Seating Tula 223 Primers

[ToddDubya]

I just popped into the reloading room to make up a few hundred rounds of .223. I had my box of meticulously prepped brass (once-fired military) and some Tula 223 Small Rifle primers (the "special" primers for 223). I quickly found that they just did not want to seat.

I ended up with 8/100 that I could not seat. I even went so far as to take out my crimp removing bit and run the rest of the cases again to remove the hell out of the crimp, then hit the primer pockets with the uniformer (again). I still had to stand and really lean on the handle to seat most of them (as opposed to just sitting in my chair like I do with my pistol press (Square Deal B)). I actually had two cases rip out of the shell holder and fly across the room.

I'm using a Redding Big Boss II press and a Redding shell holder. After priming 100 (well, 92), I was frustrated as hell and called it a day. I do have another box of primers with a different lot number (10-10). I'll try those next, but not until I cool off. I've used primers out of this same lot before (9-10) with other issues, but never seating issues like this. And I've used their large pistol primers with no issues at all.

So I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has had an issue with these primers? Or is it the brass? Or the combination?

UPDATE: Resolution on post 6.

 

[The Professor]

Have you tried them with commercial brass? Reason I ask is I just got hold of 5000 of them and haven't used them yet/

 

[duarteus]

It work fine on my reloads over 500s .223 rounds load ,and shoot we not problems same on Small pistol rounds over 2000. Hope you get it working next time
I did F up some of the small pistol ones on some 9MM brass that had a primers crimp..

Good luck,

H

 

[jasons]

No issues here with any type of brass (LC, Winchester, Lapua, even some Federal that I use for offhand practice.)

 

[dustoff22]

Sounds like a swaging problem to me. I've used over 8K Tula primers on all sorts of brass to include military in need of swaging with no problem other than the occasional FTF but never a seating problem.

 

[ToddDubya]

UPDATE

After a little retail therapy I gave it another go. I went after the crimps again, hit the primer pockets again and set up to try a few more. I tried the ram with no primer first and despite my efforts the primer seater did not want to go into the pocket. I took out the case and shined a light into the shell holder to see if there was a brass filing or something keeping the brass from going into the holder properly.

VOILA!

There was a piece of crud in the shell holder. I scraped it out, cleaned the shell holder and gingerly tried a couple cases. The primers seated as they should. I tried a few more and they all seated as well. Before I knew it I primed another hundred and I'm back in business.

So there you have it, folks. A piece of crud was the proverbial monkey wrench in the works. I don't know what it was. Maybe tumbling media dust combined with case lube? It wasn't much, just enough to keep the primers from centering on the primer pocket correctly.

 

[ToddDubya]

Have you tried them with commercial brass? Reason I ask is I just got hold of 5000 of them and haven't used them yet/

I fixed this problem, but I was originally finding about 1/100 Tula primers was missing the anvils. It's really easy to spot if you look for it. The primer will have the pink priming material, but won't have the shiny anvils. Assuming a whole pack isn't bad you'll see one that doesn't look like the others.

 

[The Professor]

Thank you Sir.

 

[ToddDubya]

Thank you Sir.

Do you have the actual 223 Primers, as opposed to just Small Rifle? I think some of my seating issues are due to the harder cup of the special .223 primers. I have had no issues seating large pistol primers for .45ACP. Next time around I'll just stick with regular small rifle primers. At the time the harder ones were all I could get.

I also learned that they're hard to seat when you use the priming system for large primers. But that's another story.

 

[The Professor]

Sorry, mine are small rifle.

 

[ToddDubya]

Sorry, mine are small rifle.

I have no experience, but I'd guess they'd run smoother.

 

[Gammon]

This is a little off topic, but I have had seating problems with Wolf small rifle primers in 223 cases. All cases had the primer pockets chamfered with a counter sink and still I had five out of 100 primers refuse to seat. A switch to WW small rifle primers cured the problem. What is wrong with the Wolf primers, too large or perhaps the cups are too hard?

