Failed Primer Strike - Bullet and primer removal?

[USAF Ret]

Had a load with a failed primer strike. Is it safe to put in the bullet removing hammer? Can I even deprime it safely and recover the brass?

[Marco Califo]

This is almost always due to not seating primers as firmly as you need to. To diagnose and confirm, chamber the round again. And fire it. If it goes Bang, it is confirmed. Get your primer tool out and seat every round again, same primer, just press harder.
Depending on your Priming device, some use normal shellholders, a couple work with same brand shellholders, and some only with their special shellholders. One RCBS Priming tool uses no shellholders, and I have used this one to repeat primers. I currently like the Lyman Priming tool, but it only works with Lyman Shellholders. I bought a set of Lyman shellholders for it. If I use a Lee or Hornady shellholder in the Lyman tool, I get high primers.
The goal seating primers is just below the case head.
This seats the primer with the anvil legs in contact with the bottom of the primer cup.
The physics of "Light primer strike" is that your firing pin has to use its energy further seating the primer, and does not have enough energy left to make it go bang too.

[Sharkbite]

Yes, you can use a kinetic bullet puller to dis-assemble your failure to fire round.
Does the primer show any signs of being struck by the firing pin? Is it still high?

Were it me, I would then attempt to fire the primed case again in the same gun. If it fails again, it may be something as benign as a bad primer. Or it could be an issue with the reloading technique or might even be gun related (weakened spring, light hammer strike, etc)

[Fireball_70]

The only addendum I would make is to NOT attempt to re-seat fully loaded (primer, case, powder, bullet) rounds. Though a very rare occurrence, there are recorded incidents of a priming tool setting off a primer. If that happens with a fully loaded round, you will have a mini grenade detonate in your hand.

If you have only primed cases you could re-seat those primers, with care.

To de-prime the live primer you will need to be cautious. Ensure you don't have anything lying about on the reloading bench. While unlikely, since you are going the wrong way to function a primer, it could still go off.

[jag2]

As sharkbite asked, did you try it a second time?
Yes you can use a kinetic tool and if you want to try it you can (very carefully with plenty of safety measures) deprime the brass. I, and many others, also reseat the primer, never had one fail.

[Marco Califo]

That is a good point. I prime and inspect seating way before it is assembled into a live cartridge.
I also do not load more than 20 rounds of a new load before firing, testing, and making any adjustments.

[USAF Ret]

All rounds loaded fired except the one. 10 in total. I reloaded the same round twice without ignition.

I also check every load with the fingernail and setting it level on the table and check for wobble.

I will try it in my other 270 to see if it will fire. If not, I will pull the bullet to save the powder and bullet and reseat the primer again.

Primer is a CCI 200.

Thanks for the input.

[jetinteriorguy]

If it fail’s to ignite in the second gun pulling it down with an inertial puller is not a problem. Unfortunately I’ve done it too much, which is why I bought the Hornady collet style pulling tool.

[USAF Ret]

Originally Posted by jetinteriorguy

If it fail’s to ignite in the second gun pulling it down with an inertial puller is not a problem. Unfortunately I’ve done it too much, which is why I bought the Hornady collet style pulling tool.

I will look that up. Thank you.

[gwpercle]

Removing the bullet with an inertia bullet puller sounds dangerous but it isn't ...
you may want to seat the bullet a little deeper to "break" the crimp ... it makes pulling soooo much easier .

Depriming also sounds dangerous but it's not either . Wear ear and eye protection , just in case and keep your fingers clear of the depriming die and deprime them sloooowly ... and gently ... no sudden slams or hard hits with the handle ...
I've done both operations thousands of times and never had any primers pop .
Gary

[USAF Ret]

Originally Posted by gwpercle

Removing the bullet with an inertia bullet puller sounds dangerous but it isn't ...
you may want to seat the bullet a little deeper to "break" the crimp ... it makes pulling soooo much easier .

Depriming also sounds dangerous but it's not either . Wear ear and eye protection , just in case and keep your fingers clear of the depriming die and deprime them sloooowly ... and gently ... no sudden slams or hard hits with the handle ...
I've done both operations thousands of times and never had any primers pop .
Gary

Thanks Gary. Depriming still scares me a bit. I have heart issues and a loud unexpected pop, well, you know.

[cdoc42]

USAF Ret, as you can see, your experience is not unusual. I just had the same thing happen with my .270. I pulled the bullet with a Hornady collet device, dumped, but saved, the powder (and double-checked the weight), then "dry-fired" the culprit primer. It went "bang." Telling me that the primer probably had not been seated deep enough even though the cartridge did not "rock" on the table. Track that down to a primer pocket that SHOULD have been cleaned out before re-priming.

I did not try to fire that round a second time, altho that may have gone off, because the first failure very well could have driven that primer deeper and it would have gone off just as did when I emptied the cartridge.

Play it safe. Remove the bullet and powder, and fire the primer off if possible. Why deprime a primer that already has evidence of having been fired? To reseat it? One day you'll look in your cartridge box and ask yourself, "What the hell is this one doing in here?"

