Primer Pocket - reload ???

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After letting them sit for over 10 years I broke out my box of 100 Lapua 6.5x55 brass. Loaded them way light, 38 grains of H4831 to fire fit them to my chamber case using light 85 grain Sierra varmitters which don't shoot well in this weapon anyways. All 100 bullets went in like glass, and the Fed GM210 same easy seating as thousands before them I have used with many other cases. Shot 50 or so of them. Nothing remarkable.

I Neck sized the fired cases with the same Lee Collet die. Checked, NIB SMK 142 bullets drop in and grab right OK.

I go to primer them and 2 out of 3 the primers seat real high. Same primers from the same box of 1,000. Can't remove them from my Lee auto prime. The primer is sticking up, binding.

After pushing way too hard, the primered case will extract, but the primer is crushed.

Did I ruin my cases firing the light load ? Any ideas ?? Thanks !!
 
If something is off with your die, the mandrel could be hitting the floor of the case, bowing the floor of the primer pocket. This would be unusual for a Lee collet die because the decapping/sizing mandrel is not adjustable for depth.
 
Lapua

I am at a loss. All 98 cases loaded perfecto first time around. And I have shot this weapon with these same dies almost since.... let's see. 1996. Never had a problem with Remington or Winchester cases. Not a single one. I got ths box of Lapua in 2000 or so to load and shoot the CMP qualifying match at a local range, then never went through with it.

The bad primer cases feel much tighter requiring way for force to insert the primer. And, these cases won't chamber, more correctly, the bolt won't close. I gather this is because the primer is not seated fully, in effect making the case too long. Felt wrong so I stopped. Anyway, I didn't shoot one, so I'll just pull em and start over. weird. Why only some cases out of an identical batch all loaded and reloaded the same ????

Thanks for the replies and suggestions.

Edit: When you "uniform" the primer pocket, you remove material. I looked at several tools at K&M and Sinclair . Easy enough, but how many times can you remove material here and not weaken the case ??? Never had to do this with any other cases .. .. .. :confused:
 
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By your reply it seems like you don't understand what they are suggesting. When you full length resize, the depriming pin is narrow at the tip where the pin pushes through the flash hole and then the primer, then the pin widens a little further up in the die. If the pin is down to far or the base of your brass is a little higher than your other brass then the fatter part of the depriming pin is pushing the base out the primer hole. If this is the case, then do not keep doing this and machining or cutting the brass out of the pockets as this is very dangerous. I do not own a Lee collet die so I do not know if this is a possible scenario, their regular dies make it hard to do this as the pin is not threaded to the die and will usually push up by slipping in the compression fit.
 
The fact that the first time around they all seated fine and this time they don't can be attributed to a number of things.

The collet die would not be one of them. If it was that then all of your cases would have the same problem unless they were grossly non-uniform which I doubt. You wouldn't be able to get neck tension if it was bottoming out on the case.

Assuming that all of the manufacturing tolerances are fine I suspect is that the primer pockets have something in them that is stopping the primer going in all the way.

Taking a more realistic approach I suspect, like the others, that you need uniform all of your primer pockets. I personally feel that the manufacturers make them shallow in the expectation that you will uniform them. You may have just gotten lucky the first time with shallow pocket and shallow primer mating up to be fine.

If your load is deforming your case head like you suspect, then that would mean that they are soft enough to be dangerous under pressure and your primer pockets should also have opened up enough that they will no longer hold a primer. This does not sound likely.
 
Did happen to me as well

Years ago I can remember this primer seating situation happening to me as well with lapua .25/06 brass. I seated the primers normally for fire forming and then the second load they jammed on the priming tool and wouldn't seat.

Out with the primer pocket uniformer and no brass was removed. The loading dies were the lee target model loader which I don't think are available any more. I tried seating the primers on the press. Still wouldn't go in. Finished up removing the primers and used remington 9 1/2 "s instead of the federal. They seemed to seat flush. After that the cases were able to seat the federal again as normal. Never did figure what the hell happened. Strange though that Lapua brass was involved in these almost identical incidents.
Andy.
 
Maybe the new brass had a bit more than desirable headspace in the chamber & peined the base of the cartridge when it came back on firing.
 
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Andy

Well as I fire form even the hunting rifles with the bullet into the lands a couple of thou I am not sure how the case would have moved back. Never the less I haven't used lapua brass since and it has never happened again.
Andy.
 
Andy Cross said:
Years ago I can remember this primer seating situation happening to me as well with lapua .25/06 brass. I seated the primers normally for fire forming and then the second load they jammed on the priming tool and wouldn't seat.

Out with the primer pocket uniformer and no brass was removed. The loading dies were the lee target model loader which I don't think are available any more. I tried seating the primers on the press. Still wouldn't go in. Finished up removing the primers and used remington 9 1/2 "s instead of the federal. They seemed to seat flush. After that the cases were able to seat the federal again as normal. Never did figure what the hell happened. Strange though that Lapua brass was involved in these almost identical incidents.
Andy.
Click to expand...

Same brand of primers too. And you said that a different primer went in fine.
 
Not long ago shooters were having the same issues with Lapua .220 Russian brass as well. The base of the case was not flat and when fired the first time the primer pocket tightened up. Some (seem to recall maybe Jackie Schmidt) faced the case-head flat before fire-forming to keep this from happening.
 
Take a new case (Lapua)that has been fired once, but not resized, knock the old primer out with a punch (by hand) and seat a new primer in the pocket. If it goes in OK take another first time fired new case (Lapua) and size it in your usual manner, and prime it. If the second case, that was sized with your die will not accept the primer properly, then the problem is coming from the die. This is probably because the distance from the inside floor of the case to the head, is longer than the die was manufactured for, causing the end of the rod that the decapping pin is mounted in to bump into the inside of the case with enough force to bend it. this deformation would show up as a decreased depth of the primer pocket, particularly in the center, next to the flash hole. This would be most evident when a primer pocket that has previously been cut with a uniformer shows a heavy cut, by the same tool, in the center of the pocket.
 
Another pocket issue

A friend has just been visiting with some new Lapua 243 brass. The flash holes aren't round and some partially blocked. Needed to borrow my flash hole reamer, pocket uniforming tool and flash hole deburring tool. It seems as though quality control of this brass might be an issue if it continues.

Andy.
 
All,
I think the quality of Lapua brass has decerased, I don't know what they are doing different. I know I have had problems with my 30BR brass.
john
Mims, Fl
 
This might not be your problem, but a number of years ago, we ran into the same problem with Lapua 220 Russian Brass. After a few firings, the primer pockets would be so tight you darned nrear had to crush the primer to get it to seat.

What I found was the face of the cases were not flat, but convex. You could see a distinct shiny ring surrounding the primer pocket. (it made no difference which Rifle the case was fired in). That was the only evidence of where the bolt face was making contact. My theory was the primer pockets were getting extruded in just enough to cause the tight primer problem.

For a while, I started facing cases, and this cured the problem. Then, Lapua 220 Russian started showing up with flat faces, and I stopped facing them, and the problem has not come up since.

Since these are older cases, that might be your problem, being the cases are vintage 2000.

Look at the face of the case and see if you can see a distinct shiny circle surrounding the primer pocket.........jackie
 
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