Wondering if anyone else has experienced failure to ignite problems with CCI primers?
Last Fall, we wanted to do some target practice with our 2 454 Super Redhawks. Took out a couple boxes of handloads. New Starline brass, 296 powder, CCI small rifle primers. About 1/2-1/3 of the ctgs we attempted would not fire w/o several firing pin indents. We attempted about 30 firings, with maybe half being as all should be when we finally quit. Who likes having a misfire? Like holding a grenade in your hand, when you swing open that cylinder. A day or two later, same deal. We quit after about 6 failures.
In 30+ years of reloading, I've only had a couple of bad cartridges.
Contacted Blount, Inc; maker of CCI, Federal, RCBS etc. Described the problem, my process for preparing cartridge cases, I use a carbide primer pocket uniformer from Sinclair's. The CCI Tech guy (also tech at RCBS) had never heard of Sinclair Intl. Anyway... The brand new Starline 454C cases are simply superb. Never more than a flake of brass if that much to remove. I seat the primers with a Lee Auto Prime, never handle the primers. Primers were a recent production batch, all from the same lot # I am sure, but I Did Not keep the empty tray/pkgs to have this detail for CCI.
Anyway, CCI is positive that their product cannot be at fault.
CCI thinks it must've been my failure to seat the primers deep enough and the several indentations were driving the primer into the final depth where it would fire.
Interestingly,
Ruger SRH has about the heaviest factory trigger spring in the business.
Starline brass has a pretty shallow, rather than deep primer pocket.
The primers were all seated below the case rim/base, measured to be about .002 below the rim/base.
Starline primer pocket depth is about .012
Primer length is about .009
Lee AutoPrime seats on feel all the way to bottom of pocket.
Pretty hard for me to see 3 or 4 20+lb poundings being necessary to "seat the primer" an additional .001; yet, that's all CCI would consider.
I have a VERY BIG confidence problem from my interaction with the CCI tech dept guy saying he'd never heard of Sinclair International, one of the larger purveyors of Benchrest gear and reloading equipment in America.
I loaded up some new cases with primers from the same lot and fired these. About half had shallow indents, the other half were normal.
About all I am left with is pulling the bullets (or firing them) on all my Casull handloads.
It really is a bummer to have problems with components that have always functioned normally in the past. Even more of a bummer to have a supplier disavow any possiblity of malfunction of their product.
I have made an effort NOT TO BUY anymore CCI primers; but other than Remington and Winchester, Blount seems to have the market cornered since they also own Federal.
Maybe the CCI tech guy was just a know-nothing fathead; I don't know.
I do know they've lost me as a customer.
Now, I gotta pull bullets from about 400 assembled ctgs.
Oh joy!
Last Fall, we wanted to do some target practice with our 2 454 Super Redhawks. Took out a couple boxes of handloads. New Starline brass, 296 powder, CCI small rifle primers. About 1/2-1/3 of the ctgs we attempted would not fire w/o several firing pin indents. We attempted about 30 firings, with maybe half being as all should be when we finally quit. Who likes having a misfire? Like holding a grenade in your hand, when you swing open that cylinder. A day or two later, same deal. We quit after about 6 failures.
In 30+ years of reloading, I've only had a couple of bad cartridges.
Contacted Blount, Inc; maker of CCI, Federal, RCBS etc. Described the problem, my process for preparing cartridge cases, I use a carbide primer pocket uniformer from Sinclair's. The CCI Tech guy (also tech at RCBS) had never heard of Sinclair Intl. Anyway... The brand new Starline 454C cases are simply superb. Never more than a flake of brass if that much to remove. I seat the primers with a Lee Auto Prime, never handle the primers. Primers were a recent production batch, all from the same lot # I am sure, but I Did Not keep the empty tray/pkgs to have this detail for CCI.
Anyway, CCI is positive that their product cannot be at fault.
CCI thinks it must've been my failure to seat the primers deep enough and the several indentations were driving the primer into the final depth where it would fire.
Interestingly,
Ruger SRH has about the heaviest factory trigger spring in the business.
Starline brass has a pretty shallow, rather than deep primer pocket.
The primers were all seated below the case rim/base, measured to be about .002 below the rim/base.
Starline primer pocket depth is about .012
Primer length is about .009
Lee AutoPrime seats on feel all the way to bottom of pocket.
Pretty hard for me to see 3 or 4 20+lb poundings being necessary to "seat the primer" an additional .001; yet, that's all CCI would consider.
I have a VERY BIG confidence problem from my interaction with the CCI tech dept guy saying he'd never heard of Sinclair International, one of the larger purveyors of Benchrest gear and reloading equipment in America.
I loaded up some new cases with primers from the same lot and fired these. About half had shallow indents, the other half were normal.
About all I am left with is pulling the bullets (or firing them) on all my Casull handloads.
It really is a bummer to have problems with components that have always functioned normally in the past. Even more of a bummer to have a supplier disavow any possiblity of malfunction of their product.
I have made an effort NOT TO BUY anymore CCI primers; but other than Remington and Winchester, Blount seems to have the market cornered since they also own Federal.
Maybe the CCI tech guy was just a know-nothing fathead; I don't know.
I do know they've lost me as a customer.
Now, I gotta pull bullets from about 400 assembled ctgs.
Oh joy!
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