Accidental primer detonation

[parastoo]

Hi,
    Just out of curiosity, what happens when you ignite a primer as you are reloading and how often does it happen if at all?
Thanks,
           Mark

[SI VIS PACEM PARRABELLUM]

If you are careful and following safe handloading practices it does not happen. I've been handloading over 30 years and never had such a thing happen and I've assembled a whole bunch of ammo in that time. I assembled 40,000 rnds of 9mm just last year and that doesn't include the other pistol calibers I shoot.
I'm sure there are those who have had this happen but it's going to be an incident traceable to operator error and not because some primer was over excited or even defective.
Make sure your set up is properly adjusted, wear safety glasses because you should always protect your eyes no matter how mundane and simple the task may seem. Seating primers should be a smooth yet firm operation not "slamming" the primer home.
You will definitely have the occasion where a primer will flip on it's side and get crushed this has happened to anyone who handloads and I've had it happen from time to time but if your being smooth you are not going to detonate any primer.

[bang bang]

Hi,
    Just out of curiosity, what happens when you ignite a primer as you are reloading and how often does it happen if at all?
Thanks,
           Mark

do you mean putting heat to a primer expose it to heat of some sort?  they would POP

but if you mean while priming a case, i have yet to have one go off or "ignite.   ive been reloading since the mid 80s.

you may want to understand HOW it works.  It needs an IMPACT of some sort to make it work. 

fwiw, i have smashed primers in military crimped cases.  I have also seated primers sideways in primer pockets too!  none of them detonated.  Again IMPACT!

I have put a torch to primers in cases and they did go POP and fly out of the case.  they came out of the case with enough force/velocity to go through 2 single layers of cardboard.

[Fuzzy Sights]

Crushing a primer, like in a vice or with pliers will not detonate a primer, it takes shock.  Even mangled primers will make it through reloaders with out going bang.  I have had it happen on an old progressive reloader and all it did was shoot the primers in the tube and make a shotgun like pattern in my tile above the reloader.  That system is no longer on the market, and the manufacturer sent new parts at the time to ensure it would never happen again. Trying to remember I think it was a Dilion 450, event was early 1990.  Have loaded more than 100,000 rounds since then with no issues.

JW

[Wobbly]

In all my decades of reloading, I've never set one off. Even the ones that went in sideways and got crushed beyond all recognition didn't detonate.

The primer is composed of 2 parts, the cup and the anvil. It's the act of actually "seating" the primer that finally moves the anvil close enough to strike the primer compound. This is why they don't go off in shipment.

I have read many of these threads. The most common causes of accidental detonation seem to be rolling over them with an office chair, or striking the impellor of a vacuum cleaner.

[M1A4ME]

Been reloading since the late 70's (very late).  Rifle and pistol.

Never had one go off while:

installing a new primer
removing an unfired primer in the resizing die
mangling/mashing a primer up while seating
removing a mangled/mashed primer with a resizing die

Only one I every had go off outside of the gun's chamber was a mangled one I tossed into the fire place in late 1979.  It bounced off the wall on the opposite side of the living room and I never, ever, pulled that stunt again.

If you use a progressive press it's probably a good idea to keep the primer feeding system clean.  I used to work with a guy who was heavily into competition shooting and had a Dillon reloading system.  He lost the end of one finger and had damage to a couple others after the primer feed tube blew up on him one day. 

It stopped feeding primers.  He pulled the feeding system apart and could see the tube was plugged.  Lots of priming compound dust and maybe primers blocking the tube.  He held the tube between his thumb and fingers and smacked it on the edge of the reloading bench.  The primer compound dust and the tube blew up.  Parts of the tube had to be removed from his hand/fingers and the ceiling over the reloading bench.

I'm not saying be fearful of reloading.  I'm saying, be observant, keep your stuff clean and functional, don't beat on primers/primer tubes, etc.

[lewmed]

 I bought my first progressive loader used in the 1970's a C&H Auto Champ Mk III I called it my little bomb I remember wearing eye and ear protection gloves and a heavy long shirt when I used it. I replaced that loader with a Mk 4 or 5 and loaded millions of rounds with only one primer detonation. Then in the early 90's I found the Dillon 650 and later on the 550 and new XL750 I have loaded millions more rounds with no more primer detonations.  What I like about the dillion equipment is you get feed back though the lever and can feel what's going on with the loading process. Even with a case and bullet feeder running close to a thousand round per hour I can feel if something is not right. And yes I still wear eye and ear protection when reloading.   

