fully seated Federal primers

[tomv]

I'm considering having an action job done on my 627 V comp by TK custom. I'm reloading .38 Short Colt ammo on a Dillon 550b press. TK's website states that "fully seated" Federal primers are required and shows a picture of a primer deformed by the primer punch. Is a special punch required to accomplish this or some other modification to the machine?

[Toolguy]

No. I load everything on 550s. All you have to do is get in the habit of making sure that you put the same firm forward pressure on the handle every time. The primer should be a little below flush of the case head, but flat and not really deformed. If some dirt gets on the primer seating punch,  the primer will have a ding in it, but that is easily cleaned off the punch.

[MWP]

Even after an action job like TK, fine tuning will have to be done to your gun, and possibly ammo. TK does excellent work, be confident knowing their work is top notch. 

 

On that same note, every gun is different. And, every person loads differently. I always turn up a gun 1/4 turn. I also reseat, by hand, major match primers. It seems like a lot of extra work, but it's just a few minutes for knowing your ammo is 100%. 

[BadShot]

If you're using nothing but Starline brass and federal primers, is there a depth that  you can use?  Mine show .006 to .009 deep.  I'm using a 650.  If I use my RCBS hand primer they all show .009 deep.

 

 

[tomv]

MWP,

What tool are you using to re seat primers?

[MWP]

1 hour ago, tomv said:

MWP,

What tool are you using to re seat primers?

I'm using a Hornady hand seater that I've had forever. 

 

And I should say that I'm not really "reseating" per say, just making sure they're properly seated. Some feel too deep after, I just toss them back in the practice bin, but none have failed to fire. 

 

I'm at roughly .15% light strikes with the ammo coming directly off my press. That's 3 per every 2k. Great for practice, not acceptable for matches. 

[MWP]

1 hour ago, BadShot said:

If you're using nothing but Starline brass and federal primers, is there a depth that  you can use?  Mine show .006 to .009 deep.  I'm using a 650.  If I use my RCBS hand primer they all show .009 deep.

 

 

Measuring seating depth is a funny thing. I think .010 has been the standard answer to your question. 

 

There are 3 ways to "seat" a primer. 

 

1: Factory seating- between flush and .005 from bottom of case. In the case, but not bottomed out. 

 

2: Fully seated- the primer is bottomed out in the brass. All brass is different, and while .010 is the catch all answer, there are variations. I have a friend with old short colt brass, his are seated deeper than .020 and everything's fine. At .010, he has light strikes. He's also on a 650. 

 

3: Crushed primers- the cup of the primer has been noticeably punched. The primer is all the way in, and the ram kept going, leaving a print. Dust or dirt on the ram are obvious.  Some call that too deep, others call it just right.

 

I would have to say my normal ammo is between 2 and 3. Some are firmly seated, some are obviously crushed. This is mostly due to my used brass. 

[firewood]

On ‎12‎/‎31‎/‎2017 at 12:09 AM, MWP said:

Even after an action job like TK, fine tuning will have to be done to your gun, and possibly ammo. TK does excellent work, be confident knowing their work is top notch. 

 

On that same note, every gun is different. And, every person loads differently. I always turn up a gun 1/4 turn. I also reseat, by hand, major match primers. It seems like a lot of extra work, but it's just a few minutes for knowing your ammo is 100%. 

 

Assuming Federal primers deep seated and a good professional tuning (polished innards and extended fp and bobbed hammer) but getting a light strike about 1 in 20 rounds what would you suggest? Should the main spring be bent slightly taking a little of the bend out?  Thanks

[alecmc]

9 minutes ago, firewood said:

 

Assuming Federal primers deep seated and a good professional tuning (polished innards and extended fp and bobbed hammer) but getting a light strike about 1 in 20 rounds what would you suggest? Should the main spring be bent slightly taking a little of the bend out?  Thanks

 

I follow the same practice as MWP. 

 

Once you know your primers are pretty consistent, start low on the main spring tension and work your way up tightening unti they all go bang, then I give it just a touch more on the strain screw tension and lock tite it with blue. 

 

Also, i prefer to use aftermarket mainsprings ( I like the bang inc main spring ) , but plenty of people do modify their own springs in similar fashion. 

 

 

sidenote - even though it's out of reach $$ wise for alot of people, this is really where a dillon 1050 shines. Setting the primer depth on the machine makes life alot easier for a revolver shooter.

Edited January 2, 2018 by alecmc

[MWP]

1 hour ago, firewood said:

 

Assuming Federal primers deep seated and a good professional tuning (polished innards and extended fp and bobbed hammer) but getting a light strike about 1 in 20 rounds what would you suggest? Should the main spring be bent slightly taking a little of the bend out?  Thanks

1 in 20 is a light strike. I would turn up the mainspring tension.

