Well THAT made my ears ring

[TheFineLine]

I was loading up some 40S&W XTPs, mixed brass, VVn340, with CCISPPs on a Hornady Progressive last night. I'm fairly new at this so I typically add brass every other pull so that I can see if the primer is right side up. Well, after loading a few thousand I figured I'd just go ahead and run the press as designed and add brass every pull. It figures that at about 20 rounds into it a primer get set at an angle and goes off. BAM! Rinnnnnnngggg. So back to every other pull........

[madmo44mag]

I've been loading on a Hornaday progressive for years and never had that happen.
All I can say is wow!

[TheFineLine]

Madmo, I'm not exactly sure how it happened. Inspecting the blown primer you can see where the prongs on the inside were pressed far down on one side and not the other. It didn't seat in the case and there was nothing in the flash hole area that would have done it that I could see. Something very well could've blown out. I loaded another hundred successfully directly after it. I dunno. Glad I always wear safety glasses. I didn't get hit with anything, except a dirty concerned look from the wife.

[RickB]

At least it was only one, and no serious damage.
I've heard of primers going off and imbedding themselves in the loader's leg. Or setting-off all the primers in the magazine.

[Unclenick]

I think the prongs you are referring to are the feet of the legs of the anvil. The anvils often get blown loose when a primer fires, so that's not really a special symptom.

Make sure your column of primers is tall enough that vibration doesn't make them hop around in the press. That can caused flipped ones to feed. Go slow when the column gets low, or better yet, add more. I don't own the Hornady, but the Dillon comes with a rod weight that follows the primers down the tube to prevent that vibration flipping. The original never worked well enough, and I would wind up inverting a case over it to add some weight. Now they are heavier.

[Panfisher]

Wow, I have popped primers in the old Lee mallet kits but never on a press. I have seated them upside down, crushed them sideways, punched out live primers and never popped one. Would have scared the bejeepbers out of me.

[sawdustdad]

I have seated them upside down, crushed them sideways, punched out live primers and never popped one. Would have scared the bejeepbers out of me.

This has been my experience, too. Tens of thousands of rounds, never had one go off.

[Longshot4]

One time since 1978. That was a nice strong action. Oh and it also was a overloaded charge. Do not let it happen again... Excuse me that was wile loading? It sounds like a primer but why?

[skizzums]

i like the idea of a weight following the primers, sounds like that may clear up a lot of problems, although I am not familiar with your system

[learfxr]

I'm pretty new too and running a Hornady LNL AP and my primers have never been upside down or angled. Knock on wood

Are you using all the correct primer seating parts on the press? I recently swapped everything to run 9mm and then back to run 45acp and had to change out all of the necessary primer parts to switch from large to small and back again.

[TheFineLine]

There is a long thin plastic rod that comes with the primer tubes. I guess that is intended to be a weight? I've used it to push through the one primer that gets stuck in the primer pick-up tube plastic grabber. Still learning vocab

I've noticed that the ball detents on the .40 shellplate are very positive. Enough so that when the case is loaded a little powder can even sometimes jump out of the top when it indexes.

I bet you're right that it flipped in the tube. Thanks for the tip Unclenick!

[learfxr]

I run that white rod on top of my primers while they are in the tube. When you run out of primers the rod will lock up the primer slide and it becomes rather obvious that you are empty, that's the way I found it to work for me

I also used a sharpie marker to draw a line around the rod when the tube is empty and I can look up and see how close I am getting to empty

[Vance]

Dillon progressive presses come with one of these standard. I think it would be a worthwhile investment for you Hornady guys as well.
http://inlinefabrication.com/collect...dy-lock-n-load

[44 AMP]

I used to run a Dillon 450. Now I'm back to the single stage press, and hand priming. I get better results, and have fewer problems. I no longer care for progressives, all the rage though they are...

I bet you're right that it flipped in the tube.

In over 40 years of reloading, I've never seen a primer flip in the tube. If its upside down in the tube, it's because YOU picked it up that way.

I have seen them flip when they drop into the primer cup. Sometimes its a full 180 (upside down) most often when it happens (rare, but it can happen), they are on their side, or slightly cocked. Not a big deal IF YOU SEE IT!

With progressives, you have to specifically watch for this, and several other problems that either don't happen, or are more easily seen (and corrected before something goes wrong) on a single stage press.

Feel matters. progressives don't allow the same degree of feel, because you are doing so many things at once.

I'd be willing to bet serious money you would never pop off a primer because it tipped or was sideways in a hand priming tool. (idiot gorillas are not covered by my bet! )

Progressives are fast, you get a lot of rounds in little time, but when (not if) something messes up, you generally have wastage you could have avoided with a different setup. There's no free lunch.

[BOOMST1CK]

I have the same press, I use the white rod to push in the last primer in the sleeve, and I leave the rod in the primer sleeve, then I put the sleeve over the primer tube and pull the pin. All the primers and the rod go into he tube, then I lift the sleeve over the rod.
I also put a mark on the rod at full, 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, and empty.

[sawdustdad]

Feel matters. progressives don't allow the same degree of feel, because you are doing so many things at once.

Not sure of other presses, but when my Square Deal press is seating a primer, that's all it's doing. I can tell if a primer won't seat, or doesn't completely seat, or takes extra force to seat. I'll pull that case and check it. I get about 1 out of 1000 that's not right. It's usually sideways. I've never had one upside down.

[44 AMP]

I got my RL450 from a guy who was replacing it with a pair of Square Deals (back when they first came out). He only loaded 9mm & .45ACP, and for him, two dedicated Dillons was the best thing.

This was also before anyone happened to think up the "primer push rods". Things have improved, it seems.

When seating a primer, the 450isn't doing anything else, either. BUT, when seating a bullet, it's doing everything else at the same time, too! When you are sizing an case (especially a rifle case) working the powder drop, and seating a bullet at the same time, the feel is different. A tipped bullet that you would feel something wrong on a single stage press, can be concealed by the different feel when a progressive is doing all that, and you might not have any idea anything was wrong until you see the mangled finished round.

With a progressive, you not only have to focus on the reloading process, you have to pay close attention to the machinery's functioning as well.

[madmo44mag]

With a progressive, you not only have to focus on the reloading process, you have to pay close attention to the machinery's functioning as wel

That statement is SOOOOOOO true.
Even though I have never had a primer pop in the press and had many load backwards it is safe to say anything is possible where man and machine are concerned.
I would venture to say that 99% of the defective ammo I have loaded was due to a mechanical problem with the press.

[bbqncigars]

The only time there were flipped primers in my AP is when the idiot operator tried using small primers in the large primer magazine tube. That said, I installed a modded Dillon primer warning and crimped a large fishing weight on the follower rod so it trips the alarm when it's down to two primers.