Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Pulled primers are they usable??

For anything but dangerous game where failure will not be tolerated.

I've never had a re-used primer fail yet, but I wouldn't bet on one if a lot was riding on it.

On the rare occasion that I have had to deprime a live primer it has never failed to go into a bucket of water..............


That's three cents I am not worried about........

Kind of like using the same two cent sandwich bag over !

muffin,

Why a bucket of water? I suspect I know the reason, but want to be sure before commenting further.

I have carefully deprimed cases with a Lee decapper die, slowly, with safety glasses and gloves on. I'd use a full face shield if I had one. Never had one pop. I never though about reusing any since I assumed they might not seat tightly or the anvil might have been damaged. I toss them into the pond just for the frogs.

Seating a primer does two things: compresses the anvil against the priming compound, and compresses the outside diameter with a press fit into the pocket of the brass. I am always very cautious around primers as they are explosives--just pop one in your rifle using an empty cartridge case. You will see why I don't want to do anything risky around them. Decapping one puts more load against the anvil. Reseating one in a different piece of brass could result in insufficient press fit to prevent leakage when firing. I will occasionally use the inertia "hammer" to pull a bullet, and change a load in that piece of primed brass. If the primer is a loose fit, for example, and I don't want to use that brass, I pop the primer in the rifle and don't try to reuse it.

longbarrel,

And I've fired piles of "pulled" (actually "pushed") primers without ever once seeing any leakage. Which is more than I can say about brand-new primers--though no doubt I've fired a LOT more new ones!

Had a big mess of reject milsurp 223 that I smashed into Fireball, so I had to deprime a pile of them. They didn't get far enough in the process for a crimp, and I had a pile of primers just screaming "OBAMA" at me. Used a face shield depriming (smoothly), not one popped. And they popped right back in and shot just fine.
Whatever floats your wallet -- just make sure you are protected. Safety gear is cheap. Surgery ain't.

Same.

But that's why I like this place, learn something pretty much every visit.....

Exactamundo!!!! I've done it many times and always wear safety glasses.... I've never seen any issues using these primers either...

I have deprimed heaps of cases and resused the live primers over again. Never had a problem, never had a misfire once recycled, and think there is no harm at all in it. I dont look down the hole while I am doing it of course, but whats it going to do, go bang?

(But I only deprime them by resizing the cases with a die, meaning the primer is gently pushed out, I dont tap them out for example like with a Lee hand tool kit.)

Due to the price of primers, I look at it as why mess with it...primers are cheap enough...

on the flip side, I've disassembled a ton of rounds, re used the powder, bullets etc.

if I've had to resize the case for some reason, I've got depriming rods, that have had the decapping pin
broken.... I've just saved the rod and frequently use that in the die..

so I can resize a case, and not have to touch the primer....

I do most of my depriming with a universal depriming die anyway... just habit and I'm in no rush
at the reload bench.. that's the last place to be in a hurry.... things get short cutted and overlooked
and lead to a hassle in the field or at the range.

same way I don't drop everything I'm doing at the reload bench, when my wife, like all wives
think you are supposed to drop everything you're doing when they need "oh honey can you help me
with this, it will ONLY take a minute".

I just recycle the primer when I am recycling the brass to some other load....no need to separate them.

Sounds like washing and reusing condoms to me.

.........and about as safe, IMO. Don't ever remember reading the practice of re-using unfired primers as accepted prudent, safe reloading practice, although obviously it has been done successfully.
Primers are cheap enough not to fool with such activity, but if a Zombie Apocalypse descends upon us and primers are no longer available from stores, it may become an absolute necessity.

ignorance is bliss................

LC

I don't make a regular habit of it, but have done so in the past with not a single problem.

Now, let me get this straight. You have some loaded cartridges and you do not wish to use them as is. So you pull the bullets and dump the powder. You check to be sure that all the powder is out of the case. What you need to do now is resize the case to get the proper tension on the bullet. Your thought is to deprime the case when you resize it. When I have run into this situation, I simply take the decapping pin out of the die and resize the case without disturbing the primer. I did recently take some loaded cartridges apart that needed to be deprimed. What I did notice was that several of the primers came out with the anvils falling separately. Not real sure it is a great idea to put the anvil back in the cup. So if you wish to use the once seated primers I think it prudent to be sure that the primer you reseat in the case has an anvil. Just saying..
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I usually do the depriming pin trick, but there have been times when I have an issue with the brass and hence have to pull the primers or toss the primed brass.

When I have a brass issue and the brass is no longer usable, I toss it in a 5 gallon bucket. When the bucket gets full, I take it to the scrap yard in town and they weigh it and in return they give me money. Isn't that a novel idea? I used to be a service rifle shooter with my M1A and after a summer of shooting and reloading, I had quite a bit of scrap brass to sell.
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