[USAF Ret]

Originally Posted by cdoc42

USAF Ret, as you can see, your experience is not unusual. I just had the same thing happen with my .270. I pulled the bullet with a Hornady collet device, dumped, but saved, the powder (and double-checked the weight), then "dry-fired" the culprit primer. It went "bang." Telling me that the primer probably had not been seated deep enough even though the cartridge did not "rock" on the table. Track that down to a primer pocket that SHOULD have been cleaned out before re-priming.

I did not try to fire that round a second time, altho that may have gone off, because the first failure very well could have driven that primer deeper and it would have gone off just as did when I emptied the cartridge.

Play it safe. Remove the bullet and powder, and fire the primer off if possible. Why deprime a primer that already has evidence of having been fired? To reseat it? One day you'll look in your cartridge box and ask yourself, "What the hell is this one doing in here?"

And that may be the culprit. I always clean my primer pockets, however, I did not on my 270 loads this time. I missed that step, so I may have another do the same. Thank you!

I am going to drop that on in another 270 I have that may have a little harder pin strike when I am at the range next time. I was shooting my Rem 700. I have a HOWA 1500 I will try it in to see if I can get an ignition.

[101combatvet]

Originally Posted by USAF Ret

Had a load with a failed primer strike. Is it safe to put in the bullet removing hammer? Can I even deprime it safely and recover the brass?

Had two on Monday. Loading them back up, they went off on the second try.

Yes, you can save all the components and start all over.

[hooligan1]

Its rare that I have a fail to fire, but like these fellas say, its not a big deal to pull bullet and reseat and fire primer.. Resize and reprime and dump powder reseat bullet and back to the range...

[Shadow9mm]

There is also the possibility it was a squib, and it just did not un-seat the bullet. I had that happen once years back with a 30-06. No powder in it. I revised my powder checking process after that.

[bbqncigars]

Primer seating is critical not just for the firing pin force, but because many primers require that the internal anvil be set into the priming compound when fully seated in the case. This translates to about .002"-.003" of initial 'crush'. Also, removing a live primer from a case is very unlikely to set it off, even if you're using a Lee deprimer rod and a hammer.

[USAF Ret]

Thanks all. Appreciate your wisdom and knowledge.

[Sevens]

There is no way that failure to clean the primer pocket caused a primer FTF. That's simply not possible.

[Shadow9mm]

Originally Posted by Sevens

There is no way that failure to clean the primer pocket caused a primer FTF. That's simply not possible.

I would agree. I never clean my primer pockets beyond what they get in the wet or dry tumbler. And i have never had a FTF because of it.

[cdoc42]

I don't intend to start an opinion war, but here is another opinion I found on "Ruger Forum.net" when I looked for an answer to a dirty primer pocket causing primer ignition failure:

"Dirty primer pockets are often the cause of a miss fire due to the primer legs not seating on the bottom of the pocket because of crud. A Lee primer pocket cleaner that does large and small pockets cost me $2.99 and is money well spent for relyable ignition. A large percentage of miss fires can be fired if cycled again because the first hammer fall seated the primer."

I don't know what 0.002-0.003" of carbon deposit looks like inside a primer pocket, but isn't it reasonable to assume that might be enough to prevent a proper seating depth of the same size on the rare occasion (in my experience) that a primer fails to fire the first time it is struck?

[cdoc42]

PS: I've just contacted CCI and posed the question for their opinion. I'll post it when I get a response.

[NHSHOOTER]

Originally Posted by Shadow9mm

There is also the possibility it was a squib, and it just did not un-seat the bullet. I had that happen once years back with a 30-06. No powder in it. I revised my powder checking process after that.

Same thing happened to me not to long ago, had 2 squibs in the same batch, rechecking powder level in cases before seating bullets is a big plus!!!!

[USAF Ret]

Originally Posted by cdoc42

PS: I've just contacted CCI and posed the question for their opinion. I'll post it when I get a response.

Very much appreciated.

It looks like a dud to me. The primer is dented heavily and never made a noise. So there was no ignition. I know there is powder in the case as I triple checked before seating the bullets.

[Unclenick]

Plus, unless it is a compressed load, you can usually hear or feel powder in the case when you shake it. Also, a load without powder will be lighter than the rest by the size of the powder charge. Both are easy checks.

It does sound like a dud. It is unusual for primer pocket residue to cause this unless a lot of it has built up over multiple reloadings. Dillon did a lot of testing of it at one point since progressive loading that starts with sizing, and decapping does not have a primer pocket cleaning stage. However, duds do happen spontaneously every once in a long while. Usually, a drop of perspiration falling into the primer or some other thing has killed it. Seating, you want to be sure the feet of the brass anvil in the primer have at least touched the bottom of the primer pocket, and seating about 0.003" deeper than that, slightly compressing the primer mix with the anvil is recommended by manufacturers. Where you can't measure, this is generally produced simply by seating pretty hard.