Ruptured Primers HELP!

[Ruraloader]

Hoping somebody can jump in and help me out here. I've had a few primer failures over the last year and I'm stumped. Here's the story:

9/21/13
Shooting 30-06 rounds with my Browning A-bolt (no mods)
Bullet: 165gr Sierra Spitzer #2145
Powder: 57.5gr IMR-4350
Primer: WLR
Cases: Remington, fired 4 times previously.
OAL: 3.320"
Velocity: 2,780 fps

13th round from the box was a bit difficult to chamber. 14th and 15th were fine. 16th round was also difficult to chamber. 17th round had a ruptured primer. I was taking a bit of a chance to begin with by mixing a hot load with old brass - assumed it was my fault.

12/17/13
Shooting 25-06 rounds with my Dad's custom mauser action rifle.
Bullet: 117gr Sierra spitzer #1640
Powder: 49.0gr IMR-4350
Primer: WLR
Cases: "FC" fired 2 times previously.
OAL: 3.240", seated 0.010" off the lands.
Velocity: 2996 fps

6th round in the box had a ruptured primer. Really disappointing because this was the most accurate load I developed, and was still ~2 grains from the listed "max load".

4/27/14
Shooting 30-06 rounds with my Browning A-bolt (no mods)
Bullet: Hornady 180gr Interlock BTSP #3072
Powder: 56.0gr IMR-4831
Primer: WLR
Cases: Remington, fired 2 times previously. Neck sized only.
OAL: 3.290", seated 0.010" off the lands
Velocity: ~2600 fps

No ruptured primers, but they were backing out or completely flattened.

1/10/15
Working up a 30-06 load for my Browning A-bolt (no mods)
Bullet: 168gr Hornady Amax #30502
Powder: IMR-4895. Started at 43gr up to 47gr
Primer: WLR
Cases: Remington, fired 1 time previously. Full length resized.
OAL: 3.300", seated to 0.020" off the lands.
Velocity: 43gr - 2340 fps. 44gr - 2450 fps. 45gr - 2480 fps. 46.0gr 2550 fps.

I noticed a primer backed out (but didn't flatten) on the lowest charge. The next two power levels (44gr and 45gr) had really inconsistent velocities, but they made decent groups. The 15th round in the box, loaded with 46gr, had a ruptured primer. Still have another few grains to go before being at the "max load" level. After this incident, I'm convinced this problem doesn't have to do with overpressure.

So what's going on here? I called Browning - they said to only use factory ammo, never reloads. I called Winchester and mailed back some of my ammo - they "were unable to find any nonconformity in the WLR primers".

Any ideas?

[Smoke & Recoil]

Lighten up with the powder charge regardless of staying under
the maximum load, also, trash the case's of which the primers had
backed out because this is a sign of stretched primer pockets.

Flattened primers is a true sign of high pressure.

[flyguy958]

Bumping shoulders back too far causes primers to back out. Might be your problem.

[Urban_Redneck]

If the rifles fire factory ammo without incident....

Start over with new or once fired brass, resize,
trim to min length, and weigh your charges-
borrow another scale to check yours while you're at it.

That's what I would do

[Smoke & Recoil]

Urban-Redneck summed it up right, follow his advise completely.
And now a side note but related too.

I just bought an RCBS 5-0-5 scale off a local online auction site
for a measly $15.01...it would not zero-out...um, I suspect someone
may have played with the pan holder weights. Not a big deal, I can
handle it.

[Ruraloader]

Good advise so far. Thanks fellas.

Bumping back cases too far:
-I'll check some of my cases before and after firing and also versus factory ammo. Can't hurt to know that info.
-If I'm only neck sizing the brass, is it still possible to bump back the datum? I was neck sizing most of my reloads to avoid dealing with this issue. And also because of accuracy, safety, etc, etc.

Loose primer pockets:
-I thought so too. I was priming with my Dillon 550b, but I switched to an RCBS hand primer to see if that would help. Primers failed before and after changing the way I primed.
-This last loading on 1/10/15 is confusing. That was brand new Remington brass, loaded previously with a light charge and all the cases fired really well. Reload it 1 more time and suddenly I have problems? I would hope the brass could take a little more abuse than that.

[30Cal]

Just to be clear, are we talking about pierced primers or gas blowing around the edge of the primer?

[Ruraloader]

These primers are failing in a small spot near the outer edge. The small pits in my boltface indicate that it's not the same spot every time.