[dwhite]

I'm in my mid sixties now. The only time I had a primer go off while reloading was when I was in my teens.

It was with my very first reloading setup. I don't' remember the details; but it was a Lee system that didn't use a press. Everything was done with special hand-held dies and hammers. I was holding the die in my hand (remember, there was no press involved) and seating a primer when the primer somehow went off.

It made a very loud "POP". My parents came rushing in to see what happened. I was still tightly gripping the die in my hand in shock wondering what I'd find when I opened my hand. It was very anti-climatic. Nothing more than a loud noise.

Lee stopped selling that handheld loading system many decades ago. I wonder why 

[M1A4ME]

I have a couple of those, .223 Rem. and .30-06. 

I used to get a kick out of carrying it in my rucksack when we went groundhog hunting.  When killed a groundhog I'd carry the empty and groundhog back to the shade tree above the big pastures, skin/gut the groundhog and throw him on ice, clean up and then sit down and reload that piece of brass.  Never shot more than 3 or 4 times in a day of hunting, but it was sort of cool (I thought at the time) to sit down and reload my brass like the old time buffalo hunters.  They just did theirs in the evening after cleaning their rifles and eating their supper.

[Clint007]

Ok, I’ll be the sucker here.

I’ve detonated a 9mm primer twice. Once on my 1050 while cycling the press by hand very fast. An already primed case Somehow made it into the case feeder and was deprimed very quickly  by the Dillon de prime/resize due, and donated. I always wear eyes and ears when reloading, no damage, nothing just a loud pop. Even the depriming pin was fine.

2nd was on my automated Mark 7 with the original shuttle base priming system, again cycling very fast (2700 rounds per hour fast) during primer seating. Again just a loud pop, no damage, and I have to assume it was because there was some debris in the path that mimicked an impact on the anvil of the primer. It happened in the first several thousand rounds of using the system and has not happened since, now well over 150,,000 rounds beyond that point.

The friend to whom I sold my 1050 who uses it by hand said he lit one off in the priming station and it sent the entire primer stack through the ceiling embedding the plastic rod into the drywall of the ceiling and made a VERY loud noise.

An experienced employee of a prominent gun store in Mesa AZ that shall go nameless (cough...CZ...cough) shared a similar story.

So it happens, and the people to whom it happens are less likely to admit that they had it happen than someone is to admit that they’ve never had it happen. Kind a like sexually transmitted diseases I guess. Huh. Wear eyes and some type of ears whilst you reload. Learn from your mistakes.  Not saying I’m proud of it happening to me, but the backup strategies worked (eyes, ears, I had no secondary detonations because these press designs reduce that risk, the guy that did just had to fix his ceiling and explain some stuff to his wife).

There. I outed myself. Nanner nanner. Roast me.

C

[StevenR]

Very loud and unnerving pop.  Have had two out of a lot of rounds loaded. 

[SI VIS PACEM PARRABELLUM]

Well as I stated in my above post those who have had it happen were the root cause not the primer and I don't fault the equipment either. Keep your equipment clean and running properly. Take your time and pay attention. Even with a progressive machine there's no reason to be working the handle at break neck speed and you need to operate the machine in such a way that your paying attention to the other operations that are happening. I've had the occasional primer hang up in the tube on My XL750 and you have to be watching for things like that or the next thing you know you've got a bin full of unprimed rounds in your bin.

[Wobbly]

Take your time and pay attention. Even with a progressive machine there's no reason to be working the handle at break neck speed and you need to operate the machine in such a way that your paying attention to the other operations that are happening.

This is true.

Go to UltimateReloader.Com, pick the machine you're interested in and he's probably got a video of that machine being run correctly, at the correct speed.

https://ultimatereloader.com/

[Bossgobbler]

In loading 105,000 rounds I have had two primers detonate.  In both cases, the root cause was a spent primer that left a ring of brass in the primer pocket when the brass was de-primed.

[nicky]

Could you tell us what brass this happened with?