What if..... Reloading 'accident' question.

[higginsdj]

Last night, whilst reloading 9mm pistol ammo, I found that I had crushed (flattened) a few primers trying to get them into the case. I found 1 which had not fully seated and decided to dismantle the bullet.

On the second strike of the puller, the primer discharged and blew itself off the case, sailing over the top of my head. Fortunately it did not ignite the powder in the case.

My question is, what would have happened if it had? I realise that most of the 'explosive' power of a bullet is based on being chambered. What is the injury risk of a bullet just 'going off' outside the chamber? My 9mm only has 2.1gn of powder. My real concern is what would happen with a rifle cartridge with 46gn of powder....

Cheers

David

[RJNEILSEN]

I watched a mate struggle with a 308 bolt which discharged while in the rearmost position on the rifle. I saw the round explode with a bright yellow flash. The case opened up like a banana and the projectile travelled about one inch into the barrel. A piece of brass from the case opened up my mates right hand and required stitches. I do remember a significant amount of unburnt powder in the action which resulted in a smaller explosion than what could have been.

Cheers,
Ryan.

[Hangfire]

Were you using the supplied collet for the inertia puller or a shell holder?

If you were using a shell holder this may have caused the primer to go bang.

Check out this link and see if you had a similar occurrence.

You were very lucky the primer blew out.

http://www.shootersforum.com/handloadin ... rning.html

[johnk]

David,

At the best of times, percussion bullet disassembly is problematic. In your case, as you found, it should not be done.

Collet style bullet pullers are substantially more reliable & safe & the projectile is more or less reusable depending on the quality of the collet, neck tension & the phase of the moon. At a pinch, you can use a press with some cartridges by raising the case through the die hole & grabbing the projectile with the cutter on pliers, then reversing the ram. I doubt that it would work for a 9 mm though.

John

[higginsdj]

Were you using the supplied collet for the inertia puller or a shell holder?

If you were using a shell holder this may have caused the primer to go bang.

Check out this link and see if you had a similar occurrence.

You were very lucky the primer blew out.

http://www.shootersforum.com/handloadin ... rning.html

The supplied collet.

[Brad Y]

Firstly if you arent getting primers into the case then there must be an obstruction preventing that- make sure you check all your cases before reloading for things like this and cracked necks etc. Why would you not do it and possibly risk an accident.

When pulling bullets I dont use an puller hammer. I find it easier and by the sounds of it safer to put the case into a shell holder in the press with no die, raise the ram fully so the projectile sticks out and grab it with vice grips then lower the ram to pull the bullet out. Throw the projectile away, re use the powder and I carefully decap the case with a neck sizing die with a towel over the press. Never had a primer go off this way.

If the round has a bullet seated in it and primer and powder in it and goes off my guess is that because the powder is contained in a metal vessel in a confined space it will still explode and not burn like it usually would. You would probably have a projectile flying around your reloading room. With a 308 I think there wouldnt be much difference except that you may possibly risk more of a burn, a louder noise and again have a projectile flying around the room.

My personal take on it- and Im not judging you as this may be a total accident and your an experienced reloader- is if your not confident at it you shouldnt be reloading unsupervised. Our club ran a reloading demonstration last sunday to try and educate new people on what is required and how its done. The demonstrator explained that reloading isnt something that you just do straight up, there is a process to follow and it should be stuck to so not only do you end up with consistent ammo, but you dont hurt yourself in the loading process.

A member here who is actaully a really good shooter has been reloading and what he brings to the range looks scary- some ammo you can pull bullets out and others look like its gone through a 7mm-08 die then had a 30 cal bullet seated with a flared out neck. Plus he walked into the shop the other day with all his dies and reloading tools and asked which one gets used for which task. Dont know how many times people have explained it.

[Hangfire]

If you were using the supplied collet then the possible cause for the primer to go off could be an overly tight primer pocket with a half seated (crimped in) primer.
The impact of the hammer may have been enough to trigger ignition on the already tight primer?

[aaronraad]

Doesn't make me feel so stupid for wearing impact grade safety specs when reloading, especially primer seating.

I've ejected crushed primers before without an issue, at a distance, looking the other way etc.

If I understand your situation correctly...consider this - your have a loaded round with a poorly seated primer. If the primer is poorly seated, what are the chances of getting some amount of powder caught between the misaligned primer and the flashole? If your primer is misaligned because the primer pocket is a little 'lose' and allowing the primer to enter unguided, what is stopping it from moving again under the force of a kninetic bullet puller and the primer bottoms out on some powder? Probably better than the chances of the crushed primer moving in a tight primer procket.

If you're using a multistage turrent press for bulk reloading pistol cases, I would highly recommend seating the primers off-line until: you can solve the issue; and know how to prevent it before it happens again. I don't expect a slam fire in a pistol is much fun even if the offending item is further away from your face than a rifle. I assume checking for crushed primers is a good habit you've gotten into over the years.

In either case, work like buggery to address the issue not the symptom. Perspex, PPE and bullet pullers won't stop you from keeping a set of spare underpants in your reloading kit.

[AlanF]

There must be 10s of thousands of the inertia type bullet removers in use around the world, and many of those will be using a shell-holder, and accidents are extremely rare. I use mine this way often, and will be continuing to do so. It just needs to be done in a safe manner as is the case with many reloading processes. I think these incidents have highlighted that damaged primers are dangerous.

Alan

[RAVEN]

Personally I wouldn't have loaded the cases with the damaged primer anyway.
If the priming process is flawed why would you proceed to charge with powder and seat a bullet.
If primers are not replaced properly there maybe a good chance of gas blow back damaging your firearm and or yourself.

RCBS Bullet collet die pullers are a better way to dismanle loaded rounds bullets and powder can be reused most of the time.
RB

[higginsdj]

Just before anyone goes off track, my priming process is fine but being a progressive/turret press I have to rely on feel rather than sight to determine if there was an issue. In this instance the cases had overly tight primer pockets. The result was that on some of the cases the outer edge of the primer buckled/crushed and I was left with a live, flattened primer in the case. In the turret press (Dillon XL650) the primer insertion just felt a little stiffer then usual.

The primer pockets were 'preped' and cleaned and the primers (pre insertion) were not damaged.

I loaded the remaining 7 (where the primers had fully seated but were flattened) into my 9mm (one at a time) and fired them off without failure or incident.

[RAVEN]

Thanx higginsdj
that clears things up a bit

[Triplejim]

In this instance the cases had overly tight primer pockets.

Suggest using the wilson case trimmer with primer pocket reamer
http://www.lewilson.com/primerpocketreamer.html
This is different tool to the depth reamers used to clean the primer pocket.

[higginsdj]

In this instance the cases had overly tight primer pockets.

Suggest using the wilson case trimmer with primer pocket reamer
http://www.lewilson.com/primerpocketreamer.html
This is different tool to the depth reamers used to clean the primer pocket.

I used the RCBS reamer that is supplied for the RCBS Case Preparation Station. I'll have to check if it is an alignment issue (reamed off centre) a tightness issue or a depth issue when I pop the old primers out. I also have the RCBS military crimp reaming tool but may not have cut deep enough.

In any case, for 9mm brass, it's hardly worth the effort. I just chucked the offending cases.