Seating primers/Seller and Bellott

[CBH Australia]

I'm having a lot of trouble seating primers in Seller and Bellott 6.5x55 cases.
These are once fired. Full length sized by me today.

Some are just hard to seat in a Lee Hand primer.

Some have gone in slightly off and after using a lot of force and crimped in a way I've had to deprive them.

I've loaded thousands of rounds in other cartridges but this is new to me to be consistently tight or not lining up and going pear shaped.

I did check for a military crimp in the primer pocket and while I don't think it's present I managed to chamfer the pocket.

Is it the brand or something I'm not seeing?

 

[Nevada Mike]

I have had this problem on some European-made brass. I needed to carefully uniform the primer pockets and even try different brands of primers to solve it.

To prevent tipped primers, I seat, then rotate the case 180 degrees in the shell holder and seat them a second time. Solves the problem.

 

[CBH Australia]

Thanks Mike,

More frustration today as I was trying to repeat the same proccess.

As luck would have it @Bob Nelson 35Whelen called while I was. At the reloading bench trying another brand of primer.

Bob was calling to update me on his rendezvous with @Badboymelvin . Well as it turns out Bob has had a similar issue. He mentioned a couple of things that were also evident with the gear I'm using.
He might have a way to resolve it. Buty more tools, lol. Or maybe some European primers . There might be the slightest of difference in the specifications or tolerance.

Any thoughts to that?

I was going to start a thread on helping members and cross referencing stuff and how it helps but I decided to revive this thread.

Thank @Nevada Mike , I'm interested to see what else we can learn from this or if there is a "Known issue"

Any takers?,

 

[Nevada Mike]

Let usknow what you find please. I just used my primer pocket tool to slightly ream the pocket. Only need to do it once.

 

[Hunter4752001]

Hi Chris. Were the 6.5x55 loaded with FMJs before you originally fired them or were they loaded with a hunting projectile. IF they were originally FMJs they may have been done to military standard and crimped. However it may just be that they are S&B cases which as a brand have a poor reputation across a number of factors. A primer swage tool or a primer pocket uniformed may solve the issue but buy a different brand of brass would probably be better.

 

[CBH Australia]

I would have to look to be sure but they may have been an FMJ but they are sold in boxes of 20 with retail packaging.
My brother brought these as it's what he could get. Unfortunately he also brought S&B cases because we can't ship ammo.

The Norma and PPUcases I've done are just fine.

I have used a crimp remover as in the small tool that's turned by hand.

 

[rdog]

Same issue with S&B brass i chamfred the primer pocket & used S&B primers problem, seems to go away on about 3 firing then can seat any primer.

 

[F. Vaccaro]

I run my S&B cases through a primer pocket swager just as I would to remove a military crimped primer pocket. Then primers seat normally. I only have to do it once.

 

[Ray B]

I run into a tipped primer problem occasionally using the standard primer arm on an RCBS Rockchucker. The problem seems to be the cup holding the primer catches on the shell holder just enough to depress and the primer flips on its side, then gets squashed into the primer pocket. My solution is to skip the RCBS primer. For standard base cases I use a Lyman 310 tool- I can watch as the primer slides into the pocket.

 

[GerardV]

I'm having a lot of trouble seating primers in Seller and Bellott 6.5x55 cases.
These are once fired. Full length sized by me today.

Some are just hard to seat in a Lee Hand primer.

Some have gone in slightly off and after using a lot of force and crimped in a way I've had to deprive them.

I've loaded thousands of rounds in other cartridges but this is new to me to be consistently tight or not lining up and going pear shaped.

I did check for a military crimp in the primer pocket and while I don't think it's present I managed to chamfer the pocket.

Is it the brand or something I'm not seeing?

I use a Hornady hard primer with S&B brass for my 6.5x55 and have the same issues with tight primers (Federal and Remington), although they have never been mis-seated.

If you can find S&B primers they are apparently fractionally smaller and will seat more easily.

 

[GeoffP]

I'm having a lot of trouble seating primers in Seller and Bellott 6.5x55 cases.
These are once fired. Full length sized by me today.

Some are just hard to seat in a Lee Hand primer.

Some have gone in slightly off and after using a lot of force and crimped in a way I've had to deprive them.

I've loaded thousands of rounds in other cartridges but this is new to me to be consistently tight or not lining up and going pear shaped.

I did check for a military crimp in the primer pocket and while I don't think it's present I managed to chamfer the pocket.

Is it the brand or something I'm not seeing?

Hello Chris,

I had the same issue with brand new Norma .308 brass, I thought was going to break my hand primer or thumb, whichever gave way first. I ended up buying a primer pocket reamer and just reamed the pockets out a little. It solved the problem.

Cheers

 

[GeoffP]

Hello Chris,

I had the same issue with brand new Norma .308 brass, I thought was going to break my hand primer or thumb, whichever gave way first. I ended up buying a primer pocket reamer and just reamed the pockets out a little. It solved the problem.

Cheers

 

[GuttormG]

Well known issue. You can also expect splitting case mouths after 1-2 reloads.

 

[CBH Australia]

Well known issue. You can also expect splitting case mouths after 1-2 reloads.

Sounds like getting some factory PPU ammo is the way to go as 6.5x55 cases were hard to source when he got these

 

[rdog]

Sounds like getting some factory PPU ammo is the way to go as 6.5x55 cases were hard to source when he got these

Primers hard to seat in S&B cases. Last week i was helping a friend who is just starting to re load , due to a component shortage in Aust he purchased S&B brass in 308 & 6.5x55 . he had deformed Rem large rifle primers trying to seat them with a lee hand primer tool , we de primed the cases with a de caping die , chamfered the primer pockets & primed them with a lyman ram prime tool i have, it screws in to the press like a die with good results, its a slower process than the magazine fed hand primer tool but a much more precise tool, Lee makes a ram prime tool also he purchaced one & primed all his S&B cases with good results . I have not seen the neck spliting problem with S&B brass , but would prefer PPU brass.if that's all there is avail .