Carbine reloading dilema ... Bad primers or what?????

[imarangemaster]

Well, I took a fired case from yesterday that had a barely dimpled CCI primer. Sized it and primed it with another CCI primer. Fired it - barely dimpled. Took the same case and primed it with a Wolf small rifle primer, Fired it. The Wolf primer had beautiful, deep, normal primer dimple. I also looked at the lead loads which were reloaded using a LEE factory crimp die instead of a taper crimp. I think it is over-crimping which can exacerbate the problem even more.

That answers why the factory loads are fine: Remington primers, not over crimped. Plated bullets wer loaded with just a slight taper crimp. The correct crimp offset the hard primer to a small degree. I will load 50 of the Bear Creek loads with Wolf primers and a taper crimp and see how that works. I may also replace the hammer spring, just for grins....

[USGI]

Might be best not to make all those changes at the same time. Even if it solves your problem completely, you won't know for sure if just one or two of the changes might have done the trick. I've been using the Lee Factory Crimp Die on mine, but haven't done any lead bullets except for the plated X-Treme's. I just barely apply any crimp at all - maybe 0.001" - 0.0015" reduction in the diameter right at the mouth of the case. Hope you get it shootin' soon! - Bob