Primers Seating Very Hard All of A Sudden

[Yodie]

22 GT, Alpha brass, 2x fired. This is 3rd time to seat primers in them, first two times went smoothly. Now that I’m trying to prime them now they are so tight it’s flattening the primers to get them seated.

Same priming tool I’ve used for the previous 200 priming on these cases.
Cases were deprimed, wet tumbled with stainless pins, dried, lubed, annealed, sized, walnut vibratory polished, blown off with air gun, now trying to prime and running in to this.
Same primers, Remington 7 1/2
Primer pockets are shiny clean, no obstructions, no carbon ring.

Thought it might be my Frankford hand priming tool, tried priming a random 6.5CM Lrp, 357 magnum spp, and a 41 magnum lpp, all went in smoothly with minimal effort.

I’m stumped on why they lockers got so tight that I can’t properly seat them.

 

[HandgunHTR]

Do you have a primer pocket uniforming tool?

If not, get one. It will ensure that your pockets are in spec.

Not sure exactly why you are having issues. Are the primers from the same lot?
It could be very slight peening of the mouth of the pocket during wet tumbling.

 

[WeiserBucks]

It could be very slight peening of the mouth of the pocket during wet tumbling.

This is likely.

 

[Lawnboi]

If it’s from peening a cutter for removing primer pocket crimps will probably work.

Stainless pin tumbling does the case no good.

 

[TaperPin]

Same lot of primer? Remington is making primers as fast as they can and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to guess they might cut more corners now than during normal demand. I’d measure the primer cup to the side of and on top of the anvil and compare them to another lot.

 

[Yodie]

It’s a different lot than the previous 200, which I have no more of to compare to.

I wish I had an inside mic small enough to take measurements of the pockets, or a set of pin gauges.

Strange that stainless pins are known to peen primer pockets, I have never had this happen before, I have some pieces of lapua 6.5 creedmoor brass that have been wet tumbled in stainless pins for 3-4 hours at a time for 15 loadings before I retired them, never once had this issue. I have wet tumbled thousands of pieces of brass in my life and never had this occur.

I do have a primer pocket uniform tool somewhere, I just got to dig it out, hopefully that will tell the tale, I’d hate to think this particular lot of primers won’t work in this brass because their oversized, I have a full case of them I just broke into.

 

[Brucebarker024]

I had the same problems with Remington 7 1/2 primers and alpha 6.5 creed. I switched to cci 400s and back to smooth sailing.

 

[JF_Idaho]

Where are you located? I think south of the equator primer pockets get tighter instead of looser

When I run across pieces with an edge that are hard to seat if you don't have a uniformer kiss it with a chamfer tool or a countersink by hand.

 

[TaperPin]

It’s a different lot than the previous 200, which I have no more of to compare to.

I wish I had an inside mic small enough to take measurements of the pockets, or a set of pin gauges.

Strange that stainless pins are known to peen primer pockets, I have never had this happen before, I have some pieces of lapua 6.5 creedmoor brass that have been wet tumbled in stainless pins for 3-4 hours at a time for 15 loadings before I retired them, never once had this issue. I have wet tumbled thousands of pieces of brass in my life and never had this occur.

I do have a primer pocket uniform tool somewhere, I just got to dig it out, hopefully that will tell the tale, I’d hate to think this particular lot of primers won’t work in this brass because their oversized, I have a full case of them I just broke into.

Honestly I thought this primer information would never get used because they are so consistent. I only remember it because it gets scrolled over on the SAAMI page when looking at chamber drawings. If I’m reading it correctly the standard is anywhere between the two numbers for the different measurements, but it seems like a wide range.

 

[wind gypsy]

The new primer lot being bigger seems most likely to me. I used to SS pin wet tumble the piss out of my brass. I'd leave it go overnight or all day while at work with the fast spinning frankford arsenal tumbler and never observed any issues with primer seating resistance.