For the first-timers: First ten rounds ever reloaded (and shot just pe

[ChemistShooter]

Primers aren't all that dangerous.

Only because you live in Florida where the humidity never drops below 75%RH. Primers are subject to static electricity ignition when the humidity drops to 25%RH and less. It the desert it's not uncommon to get down to 10%RH. The greatest danger is when you drop the primers from the pickup tube into the primer magazine on the press. If you don't lower your static potential by touching the press first, your risk setting them all off when you pull the hitch pin and the first primer touches the press. It's also a good idea to ground the press to earth ground, but be sure to check it a volt-ohm meter, don't assume the face plate screw on an outlet is grounded. There was a recent event in Phoenix where a shooter had his press in the garage, and the humidity was extremely low. He pulled the pin and blew the entire tube. Took several stitches to his fingers. And our of our local USPSA shooters blew his trigger finger off at the first joint while picking up primers on the flip tray with the pickup tube. He had just taken of a fleece jacket and had a pretty good static charge on him.

9,man, you're as techie as I am. You just refuse to admit it. 25% RH is the danger point? Recorded. The grounding methods too. This is another one of those golden nuggets I was looking for. I knew those primers were subject to being set off by static electricity. The powder too. It's one of my main concerns. I have been considering getting a RH meter for my little loading room for just this reason. I just didn't know what the danger point was.

[9x45]

normal once fired primer left, and pressure too high on the right

you don't want this to happen to you. Major Open 9mm case rupture, supposed to be once fired? blew the magazine apart, gun and shooter not hurt.

[ChemistShooter]

High primers, try to seat them deeper (mineral oil or other oils are used to kill primers). With just a high primer, I would try to re-seat them just a bit.

The piece of brass with the high primer/pocket not right could have been a crimped primer pocket.

The rounds with spent primers...most likely they were de-primed, and the primer was pulled back into the case when the pin snapped back up...do a search on here about beveling the tip of the de-priming pin.

Re-use the bullets if they are not deformed.

Replace the kotter pin in the primer chute drop with finish nail bent to fit. May have to drill out the holes. Some place a small magnet on the bottom of the chute to add weight get a positive action on the chute.

Tumble your completed rounds (in a dry media tumbler of course) for about 10 minutes to remove the gunk.

Fudge, yeah, that's it, I had already read that.The spent primers are sticking to the new decapping pin and being drawn back up. It hasn't happened today. I'm guessing the pin has worn down a little.

[9x45]

Ok, Chem, you got me there buddy, I am a techie, and to think I almost majored in chemistry, if it weren't the for lab explosion.... You know what they say, mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets, chemists develop the propellants and warheads, physics majors provide the trajectory algorithms and the computer science guys code it. I load in the laundry room so it is always a comfortable %RH for me and the primers. $10 on Amazon, digital meter, AcuRite 613A1.

Cu on Pb!

[chargerarms]

Don't vacuum spilled gunpowder.

Static charges and brushes in the motor can ignite it. Just use a brush and sweep it up. Maybe a little compressed air.

Black powder is explosive, smokeless powder burns with vigor.

Congratulations on getting started with rolling your own ammo. It's really gratifying to find the your own ammo produces groups half the size of factory ammo.

I never saved any money reloading, just get to shoot more.

Plus, you can loose all your locator pins before you realize what happened. Digging in the shop vac is not fun. (happened during 223 trimming)

[superdude]

I case-gauged all my rounds and they started sticking. For a minute I thought I had a bad problem, but it was the gunk Hornady put on the bullets to prevent corrosion building up in the gauge. I thought, well, if it's sticking in the case gauge, what's going to happen in my chamber? So I wound up cleaning them all with rubbing alcohol. The rounds are all looking nice and pretty and ready for the range now.

Hornady does not put anything (your "gunk") on their jacketed bullets. They are traditional cup and core gilding metal jacketed bullets. You're not belling your case mouth enough (.002" as indicated in another thread) and you're scraping material off the copper jacket.

