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Thread: Blown Primers Issue, Cured by Springfield-Armory

  1. #11
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    L2 from what I am seeing in the pics I think the flash holes are way too big. Oversize flash holes will cause problems quickly.

  2. #12
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    Guys, sorry-- my website is older than the internet itself and that page is a little funky. Whatever you click on, it shows up-- way down the page and out of sight. You have to scroll down to it.

    The guy that does my site does it for free so I don't complain much :-)

    This reamer will do chromed barrels-- sometimes 100 of them. Unchromed barrels with no other treatments? Reamer life would be almost indefinite-- in the thousands, maybe. Nitride-- very few..... if any, but my experience in trying it is pretty limited-- when I detect nitride I don't even try.

  3. #13
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    For Post 11. Maybe so. All that brass has since been cashed in at my local recycling company. I also got a little discount ($15) from my ammo supplier as we initially thought it was just a bad lot of ammo. This was prior to me contacting Springfield-Armory. I shot up that batch of ammo (Federal XM193, I think it was), although there were problems with 2 or 3 other brands of ammo, too.

    I'm not a reloader and wouldn't know a primer hole which was too big or not.

    For Post 12. I'm glad Springfield-Armory took care of this and don't know if they had to use up more than one reamer or what tools they have at their disposal.

  4. #14
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    Opening flash holes is sometimes done by folks that shoot subsonic loads so more flash will be delivered to the smaller amount of propellants but is then dangerous to shoot normal pressure loads in because there is too big a opening. This and non mil spec primer cups (milspec is thicker) and you get what you got here.

    Now there is another possibility if these came from a commercial reloader which is the previous owner may have dumped them in a barrel and someone lit the barrel off and a brass scrounger recovered them and sold them to a scrap brass dealer and a commercial reloader got them.

    When I was with the Army Small Cal Lab we got in rifles that were blown about every five months but NONE EVER CAME WITH THE CASES THAT WERE FIRED which we immediately thought was suspect. We got the parts but no brass and everything checked out on rifles, no cracked lugs on bolt or barrel extension and all were correct hardness and of course we knew no handloads so that left one thing.

    The logic being, the bolt is to spec, barrel extension is to spec, headspace is within range so the only thing left was a case problem and was not included with what they sent us.

    THAT TOLD US THE CASES HAD GONE DOWN THE ANNEALING LINE UPSIDE DOWN AND THE CASE HEADS WERE HEATED INSTEAD OF THE NECK.

    MORAL TO THIS STORY IS EXAMINE YOUR AMMO BEFORE LOADING AND MAKE SURE THE BLUE TINTS ARE ALWAYS ON THE NECK/SHOULDER AREA AND NOT THE HEAD OF THE CASE The ammo boys estimated this occurred once every 30 million rounds on the old manual reloading lines. I don't think this is possible on the SCAMP lines.

    NOW THAT BEING SAID IF A ROUND HAS HAD HEAT APPLIED TO THE HEAD AND TUMBLE CLEANED THE BLUE WILL BE REMOVED AND THE CASE WILL LOOK JUST FINE TILL IT IS FIRED. THEN YOU WILL HAVE A PLASTIC DEFORMATION OF THE CASE HEAD WHICH OPENS UP THE PRIMER POCKET AND WILL CAUSE YOU TO NEED TOILET PAPER WHICH WE NOW KNOW IS AT A PREMIUM WITH THE VIRUS FLOATING AROUND ! ! ! !

    You may also see opened flash holes because the decapping pin was for large rifle and ammo loaded on automated reloaders may get holes enlarged and no one knows or realized it happened.

    There is another possibility which is your chamber was too big in the base area. Mic your new brass .200" up from rim and you max case measurement on a fired case should not give birth to cases that have grown to .3789. Your loaded ammo could be .3759 max and can be .008" SMALLER.

    Now what does this mean? If you have a chamber that is too big the primer pockets enlarge when case is fired. Bench rest and match bolt rifle shooters extend case life by buying a custom reamer. For instance I have reamers for my bolt rifle that conform to what I call the 2 2 2 principle which means upon firing a new case will not expand the base or neck over .002" and the shoulder does not more forward over .002".

    Semi autos generally have chambers on the large side of the tolerance range and thus brass life is shorter due to the expansion/sizing which thins the brass down near the base.

    This is what confused me when I first read a reamer was the cure.

    I had a friend who had a 300 Win mag rifle and he could not resize his cases properly and bought three sets of dies then he talked to me I sized his cases with my dies and rounds would not chamber so his barrel either so it was removed and rechambered with my min spec match reamer and has worked fine ever since and he is sitting on three sets of 300 Win Mag dies he will never wear out.

    Just thought of another scenario that ruins brass. PROOF AMMO ruins cases when fired as well as the brass is overstressed and should never be reloaded.

    And finally I had a friend with a M1A rifle that when he reloaded his ammo would fire and not extract properly. I sized his fired cases in my dies and took them back to work and gave them to him and he reloaded them with his loads and they worked fine thus he sent dies back and company sent him a new set of dies and no more problems.
    Last edited by Humpy70; 03-15-20 at 09:14.

  5. #15
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    Our agency had a large number of M16 rifles that were likely built in the 1960's, so we purchased a large quantity of M193 ball for training. When we had a commercial carbine or rifle on the line that popped primers, using a 5.56mm chamber reamer to extend the freebore in the barrel resolved the issue. After using the 5.56mm reamer, I've seen a carbine fire roughly 1,000 rounds without any further issues.
    Train 2 Win

  6. #16
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    That will lower pressures for sure. I have a Marlin 35 Rem rifle I wanted to load 180 gr pistol bullets in but the ogive on the bullets would not allow seating so I ordered a 35 cal throater and opened it up so the pistol bullet could be seated out long enough to allow bolt to close and I can shoot twice as many 180s based on the cost of 200 gr at 50 per box and 180 gr at 100 per box.
    Last edited by Humpy70; 03-18-20 at 07:36.

  7. #17
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    Regarding Post14. I'm not a reloader. The bulk of the ammo was new Federal XM193. Other ammo which had problems was American Eagle and Tula, maybe some Wolf, too (steel cased).

    For Post15, it seems as if the cure you've seen is likely the same or similar to what Springfield-Armory has done to my rifle. The referenced website in Post2 seems to explain it very well.

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by L-2 View Post
    Regarding Post14. I'm not a reloader. The bulk of the ammo was new Federal XM193. Other ammo which had problems was American Eagle and Tula, maybe some Wolf, too (steel cased).

    For Post15, it seems as if the cure you've seen is likely the same or similar to what Springfield-Armory has done to my rifle. The referenced website in Post2 seems to explain it very well.
    The referenced website explains it very well IMHO. I had the opportunity to instruct people who fired enough M193 to fill at least 3 semi-trailers and the 5.56mm chamber reamer worked well when we saw issues with popped primers. The referenced website is also correct in that the pesky little popped primers can wind up anywhere inside a carbine or rifle. I repaired a malfunction where the popped primer was wedged inside the front of the gas key. It was so far inside the gas key, the most expedient way to get the carbine running was to replace the gas key. I had to replace the gas tube as well.
    Train 2 Win

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