 

If the screw is shortened, or all the way in already, then I would take a little bend out of the spring.

Edited January 2, 2018 by MWP

[onebadeye]

I use a 550 to load long colts for my 627 with 5 1/2 lb trigger and have no issues.

[firewood]

1 hour ago, MWP said:

1 in 20 is a light strike. I would turn up the mainspring tension.

 

If the screw is shortened, or all the way in already, then I would take a little bend out of the spring.

 

3 hours ago, alecmc said:

 

I follow the same practice as MWP. 

 

Once you know your primers are pretty consistent, start low on the main spring tension and work your way up tightening unti they all go bang, then I give it just a touch more on the strain screw tension and lock tite it with blue. 

 

Also, i prefer to use aftermarket mainsprings ( I like the bang inc main spring ) , but plenty of people do modify their own springs in similar fashion. 

 

 

sidenote - even though it's out of reach $$ wise for alot of people, this is really where a dillon 1050 shines. Setting the primer depth on the machine makes life alot easier for a revolver shooter.

 

I think I'm going to try bending the main spring just a bit, I hate to do that as I really love the trigger but if it don't work then not much help. Right now I'm at about 6 pounds maybe a little more.  I appreciate the responses I was just not sure f I should be looking at something else besides the mainspring.

Edited January 3, 2018 by firewood

[alecmc]

8 minutes ago, firewood said:

 

 

I think I'm going to try bending the main spring just a bit, I hate to do that as I really love the trigger but if it don't work then not much help. Right now I'm at about 6 pounds maybe a little more.  I appreciate the responses I was just not sure f I should be looking at something else besides the mainspring.

 

EVERYTHING needs to be taken into account when tuning a revolver, main spring, hammer weight, firing pin length, end shake, etc etc.

 

6 lbs should be plenty to fire off, what are the specs of the revolver? stock main spring? firing pin? hammer? rebound spring weight? 

[BadShot]

3 hours ago, alecmc said:

sidenote - even though it's out of reach $$ wise for alot of people, this is really where a dillon 1050 shines. Setting the primer depth on the machine makes life alot easier for a revolver shooter.

So, if  you had a 1050, you would set all of the primers to be set to specific depth regardless of brass manufacturer?  What depth would you use to set up the 1050?  I kind of wish that I had gone with the 1050 instead of the 650.  Just curious about this..

 

Skip

[alecmc]

38 minutes ago, BadShot said:

So, if  you had a 1050, you would set all of the primers to be set to specific depth regardless of brass manufacturer?  What depth would you use to set up the 1050?  I kind of wish that I had gone with the 1050 instead of the 650.  Just curious about this..

 

Skip

 

Well, personally I only use two types of headstamps. Starline, and federal. So it's easy to set depth consistently. I aim for .008-.010

belowflush on both and haven't had issues.

 

For revolver shooters it shouldn't be hard to consolidate into one or two brands of headstamps, everything will just go alot smoother. Plus, we always get our brass back so it shouldn't be a big issue.

 

 

[MWP]

1 hour ago, firewood said:

 

 

I think I'm going to try bending the main spring just a bit, I hate to do that as I really love the trigger but if it don't work then not much help. Right now I'm at about 6 pounds maybe a little more.  I appreciate the responses I was just not sure f I should be looking at something else besides the mainspring.

You're on a 929 right? What brass and what clip thickness?

[Toolguy]

For trigger pull lightening, I like to put a large radius bend in the middle of the spring. This requires a longer strain screw, so I use a #8-32 x 1/2" socket headless setscrew with blue Loctite. That can be set to anything you want it to be. Once the mainspring is done, you can usually use a lighter rebound spring too. The reason is that by bending the mainspring, you are making it shorter. By making it shorter, you are pulling the hammer more rearward than upward. This puts less down force on the rebound slide so it can go back forward more easily.

 

Another thing that will make the rebound slide return easier is to make a generous radius on the top front corner of the rebound slide and the bottom rear corner of the hammer that it engages. Get a good polish on these after radiusing. The right rebound spring can make the DA pull a pound or 2 lighter, depending on where you're at already. A reliable 6 to 6.5 lb. pull is doable with factory parts. It takes a lot of work to get lighter than that and still be reliable. Every gun is an individual. You probably won't be able to make them all exactly alike, but they can be close enough that any difference won't matter.

[firewood]

23 hours ago, MWP said:

You're on a 929 right? What brass and what clip thickness?