[ChemistShooter]

Nope. There's definitely some kind of anti-corrosion gunk on it to keep the jacket bright and shiny. They feel sticky. They start turning dark if it get rubbed off. I read that jacket is not all copper, that there is a certain percentage of zinc in the coating metal. Might be what's turning color.

[ChemistShooter]

Don't vacuum spilled gunpowder.

Static charges and brushes in the motor can ignite it. Just use a brush and sweep it up. Maybe a little compressed air.

Black powder is explosive, smokeless powder burns with vigor.

Congratulations on getting started with rolling your own ammo. It's really gratifying to find the your own ammo produces groups half the size of factory ammo.

I never saved any money reloading, just get to shoot more.

Plus, you can loose all your locator pins before you realize what happened. Digging in the shop vac is not fun. (happened during 223 trimming)

I've already played a couple rounds of find-the-damn-locator-pin. Not fun.

[ChemistShooter]

Ok, Chem, you got me there buddy, I am a techie, and to think I almost majored in chemistry, if it weren't the for lab explosion.... You know what they say, mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets, chemists develop the propellants and warheads, physics majors provide the trajectory algorithms and the computer science guys code it. I load in the laundry room so it is always a comfortable %RH for me and the primers. $10 on Amazon, digital meter, AcuRite 613A1.

Cu on Pb!

Got it. Man, stuff really gets cheaper over time. I never would've figured $10 could buy all that.

[IDescribe]

Actually DO vacuum up powder. Clean as much up first as you can,, but vacuum afterward if you're on carpet. Read a couple years ago where a reloader had a lot of powder built up under his carpet over the years. If you've ever torn out carpet and seen the dirt build up underneath, you'll know how much can be there. He had an unknown source spark it, it was too big too fast to manage, and he lost his house. I do it regularly. I have never had an issue, but if I do, in contrast to losing the house, I'll say money well spent.

I clean press periodically with compressed air. And I'll hit it with a grease gun here and there. That's it.

[IDescribe]

While we're at it, I will pour case into pan. I tap pan with upturned case. No clingy power particles inside.

[GrumpyOne]

Don't vacuum spilled gunpowder.

Static charges and brushes in the motor can ignite it. Just use a brush and sweep it up. Maybe a little compressed air.

Black powder is explosive, smokeless powder burns with vigor.

Congratulations on getting started with rolling your own ammo. It's really gratifying to find the your own ammo produces groups half the size of factory ammo.

I never saved any money reloading, just get to shoot more.

Plus, you can loose all your locator pins before you realize what happened. Digging in the shop vac is not fun. (happened during 223 trimming)

I've already played a couple rounds of find-the-damn-locator-pin. Not fun.

Take a milk jug or similar plastic item, cut a teardrop shaped "tab" out of it, push locator pin through small end of "tab", place locator pin back into machine. Makes it easier to lift them from the machine and easier to find when you drop them.

[superdude]

Nope. There's definitely some kind of anti-corrosion gunk on it to keep the jacket bright and shiny. They feel sticky. They start turning dark if it get rubbed off. I read that jacket is not all copper, that there is a certain percentage of zinc in the coating metal. Might be what's turning color.

Gilding metal is an alloy of 95% copper and 5% zinc. The entire jacket is made of gilding metal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilding_metal

Ask Hornady what their anti-corrosion gunk is and why they feel sticky. http://www.hornady.com/contact_us

If your Hornady bullets have a special anti-corrosion gunk on them that you are scraping off when seating their bullets, it would be something brand new to me.

[Bear23]

Reloading is not rocket science. If new, just go slow and get it right.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Bear23

[ChemistShooter]

Actually DO vacuum up powder. Clean as much up first as you can,, but vacuum afterward if you're on carpet. Read a couple years ago where a reloader had a lot of powder built up under his carpet over the years. If you've ever torn out carpet and seen the dirt build up underneath, you'll know how much can be there. He had an unknown source spark it, it was too big too fast to manage, and he lost his house. I do it regularly. I have never had an issue, but if I do, in contrast to losing the house, I'll say money well spent.