I will resize the photos that I have and upload them.

[Ruraloader]

December 2013 blown primer 1.jpg

December 2013 blown primer 2.jpg

December 2013 blown primer 3.jpg

[243winxb]

WLR may be defective? http://s338.photobucket.com/user/joe...r%20Gas%20Leak Try a different brand of primer. Post the lot number of your primers.

[Kframe]

Just a thought, but are you certain your scale is accurate?
If not you could be filling cases with over-max loads without knowing it.

[Ruraloader]

Well, here's an update:

WLR Primers:
-Defective primers were my first thought. It couldn't possibly be my fault right? Lot number is CKL535G. Bought 1,000 of the goddamn things. Have another 1,000 of a different lot number, so I hope they're OK.
-I checked one of these unused primers with a micrometer. Measured at 0.210". The primer pocket of my questionable cases (from 1.10.15 firing) mic'd at 0.209". Not sure if that's even a legitimate measurement to take, but it seems OK.
-I inspected some of the spent primers after I pulled them from the cases. Some of them have the classic chef's hat shape.
-Also, WLR were the only primers available in my area for over a year. Finally found some CCI No. 200 today (ironically) so I'll try those out and compare.

Excessive headspace due to full length resizing:
-I don't have a headspace gauge for my rifle or my ammo - yet. But as a quick check, I used a .40 cal case, slipped over the 30-06 case mouth, and compared some of my 1.10.15 cases. I deprimed a few with a skinny punch so as not to alter the shape of the brass. I measured that, then resized on my press and measured again. Oddly enough, the measurements are exactly the same. I guess if I did this correctly, that would mean that my Lee Deluxe full-length resizing die isn't setting back the datum point at all.

Weird, right? Isn't the point of full-length resizing to push the brass back down to "factory" shape? The die is set a little bit past the point of contacting the shell plate. And I haven't moved the die since I loaded this recent batch of troublesome rounds.

[Ruraloader]

And regarding my powder scale:

No, I haven't double checked it against anything. I'll need to do that.

But - I also have velocity data for all my rounds. If anything, I keep getting velocities that are low, or at least a bit lower than my manuals say I should be getting. You'd think that if my scale was off, I'd be getting velocities at or above what is listed in the manual.

FYI - I have a Lyman and a Nosler manual. I load .303 Brit, .30-06 Spfld, .25-06, .45 Colt, .380 ACP, .45 ACP, and 9mm. I never quite seem to achieve (or exceed) the velocities listed in the manuals. Close, but certainly never any higher.

[243winxb]

Two causes - 1. Defective primer cup. 2. Gas leakage between the brass and primer, as in loose primer pocket. This can happen to any brand of primer. When i had the same problem, it was with Remington 9 1/2 rifle primers many years ago. Not a pressure problem.

[William T. Watts]

WHAT EVER YOUR MANUAL SAYS YOUR NOT USING THEIR RIFLE THEIR POWDER OR THEIR BULLET. There is a reason we start low and work up, A chrony does help too, when you pierce a primer or the primer is blown out of the primer pocket you've been past the stop point quite a bit plus risking either personal injury or damage to your firearm. If I were you I would attempt to find some one locally that may be able to give you some help. I wouldn't attempt to load anything else until I understood what the problem is. You don't have a good enough grasp of the fundamentals of reloading to narrow your search of what your doing wrong.. It could be something as simple as your moving the shoulder back to far creating headspace, your lot of IMR4831 powder could be a faster lot, your lot of primers could be a softer lot of primers or the wrong primer. Do you have cartridge gage for the calibers you load for, you could then drop a factory round in the gage and then compare your sized case for comparison.. There are so many varibles in our hobby, unless you've got a pretty good grasp of things your doing and why you need to stop until you have some answers.. William

[hartcreek]

Your loadings are under what I am loading and a good bunch of my cases are from before WWII. I am having case head seperations with some of my old brass so I carry a broken case extractor and am culling the bad brass.

You need to start with confirming your scale. I have balance weights and I check my scale regularily. If you do not have balance weights weigh one of your bullets. If your scale it that far off even weighing a bullet will tell you.

You could even have a bunch of non concentric primer pockets but start with your scale first.

[Ruraloader]

I guess I was expecting the last couple posts. If you've read a few threads on any forum, you'll notice there's always a guy (sometimes more than one) who's an expert, willing to help, and also kind of a prick. In my mind, that's not really a bad thing so I welcome the help.