 

929 is correct. I use only federal brass and revolver supply co low price .035 blue steel moons. Primers are Federal and I double seat them so they bottom out.  I have a package of the .040 DAA moons I will try them. I had the best performance with the slightly more expensive revolver supply store  .035 plated moons (I have some samples) so I think the next step is to 1. make sure all of my moons are flat and 2. try the thicker moons. If the weather doesn't go to crap I'm going to go shooting tomorrow and see what happens just by using different moons. I really want to avoid if possible buying a complete set of TKs right at the moment, but if that is what I need to do then ok.

 

The work on the gun was done by Pinnicle and he does great work but I don't want to take it back if I can fix it myself. Interesting enough (at least to me that is) Fred Picard who is my neighbor also told me to try different moons but I'm stubborn I guess.

 

On ‎1‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 8:14 PM, alecmc said:

 

EVERYTHING needs to be taken into account when tuning a revolver, main spring, hammer weight, firing pin length, end shake, etc etc.

 

6 lbs should be plenty to fire off, what are the specs of the revolver? stock main spring? firing pin? hammer? rebound spring weight? 

 

The main spring was bent I think it is the stock spring, the rebound was cut I believe he took 3 coils out, the fp is an extended one that Mark makes himself, I replaced it with an apex didn't make any difference. The hammer is the stock hammer with the spur milled off. If you don't mind Alec I'm going to try different moons and if that doesn't work then I will verify the internals and get back to you.

 

Thanks both of you for taking the time to help this poor soul out of the weeds.

[MWP]

Try the .040 moons. I spent a few months with .035 and it cost me a lot of frustration. 929s headspace off of the moon, so a .005 thicker moon is equivalent to a .005 longer firing pin. That thicker moon, with the apex pin, might just solve your issues. 

 

I personally haven't used a DAA clip, but I can say that the stainless .040 TK clips are worth every penny. Might be a lot of pennies, but they're really good.

[tomv]

My gun is now on the way to TK for action job. We have a local match here in which "big bore" factory ammo is required. ,357 mag is considered big bore in this match. Will Federal .357 mag ammo run in my gun with reduced trigger pull weight?

[tomv]

I spoke with Eli at TK after posting the previous question. If I want the ability to use factory Federal ammo, they will provide a higher trigger pull weight. I opted for the minimum weight configuration which will require fully seated Federal primers.

[MWP]

12 hours ago, tomv said:

My gun is now on the way to TK for action job. We have a local match here in which "big bore" factory ammo is required. ,357 mag is considered big bore in this match. Will Federal .357 mag ammo run in my gun with reduced trigger pull weight?

I typed a response a few hours ago, and apparently my phone didn't want to post it. 

 

That's what I was going to say. Call Eli and let him know. Best options are either turn it up to shoot federal factory, or reseat the factory primers.

[357454]

MWP has it right on, I recently reworked a 929 for a friend that had removed the hammer, I had initially installed and replaced it with another, needless to say the change of parts seriously degraded the reliability. I was testing it today with my reloads and Federal primers, ignition was 100%, when I switched to the factory federal ammo my friend would like to use I immediately started getting light strikes. I ran some of the factory thru the seater on my press, the seating depth was noticeable, will test fire on the range this weekend.

[shoots100]

I've never had to reseat a primer with my 550 press. I use all sorts of brass.

If something looks bad when checking them in the shockbottle , I toss it into the Semi auto can.

Maybe one or two out of a thousand gets cut, but it's usually a bad crimp that's the issue.

I don't have the time to re seat my primers by hand, after seating them on machine, if that's what your doing ?

I think it would take a lot longer to reseat them after seating them on the machine and then removing the first die to not deprime them again when feeding them into the machine after reseating them ?

I have a case feeder on the 550 and have only had issues with my brass, if I forget to use some hornady one shot on the brass.

Do you reload using a single stage press for your match rounds ?

My 929 has been good to go with fed primers , Wilson main spring, 13lb rebound spring, DA pull set a 7lbs, Apex Ext Pin, bobbed + fit aftermarket hammer and CED .040 stainless moon clips.

It took around two months to make it that way.

I broke 2 C+S firing pins in the process.

If I used Apex from the start, probably would've took a month. Live and Learn.

I had the pull set at 6.5, but rounded it to 7 for the hell of it.

@ 8lbs, it'll set off anything reliably but unis SP primers. They need 9lbs for reliable function.

SJC

[tomv]

I've never re seated primers in loaded cartridges, not because I think it's a bad practice. I've just never had a need to do it until now.

I just ordered a RCBS bench type primer seating tool which I believe will be sensitive enough to safely re-seat primers in loaded rounds. Then I came across this topic on the forum. I know that primer seating on a loading machine is far different from using a hand tool on already seated primers but don't want to find out the hard way that it's dangerous.

Opinions?