I clean press periodically with compressed air. And I'll hit it with a grease gun here and there. That's it.

No carpet anywhere. Certainly not in the loading room, where it can generate sparks. I hate carpet. Impossible to keep clean and I turned out to be allergic to it.

I'm not allowing powder to build-up., for the reason you describe. As I have stated before, I am working with explosives. One does not treat explosives lightly. I have the feeling a lot of the people here have not seen an apparently innocent chemical suddenly just blow the hell up. I have.

[GrumpyOne]

No. You are not dealing with explosives. You are dealing with substances which burn vigorously.

Look up powder burn rates. Notice that black powder is not on any of those lists? That is because it is an explosive. Smokeless powder does not explode.

[TonytheTiger]

Some of us spent most of our childhood trying to make apparently innocent chemicals blow the hell up. Gunpowder was not on the short list of useful explosives. Its harder than it sounds to get a good bang from it.

Edited January 1, 2016 by TonytheTiger

[Sarge]

Actually DO vacuum up powder. Clean as much up first as you can,, but vacuum afterward if you're on carpet. Read a couple years ago where a reloader had a lot of powder built up under his carpet over the years. If you've ever torn out carpet and seen the dirt build up underneath, you'll know how much can be there. He had an unknown source spark it, it was too big too fast to manage, and he lost his house. I do it regularly. I have never had an issue, but if I do, in contrast to losing the house, I'll say money well spent.

I clean press periodically with compressed air. And I'll hit it with a grease gun here and there. That's it.

I have the feeling a lot of the people here have not seen an apparently innocent chemical suddenly just blow the hell up.

I have the feeling you don't realize there are people in this very thread who have loaded several hundred thousands of rounds in their lives, SAFELY.

[Beastly]

Prediction: ChemistShooter will proceed with an over-abundance of caution, research, attention to detail and docuementatin for others to assess and validate. Once sucessful and repeatable, excessively rigorous processes will be optimized or eliminated as they are empirically proven to be unecessary.

I don't know anyone else who operates like this.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Beastly

[ChemistShooter]

No. You are not dealing with explosives. You are dealing with substances which burn vigorously.

Look up powder burn rates. Notice that black powder is not on any of those lists? That is because it is an explosive. Smokeless powder does not explode.

Oh, yes, I'm well aware of this from all my reading. These chemicals burn vigorously---they don't explode. But I had already had one guy get on me for using the term "deflagrate." And "I was working with deflagrants" doesn't carry the same warning punch. Some of you guys seem to treat these substances without the proper respect. As a chemist, I know if you don't treat chemicals with the proper respect, 100% of the time, every time, ALL the time---they will find a way to HURT you. So I'm willing to make a technical error if it makes some future reader look at that eight-pound container of gunpowder, then look around at his set-up wondering what the possible ways are of setting that stuff off.

By the way, mine is on the floor underneath a wooden bench. It can't fall off. Nothing can fall on it. No ignition sources are anywhere near. Nothing electronic, not even an outlet. I'd pour it into separate 1-pound containers if I had any. I take the cap only to pour powder out, then I put it right back on, then immediately put it right back in its Safe Spot. The primers are stored up on shelf four feet above it. The primers are spaced out on the shelf with about six inches between them. The gun itself is stored in an entirely separate room.

My instinct is the gunpowder would actually be safer stored in ammunition. All sealed off, and very small amounts. Take a hell of lot more to make it go off.

[ChemistShooter]

Prediction: ChemistShooter will proceed with an over-abundance of caution, research, attention to detail and docuementatin for others to assess and validate. Once sucessful and repeatable, excessively rigorous processes will be optimized or eliminated as they are empirically proven to be unecessary.

I don't know anyone else who operates like this.

Busted.

[peterthefish]

If you're vacuuming up powder I hope you are emptying it regularly. Because based on my experience vacuuming up a live primer, that combined with a bit of powder might not be fun or earn any brownie points with the wife. She'd be all pissed that her next birthday present was going to be a new vacuum cleaner [emoji56].

