550b Primer Seating Tips

[ES13Raven]

I have loaded at least 15,000 9mm on my 550b, and never had an issue with primer depth until recently.

Within the last week, I have had 2 different batches of bullets have a round with what I suspect was a high primer. With my DA/SA CZ, a SA shot went "click" and the follow-up DA shot want "bang" on the same bullet.

This was with CCI primers and mixed brass. Before this, my CZ has been 100% with thousands of CCI primers on the first strike.

I do a visual inspection of all the primers when they are in my Hundo case gauge. I didn't notice any of them being high.

That said, what settings on the 550b should I check for good primer seating depth?

Edited September 6, 2015 by ES13Raven

[MNshooter]

Same happened to me this week so I'm interested in the responses you get. I didn't see the high primer when gauging but after the round didn't light off I inspected and the primer was clearly high. Do the primer pockets loosen up?

[Flash74]

High primers with a 550 is usually user error. The 550 will crush a primer if you keep pushing. There is not any depth adjustment that I am aware of, just push the handle until it is seated.

[Brooke]

I encountered the same problem with recent CCI primers and a 550. I also use the 100 hole Shockbottle gauge and observed no primer seating problem, but had a small number of "clicks". I also have a 650 and have never had this happen. Maybe just luck. I don't know.

I changed to Winchester, Remington, and Federal primers and have never had the problem recur. All these failures were with fully stock Glocks, two 34's, a 17, and a 43.

I was told (and cannot confirm) that CCI primers have a straight cylindrical shape that is difficult to fully seat in a used primer pocket that has the usual debris around the lower edge of the pocket. I inferred that other primer brands my have a tapered shape that assists in seating in those pockets. I do not know this to be true and welcome input from others. I do know that I am not having problems with other brands.

[rooster]

Was any of the brass military? I throw out any brass that has funny numbers on the headstamp, as they usually has the primer crimp which makes it hard to seat a primer. I also throw out any s&b as they have tight pockets. I run a 550b and no problems on a g34 with a 4.5 spring, and I've used the big three primer companies. I just got 5k of s&b but only shot 100 of them but they all went bang.

[ES13Raven]

Was any of the brass military? I throw out any brass that has funny numbers on the headstamp

No, I sort brass by headstamp and only use Win, FC, RP, Starline, Speer, Blazer and PMC.

[bowenbuilt]

CCI primer cups are so hard that it does not have to be a "high" primer, just needs to be a primer that was not crushed when seated. In my guns I have to make sure I seat them extra hard without fail to get 100% ignition. One moment of inattention and I get a click instead of a bang. At one time some years ago CCI was harder to set off than they are now, they made an adjustment, if we could get them to make one more adjustment no one would have these problems.