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Help Figuring out light strikes?

Discussion about what manufactured ammunition feeds your Henry or other firearms
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Mistered
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Re: Help Figuring out light strikes?

Post by Mistered » Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:11 pm

Deprime, size & flare THEN into the tumbler. No need to re-do anything.

Lighten up on the priming - AND think about moving on to a hand priming system.

Check your primer pockets AFTER tumbling to make sure a significant amount of the buildup (if any) is gone and no buildup is remaining.

If you decide to just test primers after resizing no need to bell or flare the brass. Just size, tumble, prime and see what happens!
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Re: Help Figuring out light strikes?

Post by Alex » Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:18 pm

Thank you everyone. I will wait to shoot off the new ammo I have coming, set it aside and then send it through the deprime and resize die before tumbling. I will be sure to report back and again thank you!

Mister thank you for all your advice. I have a buddy that swears by the hand primer. I guess you can get more feel on pressure over the 2 foot lever
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Re: Help Figuring out light strikes?

Post by Mistered » Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:24 pm

Does you press have primer FEED system or do you have to place primers in singly?
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Re: Help Figuring out light strikes?

Post by Alex » Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:27 pm

Mistered wrote:
Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:24 pm
Does you press have primer FEED system or do you have to place primers in singly?
I place each primer individually. There is a small attachment that goes on the ram
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Re: Help Figuring out light strikes?

Post by CT_Shooter » Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:38 pm

Alex, I also think you may be seating the primers on those rounds too deep, as Jake suggested. I once did that with 50 rounds early in my reloading experience and the result was exactly what you describe, light strikes that did not fire the first time and maybe not after a second time. For those, I pushed hard on the handle of the hand primer, ignoring the "feel" that the primer had been properly set and pushing it as far as it would go. It was a mistake I haven't repeated.

You are getting lots of advice about what to do. Let me just add a little more to that soup.

Like you, I use a dry tumbler with walnut shells (adding NuFinish and mineral spirits about every ten times or so) before I decap and resize, which I do immediately after tumbling. And, while I have one, I haven't used the pocket cleaner in the last thousands of rounds because it has never actually been necessary. Finally, after decapping, I immediately use a Lee hand primer to prime the cases and store them until I need to reload.

Good luck. Keep us posted about what you learn.
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Re: Help Figuring out light strikes?

Post by Alex » Mon Jan 20, 2020 3:52 pm

Alright guys and gals Today was range day..

Following advice here and some PM's I decided to try a couple of things. I didn't use once fired brass but the brass I used wasn't used more than twice and it was tumbled with the primers still installed.

I was using Winchester primers before and I noticed 2 things. One is that they would sometimes be difficult to install as if they may not be round enough or ... whatever the case .. sometimes I had to kind of feel around to get a good seat. Second .. which I think may have been my own doing ...when looking at my unfired .357 rounds the installed primers looked flat and they were definitely set below the surface of the rest of the brass. I was installing them too vigorously!

I had just run out of those primers and used instead CCI primers. First .. they seemed to just suck right into the primer pocket with very little effort or finesse on my part.Second I made very sure that I was not arm wrestling the primers in and once they popped into place I moved on and didnt set them like I was trying to install Dynamite in granite. A little push and they popped in and I stopped there. I was certainly applying far more pressure before I got advice from Mistered!

The primer on these rounds when completed has a nice convex shape and the height of the highest point was even with the surrounding brass.

So I loaded up 50 rounds with 6.9 gr of hp38 under a 158 gr Coated LSWC and of all 50 .. only one didnt fire and it fired on my second hit.

Very much different than what was happening where I couldn't get through a tube with at least 2 light strikes!!

Thank you everyone .. I have now gotten the formula to use my reloads and .. oh .. damn that henry is fun to shoot!!
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Re: Help Figuring out light strikes?

Post by BigAl52 » Mon Jan 20, 2020 4:42 pm

Curious what brand of brass is it you had that was once fired?
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Re: Help Figuring out light strikes?

Post by Alex » Mon Jan 20, 2020 5:50 pm

BigAl52 wrote:
Mon Jan 20, 2020 4:42 pm
Curious what brand of brass is it you had that was once fired?
I guess about 2/3 was sigarms and the rest Remington. The sig brass is nice sturdy stuff!
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Re: Help Figuring out light strikes?

Post by Hatchdog » Tue Jan 21, 2020 10:53 am

Happy to hear you are getting the problem worked out. As others mentioned take a look at a hand type priming tool. Not only do you get the feel of the primer seating in the pocket also the hand tools have a tray feed. You can put 100 primers in the tray, give it a shake to orient the primers and prime away. Much quicker than a ram primer tool and a better feel too. When I load on my single stage press I always use my Lee Auto-prime, not the ram primer.
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Re: Help Figuring out light strikes?

Post by Alex » Tue Jan 21, 2020 3:13 pm

Hatchdog wrote:
Tue Jan 21, 2020 10:53 am
Happy to hear you are getting the problem worked out. As others mentioned take a look at a hand type priming tool. Not only do you get the feel of the primer seating in the pocket also the hand tools have a tray feed. You can put 100 primers in the tray, give it a shake to orient the primers and prime away. Much quicker than a ram primer tool and a better feel too. When I load on my single stage press I always use my Lee Auto-prime, not the ram primer.
I am up in the air on whether to get the lee hand primer or the Bench primer. Neither is prohibitively expensive but the bench primer looks like it might be more comfortable to use over say 200-300 rds which is my limit when I sit down to reload. Of course .. the hand primer can go in my reloading drawer and give a touch better feel??

Edited to add some info for other novice reloaders.
I had never thought much about primer depth. I just mashed the primers in with the ram. After a little research I found that the sweet range is .002-.005 and not more than .008. So I took out my .357 that I had been making for over a year and worked in my revolvers but not in my Henry, I took out what was left of my reloads that worked perfectly in my Henry and I took out some factory ammo and ... my caliper.

I took the measurements several times and what I got was .. the Remington factory ammo was consistently .005 below the brass. The three rounds I had left of the working reloads were .000, .005, .008 and my old stuff that was giving my fits .045. That is a significant difference and what was causing my issues.
Alex
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