 

[Mr. Brownstone]

It is funny that this topic came up today. I recently purchased a good amount of Tula .223 small rifle primers. I had swaged using a Dillon super swage and was loading on a Dillon 550b. I had been having primer feed issues, primer bar getting stuck back. I was also noticing that I was flattening or not seating properly about 1 in 20 of the Tula primers.

I was about to post a similar question, but taking on faith that some respected members (jasons, eddiie coyle) of this forum speak highly of these primers, I thought I would do a little more investigating. What seemed to fix the problem, feeding and seating was this.

On the primer bar, there is a set screw that holds the primer seating punch in place. Dillon tells you to move the shell plate so the hole is blocked, push handle forward and tighten this screw. I had been over tightening it. This was causing the primer cup assembly to tlit ever so slightly to the right. I could see that the primer cup was rubbing against the side of the primer housing shield. By letting off on the set screw a CH, the spring did it's job and held the cup & punch straight up and down. Note, that if I let off too much it wouldn't hold in place.

By solving that problem, I cut down dramatically on the number of primers that didn't feed properly. Maybe 2 in 500. I ran the 500 rounds last night nearly flawlessly without stoppages. Occasionally I had to retweak the punch set screw, but no where near the amount of times I would have to take apart the whole system, to clean, bend the op rod etc...

I was happy to have figured it out on my own, but when I came across this thread, I thought I would share my experience, in case anyone else is having a similar problem.
Also, happy to have found that these tula primers work great. For short money, I know what I will be buying from now on!

 

[ToddDubya]

This is a little off topic, but I have had seating problems with Wolf small rifle primers in 223 cases. All cases had the primer pockets chamfered with a counter sink and still I had five out of 100 primers refuse to seat. A switch to WW small rifle primers cured the problem. What is wrong with the Wolf primers, too large or perhaps the cups are too hard?

That pretty much sounds like my issue. When I get a lot of primers that are hard to seat, I'll run the ram without a primer in the cup to center the case, then put a primer in the cup and seat it. That seems to work pretty reliably; it just takes longer.

I thought I read somewhere that the Tula primers were a little bigger that other primers. I found this table on Ballistic Tools that might help. Assuming it's correct, the smallest diameter primer is the same size as the largest primer pocket. It's possible to have a primer within spec that's 35 thousandths larger than the pocket. Combine that with an allegedly harder cup and it would be pretty tough to shoehorn into the pocket.

Pocket Type	Depth Min	Depth Max	Diameter Min	Diameter Max
Small Rifle/Pistol	0.1170	0.1230	0.1730	0.1745
Large Rifle	0.1250	0.1320	0.2085	0.2100
Large Pistol	0.1170	0.1230	0.2085	0.2100

Primer pocket dimensions and tolerances

Primer Type	Height Min	Height Max	Diameter Min	Diameter Max
Small Rifle/Pistol	0.1150	0.1250	0.1745	0.1765
Large Rifle	0.1230	0.1330	0.2105	0.2130
Large Pistol	0.1150	0.1250	0.2100	0.2120

Primer dimensions and tolerances

 

[50 BMG]

Sounds like a swaging problem to me. I've used over 8K Tula primers on all sorts of brass to include military in need of swaging with no problem other than the occasional FTF but never a seating problem.

I agree with dustoff. If its military brass you will have to pay particular care when preparing the primer pocket. I dont use Wolf primers as my main primer source but in a pinch I do.

On another note I place my brass in separate containers as to how many times I have reloaded them.
One of the down sides of range brass is you dont know if it has been reloaded and how many times. It always a good idea to double check the cases for weak points.

 

[Gammon]

Thanks for the feed back on Wolf small rifle primers, at least I know I'm not alone. Next time I use them, I will try to adjust the priming system on my 450. For now I will stick with WW small rifle until they run out.