Remington LP Primer Hardness

Are rem LP primers harder than Fed, Win, or CCI? Rem LP is all I have and I have been getting quite a few duds when loading on the dillon 550 for my BE gun. I honed down the primer seating cup to allow for a deeper seat and that did improve ignition, but I still average 3/100 soft strikes. Before I honed the seater cup down, I was getting 20% soft strikes. I have cleaned the press and the primer feed components. I am now hand priming the brass. Are the cups harder or do they generate more crud in the pocket that makes a solid seat more difficult? Or is there something else?

What weight mainspring (hammer spring) are you using?
Do the rounds go off on the 2nd hit?

I don't know the exact lbs of the main spring. Cocking the hammer feels much like any other 1911 I have felt. I have had some that did not go off on the second attempt....maybe  10%. NONE have failed to ignite when a hard hand primer seat was used.

I assume by "soft strikes" that the firing pin is hitting the primer but just not hard enough to fire it. I don't use Remington primers but I haven't heard anything about their being hard. I would think that if you had a problem with the firing pin striking the primer, that uniforming (or if you prefer, honed) the primer pocket would if anything exacerbate the problem since it would seat a little lower in the case but I really wouldn't expect that to actually affect the reliability of your ammo. I seriously doubt it has anything to do with your press.

I'm a bit at a loss. Are the failed hits less deep than the successful one? Have you tried firing it again? I would check your firing pin for gunk. It can happen that a chunk of tumbling media can get caught in the flash hole so I would make sure that wasn't happening.

After that, I'm stumped...

I haven't honed or uniformed a primer pocket front sight. 
I honed the seater cup on the dillon 550 to allow a deeper seat of the primer. 
So yes a deeper seated rem primer is proving to be more reliable.  I think I'm getting  a more solid hit (hard to bust a primer on a mattress with a hammer). What I want to know is if there are other primers that might not require this much attention. If there are none, that's fine. Just wondering.

Otiso wrote:I honed the seater cup on the dillon 550 to allow a deeper seat of the primer. 

I'm not understanding what you could hone on the press to allow a deeper seating of the primer.  Everything I'm thinking of would remove material so the primer would be less deep in the primer pocket of the brass.

The only times I've had light enough strikes that caused the primer not to go off were a worn/too light mainspring.  The thumb test doesn't cut it. Replace it with at least a 19lb.  Factory is 21-23lbs.
Also failures occurred when a Dillon SqDB had a cracked handle and the primers were seated flush but not bottomed out in the primer pocket--the first strike would seat the primer the rest of the way, and the second strike would fire it.

If your primers are flush or deeper, I would say it's your mainspring or firing pin.

I have used up just shy of 3K Remington primers in three different 1911s in the past couple months. Did have one that took a second hit, most likely not seated fully.  Other than that one they were fine. Guns were all SA with full power mainsprings.

Reports have it that Federal primers are about the easiest to ignite.

Where you have stated that ignition is 100% when you seat primers with a hand tool, it really seems that it is not the primer or the mainspring that is the issue. My knowledge of Dillon tools is limited to looking at the pictures in their catalog so I can't say whether honing the primer cup actually allows the primer to be seated deeper (seating depth may be limited by travel/height of the actual primer seating 'plug') or if there is some other adjustment. I think you are looking in the correct direction (not to say that a stronger mainspring might not compensate for the perhaps 'not quite seated primers), hopefully someone with more intricate knowledge of the machine can offer guidance. Have you tried Dillon Customer Service, they have a pretty good reputation for being helpful. Good luck.

Bruce

I had the same problem with the Rem LP primers in the Dillon back in the '90s. My guess is they are just a hair larger, but I never measured them. They wouldn't even go down the tube in the Vibra-prime, I had to use those stupid pick up tubes.  When I finished the sleeve of 5000, I never bought them again. I never had a problem with the Winchester or Federal.

 I do use the Rem 7 1/2 SR primers for my rifles.

Rob Kovach wrote:

Otiso wrote:I honed the seater cup on the dillon 550 to allow a deeper seat of the primer. 

I'm not understanding what you could hone on the press to allow a deeper seating of the primer.  Everything I'm thinking of would remove material so the primer would be less deep in the primer pocket of the brass.

Downward travel of the ram is stopped by the seater cup. The shoulder of the cup contacts the bottom of the shell plate platform on the downward stroke and compresses the seater cup spring until the bottom of the seater cup makes contact with the primer slide. Then that's as far as you can go. Honing the bottom of the seater cup (shortening the height of the seater cup) will allow more downward travel and thus a deeper seat. The shorter the seater cup, the more downward travel you have. The more downward travel you have, the deeper a primer can seat. I'm sure a stronger mainspring would help with ignition, but I was worried what else might happen....trigger the same.?...need a stiffer load to cycle? It's not a big deal either way. I can decap, hand prime, remove the decapping pin from the sizing die and run them through. I thought if there was a softer primer that might be the way to go.

Do you know what weight mainspring you have now?  I would be surprised if your gun was ever equipped with anything lighter than 18lb.

I don't know what weight it is.

I know what weight it is!!  TOO LIGHT!!! HAHAHAHAHA

Sorry--just foolin' around.

What sort of 1911 is it?  Custom or commercially available?

