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Every beginning reloader knows that primers are incredibly sensitive, right? How if you touch them with a bare finger, the trace amount of oils from your skin can kill them and ruin your reloads?
I'm not going to say that that can't happen, but I have some thoughts and experiences that seem to indicate that they are nowhere near as fragile as that.
My son and I occasionally pick up brass at the range, and inevitably find a decent quantity of live ammo. No, I'm not going to fire random ammo found on the ground, no matter how good it looks, so I pull it down for components when I get home. The bullets get tossed in a container for possible re-use (or melting, depending), the powder is destroyed, and the primed brass gets saved for mild plinking loads if it looks good. If the brass doesn't look good- tarnished badly, dented, etc., I'll pop the primer out and scrap the brass.
I had a couple from our last outing that I was scrapping: dirty, tarnished, cruddy old ammo that had obviously laid in the dirt for a very long time. The wet powder came out in clumps. Then they sat on my desk for a couple days drying out, and curiosity got the best of me. Yes, both primers popped like new ones! It reminded me of a similar incident quite a while ago. Somehow a couple of live primers made it into a batch of brass that went through the wet tumbler for a couple hours. I found them afterwards, and set them aside to dry. After a few days I seated them in some brass and tried them out. They popped quite loudly.
I don't really have any important point in this post, just that primers are tougher than most people think. I'll still be clean and careful when handling them, and I still won't use questionable primers for important ammo. This was just something I found interesting, thought I'd share.
I'm not going to say that that can't happen, but I have some thoughts and experiences that seem to indicate that they are nowhere near as fragile as that.
My son and I occasionally pick up brass at the range, and inevitably find a decent quantity of live ammo. No, I'm not going to fire random ammo found on the ground, no matter how good it looks, so I pull it down for components when I get home. The bullets get tossed in a container for possible re-use (or melting, depending), the powder is destroyed, and the primed brass gets saved for mild plinking loads if it looks good. If the brass doesn't look good- tarnished badly, dented, etc., I'll pop the primer out and scrap the brass.
I had a couple from our last outing that I was scrapping: dirty, tarnished, cruddy old ammo that had obviously laid in the dirt for a very long time. The wet powder came out in clumps. Then they sat on my desk for a couple days drying out, and curiosity got the best of me. Yes, both primers popped like new ones! It reminded me of a similar incident quite a while ago. Somehow a couple of live primers made it into a batch of brass that went through the wet tumbler for a couple hours. I found them afterwards, and set them aside to dry. After a few days I seated them in some brass and tried them out. They popped quite loudly.
I don't really have any important point in this post, just that primers are tougher than most people think. I'll still be clean and careful when handling them, and I still won't use questionable primers for important ammo. This was just something I found interesting, thought I'd share.