303 Hornady Brass Primer Pockets

[KHornet]

Got 50 new 303 Hor cases. Loaded them with CCI 200 primers, BECAUSE, Win and Rem were to large. I shot all 50 with various loads up to 18 gr. of 2400 with 150-165-180 gr bullets. I was thinking that after one loading, there might be a chance of seating Win and Rem LR primers. No dice! Guess this is a good reason to have a few different brands of primers on hand.

 

[Ian]

Hornady brass is evidently famous for that. I swage and then ream all the "Match" 308 brass I have even to be able to use CCI primers.

CCI and Speer .45 ACP brass has the same problem, they just go in the recycle bucket because it isn't worth the time to fix.

 

[KHornet]

So much for standardization!

 

[freebullet]

I haven't experienced what your talking about. My standard brass prep includes uniforming the pockets before loading.

Your welcome to borrow my lyman electric case prep center if you want.

 

[9.3X62AL]

This happens among the makers and calibers once in a while. My hang-up was Winchester 9mm Luger brass from the mid-1990s into the early 2000s--very tight primer pockets. Swaging--reaming--STILL a PITA to seat primers into. I went to Remington 9mm brass and got rid of the W-W 10+ years back. The price was right on the W-W (free for the pick-up at my old shop's range sites) but the hassle of processing it turned the "bargain" into a NO-GO.

 

[Pistolero]

Strange. I use many different brands of primers and the only brass I have had issues with is
S&B .45 ACP and a few other calibers has too shallow/tight pockets. Darn near impossible to get
a LP primer fully seated in S&B. They at least have the excuse of being a European company.

 

[Rick]

Only brass I've personally encountered with the primer pocket being out of spec was W-W 45 ACP. The LAPD uses brand new factory ammo for practice (along with a lot of 9mm) and of course leaves it on the ground for an appreciative fellow like me. I normally uniform all primer pockets with the Sinclair tool to max SAAMI specs but this was just plinking ammo so I didn't do it. Went to the range with a 100 round box loaded with 068 and the first mag had a double tap. Stopped and checked the rest of the rounds in the mag and no high primers so I loaded another mag full and had another double tap. Checked all the rounds in the box and sure enough, about one in ten had high primers. I sorted out the high ones and fired all the rest with no issues. Given my normal routine of uniforming primer pockets and my method of seating primers to assure uniform pressure on all primers being seated I had never before experienced a slam fire or double tap before. Startling.

At home I tore down the high primer rounds and checked the primer pocket depth with a caliper, yep all of them had shallow pockets. I set about checking all of the WW brass I had sorted out (about 1200 pieces) and all of them averaged about one in ten with shallow pockets. The police firing this new factory ammo had no such issues with slam fires so the only logical thing I could come up with was the factory put enough pressure on the primer to crush it flat enough. Yikes, I wonder how many went off during the loading process?