You didn't mention what brass you are using. Is it possible that you have some that is giving uneven seating of the primers because you have mixed commercial and military that might need a crimp removed from the primer pocket?

Rob Kovach wrote:
If your primers are flush or deeper, I would say it's your mainspring or firing pin.

[/quote]


The primers are flush on the dillon and countersunk on the hand prime tool. They were NOT flush before the cup was shortened. I think you are right on the firing pin. It is a low mass titanium. I ordered a stainless steel one which will have more mass. I don't know if they used a stouter firing pin spring too which would also make a softer strike. From what I read they did that to decrease the likelihood of a discharge if the gun was dropped. So a light firing pin, not flush primers, and a probably lighter MS after the gun was reworked is all working to cause this. I'll try the new firing pin when it gets here. I'll change the MS as a last resort and hope my trigger isn't effected.

Otiso wrote:and a probably lighter MS after the gun was reworked is all working to cause this. I'll try the new firing pin when it gets here. I'll change the MS as a last resort and hope my trigger isn't effected.

Who did the "reworking" and how long ago?

Don't worry too much about dramatically changing the trigger pull by changing the mainspring.  Since we suspect your current mainspring is light, and we would be putting in a stiffer one, you could lighten the trigger back to the weight you started with by taking tension off of the left finger of the leaf spring.

Otiso:

Please check the center screw holding that shellplate on the ram.

Resistance to the primer seating (and otherwise pulling down on case rims) hits against that stupid zinc manual indexing star, which tends to compress. Once compressed in that direction, the shell plate has more clearance to deflect up, letting the case heads retreat from your priming punch. Over the years, I've had to lightly file out the center hole three times so I can get the bolt out.

When loading rifle on a Dillon, primers being flush rather than just a bit beneath the casehead is my clue that it's time to re-tighten the center bolt.

With all that though, IME if the GUN is sensitive to flush-seated primers failing at even 1 in 200 strikes, but 100% for below-flush seated primers, the firing pin strike is on the wrong side of that ragged edge between too light and "just enough". In fact, with CCI primers (*reputed* to be the hardest to light up), I cut my velocity extreme spread in half by boosting one revolver's hammer spring tension just a bit more beyond the 100% ignition point.

So, firing pin strike to me is MORE than just reliable ignition. The total performance package needs to be examined.

Sounds like you're shooting .45 in a 1911 platform. If it has a firing pin safety, I'd look at that too--a firing pin can squeeze/jump past a block that's not quite really out of the way, and lose some energy to that resistance--even when there is otherise enough mainspring to do the job. A quick and dirty test is with a full-size pencil in the bore. Point up the EMPTY pistol (you checked twice, right?), drop the pencil in eraser-down, and pull the trigger. If it don't hit the ceiling, you have a problem.

I tried some fed primers the other day and I can say based on what I saw, that the rem primers are undoubtedly harder than the fed primers. Not much of a contest really. All loaded on the dillon.

Rem on the left....Fed on the right.
I know a stouter MS would help with ignition, but having found a primer that works in my BE gun (100% so far) and having other sport guns that work well with the rem primers, I think I'll just use fed primers in my BE gun.




https://s302.photobucket.com/user/1911govt/media/bullseye%20targets/primers001_zpse0a4e254.jpg.html?sort=6&o=7

Springs do wear out.

Why didn't you answer our questions about the gun or the build?
Do you remember a recent post about faulty Eley match .22 ammo that turned out to be a once 19lb spring that was only pressing 12lb?

Rob Kovach wrote:Springs do wear out.

Why didn't you answer our questions about the gun or the build?
Do you remember a recent post about faulty Eley match .22 ammo that turned out to be a once 19lb spring that was only pressing 12lb?

I didn't answer it because I didn't think it was relevant and frankly, your misunderstanding of how a shorter seater cup would lend itself to deeper seating led me to believe that you aren't on top it. It wasn't "our" questions...it was your question.
You do think it is relevant so here it is. It was a rework of a mil spec by dave salyer. The pistol is 1 month old. The pistol shoots great. No I don't remember a post about faulty eley. I'm not trying to hide anything rob. Now that you know who the builder is and what the base gun is, what are you going to tell me that I don't know? I know this sounds crass but I don't mean to come off that way. I understand that a stouter MS would undoubtedly result in a more positive ignition with the rem primers.
My original question was about primer hardness if you recall. Don't take it personal that I don't swap out a MS and try to tweak a sear spring...It's not personal Rob. But I think I will use fed primers.

Well if you know all the answers then why are you having performance problems?

Maybe "you aren't on top of it".

Just because you are having this problem today doesn't mean that you are the only person that is going to have a sporadic ignition problem in the future.  The purpose of the question was to cover all the bases so the next guy might be able to read this post and learn a solution that might help them.

I hope that some of the posts on this forum could be used by other shooters in the future. Don't think that when you write a post that the responses are just for your own benefit.  That's not how this forum works.

I looked at your photo.  You are going to continue to have light strikes with that gun as it is.  Ask Dave what weight mainspring he put in your gun--it may have been weak from the factory, or mis-packaged.

Just looked at your primer pics.
Holy cow, that's a light hit.
Were both of those fires through the same gun, with the same mainspring and the same primer seating depth?

Fired, not fires