First - I understand that I'm a novice and only have a few years of reloading experience under my belt. If I knew how to solve this problem I wouldn't have to join a forum and ask a bunch of strangers for advice.

That being said - look at my data. I've worked up very conservative loads and taken pretty thorough notes. The easy way to look like a reloading badass is to just say "you lack the experience to blah blah blah..." and throw out some pedantic, textbook reasons why I'm doing everything wrong. Bottom line is - you're right and I'm probably missing some detail.

The million dollar question is - What detail?

I appreciate everybody who has chimed in with advise. Keep it coming - polite or not.

[jepp2]

I encountered similar failures with Rem 9 1/2 primers. Unfortunately the lot was probably 20+ years old, I had used them in many different loads, and I didn't record primer lot numbers at that time. My loads were not high pressure, I didn't have large primer pockets, and the brass was properly sized.

I have read about others having the same problem with the same primers, but no lot has ever been posted. So my solution was to separate the lot I thought caused the problem (still have them) and keep my fingers crossed as I consume the rounds loaded near that time period.

So I don't know the cause of your problem, but in my case it was simply bad primers. My loads were lower pressure so the erosion is less than your cases show (but the case volume was also lower than yours).

[cw308]

I'm a benchrest shooter 308 cal. use to neck size only. Changed to Full Size with zero to .001 headspace. I use a primer pocket uniformer, are you cleaning your pockets, the uniformer will clean & cut the pockets all to the same depth. you may be crushing some of your primers.

[1100 tac]

There have been many instances of bad lots of Win large rifle primers over the past year or so. Winchester has replaced a number of bolts and many primers.

The failures have all been blowouts at the edge of the primer with modest loads.

That is probably your problem.

Bing it.

[Unclenick]

Ruraloader,

The best way to handle posts you find include unhelpful attitude is not to point it out. The guys with attitude usually are also defensive when called on it, so that can start a flame war that ends with the thread being closed. Making like Joe Friday and sticking to the facts wears most of the attitude guys out, as they are often expecting to push buttons, and get frustrated or bored when they fail to.

BTW, You've done a way above average job of documenting facts thus far. Often we have to ask more than once to get information as complete as you've provided because the average reloader doesn’t realize its relevant.

Due to the color balance of the lighting you used to take your photos, I can’t tell if your WLR primers are brass colored like 243winxb's, but expect they are. At some point (late 90's, IIRC) Winchester had complaints that their primers were not sensitive enough, so they stopped applying nickel plating to the cups, leaving them less hard. If you read the customer reviews on Midway’s site for both Winchester large and small rifle primers, you’ll find a number of complaints about piercings occurring with loads that are below maximum. It’s not a defect, but a design flaw. I don’t even try Winchester primers at rifle pressures anymore. Their pistol primers seem to be OK. The rifle primers would be fine for light lead bullet loads or for Trail Boss practice loads.

Because of differing cup thickness and hardness, pressure signs in primers often only tell you the pressure is too high for the particular primer used. Nothing more. It's not uncommon for the same load to produce flat primers with one primer brand but not with another.

I suspect your CCI primers have a food chance of solving the problem for you. I see 1100 tac (welcome to the forum) posted while I stopped for lunch in mid-composing, and is basically validating this and what the Midway reviews show.

As an aside: I once fired some Lake City 1964 30-06 National Match ammunition in several club Garands either elevating the muzzles to put the powder over the flash hole and tipping them down to put it over the bullet and away from the flash hole before slowly bringing the rifle level to fire. The velocity difference was 80 fps, and the primers went from rounded when the powder was over the bullet to flat when it was over the flash hole. Not high pressure flat, as there was no cratering or mushrooming (chef's hat), but just visibly flat and losing its rounded corners.

That LC ’64 NM used 46 grains of IMR4895 under the 173 grain M1 Type (aka M72) bullet. That charge only filled the case about 80%. A lot of empty room was left to promote powder position sensitivity. I subsequently learned this is a good application for magnum primers. Magnum primers make a larger volume of gas than standard primers do, and when you have a lot of empty space in the case, that extra gas can bring the start pressure up enough to give you more consistent muzzle velocity. This article explains it. You just have to test both to see. As a bonus, some magnum primers are harder than standard.