[Beastly]

OK, ChemShooterDood, my Chem-Fu is weak. please go find one of the wet cleaning threads where we use water, dish soap and Lemishine to clean brass and tell us what we are doing wrong or how to make the process better or more consistent.

[IDescribe]

Oh, yes, I'm well aware of this from all my reading. These chemicals burn vigorously---they don't explode. But I had already had one guy get on me for using the term "deflagrate." And "I was working with deflagrants" doesn't carry the same warning punch.

Maybe you should try calling it "gun powder". Of course, that also won't carry the same warning punch you're looking for, however, because the rest of us know gun powder isn't as inherently dangerous, and handling it not as perilous, as you seem to think it is.

Some of you guys seem to treat these substances without the proper respect. As a chemist, I know if you don't treat chemicals with the proper respect, 100% of the time, every time, ALL the time---they will find a way to HURT you.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you haven't installed eye-wash stations and posted MSDS sheets in your kitchen, bathrooms, and garage, despite the fact that you have chemicals in those locations considerably more dangerous than the incredibly stable gunpowder you're sweating over.

So I'm willing to make a technical error if it makes some future reader look at that eight-pound container of gunpowder, then look around at his set-up wondering what the possible ways are of setting that stuff off.

Some parts of your process, those that disrupt the rhythm of press operation, are far more likely to cost you a finger or an eye than accidental gunpowder ignition. If you keep interrupting your process to check this and that, you'll eventually let a case go by with no powder, OR you will, as I have done, handle a case with powder in it, let a drop of sweat get in, and end up with a round the following morning with contaminated powder, and you'll think it went bang, when in fact you have a bullet lodged in the barrel.

By the way, mine is on the floor underneath a wooden bench. It can't fall off. Nothing can fall on it. The primers are stored up on shelf four feet above it.

So you've stored the gun powder, which can't be set off by fall or impact, in a location where it's safe from fall or impact. And you've taken the primers, which can be set off by fall or impact, and stored them off the ground, where they can fall, but not so high that they are out of range of standard human clumsiness. Got it.

My instinct is the gunpowder would actually be safer stored in ammunition. All sealed off, and very small amounts. Take a hell of lot more to make it go off.

Primers go off. Bombs go off. Gunpowder burns. It burns very rapidly and produces incredibly high pressure when it's contained by something that can handle the pressure. But when there's nothing to contain the pressure, it's just a bright flash followed by smoke. I would recommend that you go buy some steaks, break out the grill, and once the charcoal is going and about ready for the steaks, throw a shot glass worth of gunpowder into the grill. It's not going to be as spectacular as you expect. This is how I got my ex-wife over the scary chemicals in my office. She said "that's it?" If smokeless powder is not contained and allowed to build pressure, it just flashes into smoke.

Chemist, your desire to lead the way for new reloaders and keep them safe is noble, but misplaced. You don't have the experience base yet to apply the various data points you're collecting and obsessing over. You don't have the experience to know what's important and what's not. Offering your opinion confidently at the present time is great. You should. And it's okay to be wrong. But propping yourself up as the model upon which new reloaders should model their own process -- that's a complete lack of foresight. You're a smart guy, so you have to realize that your process a couple of years from now is going to be different than it is now, that you're going to learn, and that in learning, your process will change. And if you know your process is going to change, how much good are you accomplishing trying to pass on the soon-to-be abandoned processes your standing on today. Keep on obsessing over all the things you want to obsess over. Keep collecting data points that most people don't. Keep talking about them. You will learn. You will get stuff right. And you will get stuff wrong. And you will learn from the stuff you get wrong, so there's value in it. But DON'T prop yourself up as a model for new reloaders. New reloaders should not use your process just as you won't be using this same process yourself in the future.

Ultimately, the most productive things you learn and apply are not going to come from your data collection and analysis. They're going to come from the people in these forums who are telling you right now that you are going about some aspects of this process either incorrectly or unnecessarily. Think about it.

Edited January 1, 2016 by IDescribe

[TDA]

I heard that Dillon is coming out with a new line of reloading gear.