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Thread: Cock up or not?

  1. #1
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    Cock up or not?

    I've a mate new to reloading and he's primed his .223 cases with small pistol primers by mistake (the shop gave him the wrong ones, l was with him when he asked for small rifle primers, is it safe to load these up as per or should he decap and prime with the correct primers?

  2. #2
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    Personally, I would decap them.

    Rifle primers have a harder case and also contain more powder, so fire differently and create higher pressures. There may be a very slight difference in length too.

    So, depending on your firing pin, they may puncture. I would expect that if you use the same powder charge in the case, the outcome would be different with the pistol primer.

    George
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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kernel Gadaffi View Post
    I've a mate new to reloading and he's primed his .223 cases with small pistol primers by mistake (the shop gave him the wrong ones, l was with him when he asked for small rifle primers, is it safe to load these up as per or should he decap and prime with the correct primers?
    Spoil them with sone penetrating oil left overnight, and then decap them - VERY gently.

    The physics of small pistol primers are a lot different from small rifle primers - that's why they are NOT interchangeable. Think about it - firing off 6.5gr of Bullseye is a lot different than trying to do the same to 25gr of rifle powder...

    The dealer needs a kick up the rear end - if HE told you they were good to go then HE needs some ejakayshun.

    tac

  4. #4
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    De-cap them. I would not bother with oiling to try and make them inert as you will then have to clean the cases to remove the oil. Gentle de-capping is very unlikely to set one off, but just in case, wear eye protection and wrap a rag around the press to contain any small sharp bits that might be ejected. Small pistol primers are not very energetic, and according to my personal experimentation they need either a sharp blow, or a very hard grinding action to set them off.

    If your are worried then simply load them into your firearm and fire them off before de-capping. Suggest that you do this on the range or loosely muffle the muzzle with a thick rag. They are quite loud and will eject fast moving small particles from the barrel.
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  5. #5
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    Assuming its just primed cases then I'd probably just shoot them to pop the primer on a range. Pressure will be low so its unlikely you'd pierce the primer.

  6. #6
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    Just stick your moderator on the end and fire them off....... into a cardboard box with a hole in it if you want to make least noise.

    Rather than oil I've used plain old water to kill them before de-capping if you want to do that, less mess than firing them off and no need to re-clean the primer pockets.

    Just take the re-sizing button off the de-capping rod and screw the rod further down so it doesn't start to re-size the neck.

    As said above.... gentle pressure and eye-protection.

    Cheers

    Fizz
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  7. #7
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    I de-capped over a thousand 9 mil cases recently that I had left over from my pistol days. These were CCI 500 sp primers. I used my standard Wamadet single stage press and a Lee decap/ re-size die with not a single one go pop. Being a tightwad I even re-used the primers in my 38 cases. This was not a good idea as quite a few just fell out of the loaded cases and over half of the ones that stayed in didn't go off! Quite a pain in the proverbial to subsequently pull the bullets. Better to dump the ejected primers in oil to kill them and cut your losses.
    [I]DesG
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  8. #8
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    Personally, I'd load up a few, and see if the load works OK. After all, the energy in a small pistol primer charge is either LESS, or the same, than in a small rifle primer, and the worst that can happen is slightly slower ignition of the powder, which is not going to result in higher pressures.

    The Small Pistol and Small Rifle primers have exactly the same dimensions, though whether the cup is slightly thicker on SR primers, I cannot say. However, I had some (approx. 200) SR primers (REM 7.5 and FED 205) left over from my .223 days, which I used without any issue in my Marlin .357 -- no failures to fire, no noticeable change in velocity, etc.

    This would not work so well with Large Primers, because the dimensions differ between Large Rifle and Large Pistol.

    Of course, the safest route is to take the primed cases to the police shop, and surrender them---decapping live primers has risks too, as so eloquently discussed on this thread.

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