Duds?

[Rockydog]

Longhunter, I agree with rhead. If you a reefing on the primer seater so hard that the press cams over you are using waaaay too much muscle. Priming is a delicate task done more by feel than muscle. Use a firm but measured stroke. You should feel the primer bottom in the cup. If you crush them in too hard you can crack or grind the priming compound leaving metal to metal contact with no priming compound sandwiched in between to go off when the firing pin hits.

[twidget]

2ndAmendmentNut ,

I full length sized them with a liquid lube and pad and then washed the cases in very hot water and liquid detergent afterwards and let them dry overnight. In fact, these last few batches dried over 48 hours. I'll tumble the unprimed ones again just to be sure as I'm sure there's a possibility of contamination but as I said, I never had this problem before.

I had the same thing happen to me many years ago. I had washed the cases and thought they had dried long enough (overnight as I recall). The primer pockets were dry anyway.
When I went to the range there were several duds. I pulled them down and found wet primers and powder. You can be sure that never happened to me again. When you pull one apart I predict you will find a wet primer.

[Longhunter1757]

Thanks gentlemen for all the replies.
I think I've narrowed it down to just plain bad primers which I'm going to check more closely OR and this is a big possibility, I seated them too hard and too far.
Also going to pull the bad loads and check for the possibility of contamination and look REAL close at those primers.

Thanks again!!!

Longhunter1757

[AZ-Stew]

If you're seating the primer until the press "cams over", I'll wager you are crushing your primers. It should never take that much force to seat a primer.

I gave up using my single-stage press for a priming tool long ago. Since you're not loading large volumes at a time, it might be in your best interest to invest in one of the Lee hand priming tools and the shell holder set that goes with it. Using that tool you can feel when the primer is seated. You'll have to experiment with it a bit to be sure the primers are below flush with the case head. Do not force the lever any farther than the amount required to get the primer just below flush.

Regards,

Stew

[lurch]

Got into this situation one time myself. New brass by any chance? I had a batch some 20 years or so ago (223 Rem - Win manufacture, CCI 450's) that the primer pocket was very tight on a few. Need to really crank on the priming tool to get the little boogers to seat in those cases. I suspect I damaged the pellet on a few and got some mis-fires. After the initial fight with them, they seemed to work fine.

[Longhunter1757]

Well gentlemen you were correct.
I tried a new batch with some primers that I was a little more carefull with and they all went boom.
Just goes to show that you can always learn something new. Thankfully this time it only cost me a few primers.

Thanks so much for your help!!

Longhunter1757

[Wayne Smith]

At least for CCI's you really have to heave on a primer to destroy it. I have literally left the impression of the primer seater on some CCI's and they have fired. Is it possible that the rim is too thin on the brass and it's not headspacing?

[Echo]

Are all the duds with 748, or are they split with Unique? If so, are the 748 loads light loads? 'Way less than recommended minimum loads? If so, could be the ball powder's well known dislike for short loads.

[ronterry]

I'll just through this out there, but five years ago I had a bad box of primers! I good 35% failure rate from a box of 1K CCI-350. Some would go boom after two or three hits, the rest would not go boom at all. Always wondered if the foil between the compounds was out of specs, cause they where seated fine and looked OK from the outside, and even had nice firing pin divots on them? Never had that problem since, and in fact if I got one bad one out of 5K I would be surprised! Never rule out 'Friday afternoon' primers if you know what I mean. This is why I teach tap-rack-boom drills to my family till I'm blue in the face!

[Lloyd Smale]

my guess is that you have a worn out firing pin or spring. They do wear out in the marlins.

Not sure if I should post this here or perhaps under leverguns so if it's in the wrong place, Mods please move.

Just started reloading for my son's Marlin 336 30-30.
Rem. Brass, Rem 9 1/2 primers, 748 and Unique powders, 100 gr Sierra Plinker bullets.

Out of like 30 loads (developing plinking/groundhog loads for him to get familiar with the gun) I got 7 total that didn't go boom. This was after several hits on each. One that didn't go boom the first time did go on the second hammer drop but the others will not go boom at all.

At first I thought maybe I didn't seat them deep enough so the next batch I hit them a little harder and still have the same issue.

All look like good solid firing pin hits to me.

Never had this problem before guys and I'm pretty sure it's something I've done.
Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Longhunter1757

[Longhunter1757]

It was definitely my fault. I had about 6 cases that I had primed but not charged.
I pressed out the primers (very carefully) and checked. On one the anvil fell right out and another I could see the compound was cracked. The others looked OK so I tried them just for giggles without charging and they all fired just fine.
Subsequent loads, without me leaning on the primers, all fired just fine.

thanks again all!!!!

Longhunter1757