can think of:

some cases escaped decapping and you loaded on top of an already dead primer.

I have loaded thousands of Federal primers in a Dillon 650, and my only caveat is that they are not suitable for firearms that have heavy unsprung firing pins-such as the SKS and the MAS 49/56. I had my 49/56 double on me at the range with the Federal primers and it became a single shot for the rest of the session.
Looking at your picture, I'm leaning toward the defective primer theory, but the Federal primers should take care of your problem either way.
DocAitch