Deep primer pocket

NW Sportsman

Active Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2021
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41
Location
Bremerton Wa
Hi there!
I bought some Norma brass a while back loaded them up and noticed my CCI large magnum primers were more deep seated than the other brass I have and are out of range of my Benelli R1 in .300 Winchester mag firing pin.
I emailed Norma about this but haven't heard anything back from their tech department.
I use a RCBS hand held primer tool and was thinking of building a stop that will not seat the primer so deeply.
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance,
 
Your protrusion should be in the neighborhood of .055.
I had some BR4's years back that would misfire about 4 out of 10 switched to rem 7.5 cured the problem.
Sometimes different primer, brass, firing pin combo dont work.
Measure the thickness of your primers also they should be .118 and try to get an avg on your primer pocket depth and protrusion so if you have to send the brass back you can have the measurements to back up that the pockets are to deep
 
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The depth of pockets can be measured with an RCBS dial vernier caliper.
Primers can be below the case head by .008"

The firing pin will reach the primer at .055" protrusion.
 
Interesting, numbers thrown about but no ACTUAL measurements.
Measure the depth of the pocket, seat a primer as far as your tool will seat it, punch it out (carefully) and measure it, then measure a new unseated primer, compare the measurements. Measure the pin protrusion on your bolt.
All measurements on primers need to be taken and compared with a seated primer that has the anvil flush with the cup and NO crush. Then you can determine depth below flush required and the amount of crush or pre-tension. I like .003"-.004" of crush AFTER the cup and anvil are flush with the pocket bottom.
Primers NEED this tension to perform correctly, if seated high and without crush, the energy from the firing pin is used to seat the primer deeper and/or crush the cup against the anvil further. This causes erratic ignition.
I have even seen Eric Cortina take zero notice of how he was priming cases. If it goes bang, then all good??
Not for me, the primer is where it's at, it governs HOW your load is going to work and even the type needs to be tested when developing loads.

Cheers.
 
Thanks folks! It sounds to me that this brass is manufactured incorrectly & no way to correct this problem.
The rounds that I have loaded will be disassembled and the brass disposed of.
I bought this brass sometime ago so I can't return it to the vendor.
I may see if I can send it back to Norma but shipping to Sweden may not be worth the trouble or cost.
In the future, I will inspect the cases closer that I buy, no matter the vendor.
The one thing that I have noticed is buying large magnum primers, .300 Win mag brass and factory rounds is getting difficult.
I've got about 3 to 4 hundred cases so I can load up and get my rifle ready for hopefully a spring bear draw hunt in north eastern Washington this year.
Take care all and happy shooting.
 
My biggest issue with Norma brass is how tight their primer pockets are.
No matter what case I buy, the pockets are always tight.
Have the same issue with recent lots of SR Lapua brass in 6.5x47 and 22-250.

Cheers.
 
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