Regarding case resizing, below is an exaggerated illustration showing the sequence of events in sizing. First the case is narrowed and elongated as the die starts squeezing its sides. Only after the shoulder in the die makes contact does the shoulder begin to be set back. Because the case first elongates, that setback has to go far enough to pass the starting (as fired) case length and continue down.



The big enemy is press stretch. You can set the sizing die down into contact with the shell holder, but if you don’t then lower the ram and turn it in a little further, when the case is sized the press frame stretch will be enough to cause the die to break contact with the shell holder, thus depriving you of complete resizing. On a progressive press this is complicated by the fact that dispensing the powder charge and seating a bullet and, if you use it, crimping a bullet in other stations simultaneously adds further stretching force. So you have to measure to see you are getting enough squeeze and tweak the die down until you do.

Resizing dies do not necessarily return a case to factory size. In general, they will do that only if the gun has a SAAMI minimum chamber. The longer the chamber, the more stretched the case is during firing, and the more spring-back it exhibits making it harder to resize fully. Fortunately, you don’t need it to be original size if you keep firing it in the same gun. All you need for reliable magazine feed is to push the shoulder back about 0.002” shorter than the chamber. We know this because factory new brass is usually about 0.002” shorter than a SAAMI minimum size chamber, and it feeds reliably.

I will also recommend against the .40 cal case as a measuring gauge. Most case mouths are not perfectly round, so a little springing range occurs as it mates with the case shoulder and tries to deform to match it. I could never get reliable readings this way. Instead, since the SAAMI shoulder datum of a 30-06 is a nice even 3/8 inches across, pop down to a good hardware or farm supply store and see if you can pick up a 3/8” bronze journal bushing and use that, as shown below. I prefer the flanged type shown for good stability against a caliper jaw. But if that’s not available in your area, a spacer of some kind will come close enough to give you a repeatable measurement.

In the image below, I first zeroed the caliper on a headspace GO gauge, then found the case was 0.003” longer. You don’t need to zero just for comparative measurements, though. That’s only needed for absolute measurements.



Finally, on brass choice, Lapua makes the best, and if you want an experimental reference lot, you can buy a box of it to see what your gun can do with near perfect brass. For hardness, if you can find some military 30-06, that is probably next best. Winchester is less uniform but the brass metal itself is good. All three are 70:30 Cu:Zn cartridge brass. Remington and Federal are made from 80:20 low brass. I’ve not had trouble with Remington, but Federal has a reputation for being softer than normal and having its primer pockets stretch prematurely. A number of folks recommend it be limited to moderate loads. Dan Newberry says he just flat out doesn’t consider Federal brass suitable for reloading.

The Remington product I’ve got is harder than Federal. Despite the similarity in alloys, there are several annealing steps in case manufacturing needed to allow the brass to be fully drawn, and where in the process you do those affects how much work hardening is in the finished product. Remington has seemed to keep their brass harder than Federal does in the past. But it has been awhile since I’ve bought any new Remington brass, and I’ve also read that Remington has been outsourcing brass and has had some less successful lots, so if you wind up with anything traceable to the brass itself, that’s a possible reason.

[1100 tac]

Well, I mostly keep my eyes open and my fingers shut around here, but I couldn't believe that no one seemed to have heard about the problems with Winchester large rifle primers.

I am a retired machinist that has been loading and casting for rifle and pistol since '75. I still operate my own shop though, so I guess I'm only semi retired.

[Ruraloader]

I had also heard folks talking on forums about bad primers. Especially WLR. That's why I send some back. It was really disappointing to get a quick email back from a "Customer Service Representative" of the Olin Corporation saying that everything was fine - the primers were not faulty. They destroyed the ammo I sent them and mailed me a check for $10. No other information was provided.

I've headed up the QA department of a large company for years, so it was especially annoying to be on the wrong end of bad service.

[Ruraloader]

Unclenick-

Thank you for the extremely thorough reply. There was a lot of really good information in that. I'm thinking of reloading a particular lot of brass (I've started numbering them for my records) that has approximately the same age and history as these most recent troublesome loads.

I was thinking I would keep everything about the load exactly the same, with the exception of using CCI No. 200 primers. I want to control for this particular variable and see the difference in performance.

If this doesn't resolve the issue, I'll move on to headspace issues as the next possible problem. Thanks again,

[hartcreek]

You still have more then one thing to do if you havent checked your scale yet. IT takes less then five minutes for me to calibrate a scale even if I have to add weight so you surely can do it in ten.