Pretty Bullets That Don’t go Off
May 10th, 2008No Primers
I am now firmly convinced that the reloading press came with a complimentary curse.
Today I stuck the new pistol rotor on it, adjusted it a few times, and got it to work to within +/- 0.1 grains. I nearly wet myself.
I put the decapping and sizing die back in (it was out because it would have removed the primer from the case I used to weigh charges), and I ran a case through. And the ram got stuck halfway down. What the hell? After adjusting the pawls over and over?
Turns out the pawls may have been okay. The decapping die may have caused my problem. If you fail to knock a primer all the way out, it will obstruct the motion of the shell plate. So it’s just like having a hinky pawl. I’m not sure what the story is. I’m fairly certain the shell plate stuck when I had no cases in it, which wouldn’t happen if the decapping die was the problem.
Anyway, I somehow managed to ram a casing into the sizing die in a way that the press didn’t pull it back down. And guess what? Removing a case from a sizing die without a press to help you is surprisingly hard. I bought some Imperial sizing wax, but I’m not using it yet. It tastes very nice, however.
I got everything going again, adjusted the die, and started making bullets. I thought. When I checked the first two, they had no primers. Everything is working except the priming thing. And I can’t find anything in the manual about “Why your new bullets have no primers.” That wonderful manual, that the smug reloading mystics said was so complete. I don’t see anything in there about primers obstructing the shell plate, either. I guess I’m the first person it ever happened to, in the history of progressive presses.
I used the right punch. I put 25 primers in the tube, facing the right way. The shell plate appears to be indexing correctly over the punch.
Guess I’ll figure it out later. I assume it’s okay to prime the primerless rounds once I figure it out.
Hope to be shooting on Monday.