Tell me about the mysterious exploding primers?

Thousands of rifle and shot shells,never had anything explode,never. If it were common reloading wouldn't be.

It is extremely rare for a primer to detonate during the reloading process as long as you exercise proper handling and safety techniques. Not impossible, just rare, but that is why you should always wear eye protection when reloading, and if you use a lee or RCBS auto prime, always lean it away from your face as you squeeze the handle to seat the primer. How rare is it? well, I started reloading just about 34-35 years ago and at one point when shooting pistol competition, I was reloading 1000 rounds per week, in all that time, I have never had a primer detonate during the loading process, nor do I know of any of my friends who reload having it happen either. With all that, do I wear safety glasses when reloading? your darn right I do!

Shoot safe

The most common way to set off a primer while reloading is decapping a live primer. Some people say never do this because of the risk. The alternative is to chamber the primed casing and fire it in your gun. That works, but for expediency's sake many of us just carefully put it through a decapping or resizing die.

I have mistakenly decapped live primers, thinking the cases were fired already. Since I didn't know they were live, I wasn't even being very gentle. Still none of them popped. Primers are designed to take a pretty strong impact and still not go off. It takes a sharp strike from a firing pin to set them off. I still recommend being careful and wearing eye protection, but the risk really is minimal. I've never seen one go off before, but the pressure is so low that it's not going to hurt anything. Probably the biggest risk is to your pants if it startles you bad enough.

Good luck, --Tex

Every reloading manual out there will tell you to wear eye protection when reloading just in case the freak happens. It's remotely possible to blow a primer if you don't pay attention to what you're doing, but it would be user error. Of the top of my head trying to prime an already primed case and really leaning on the handle because it won't budge might set one off.

Between myself and 1/2 dozen reloaders I know we've done I don't know how many thousands or rounds without incident.

I had a primer get caught in the wrong spot on my Dillon 550 press when it jumped out of the primer feed tube. I didn't see it, but when I ran the press down on it and crushed it there was a bang like a loud cap gun. This happened one time in over 20 years of using a progressive loader, so I would say based on my experience that it is pretty rare.

Yay Candy Cane Toad!

This Eugene feller has been pissing me off for some time. When I advised a hand press for a beginning reloader, just to "try" it, he was the very one to state that they were dangerous because hand presses for some reason (beyond all our knowledge) cause primers to detonate.

Primer Gnomes...

Collect Primers, _________, Profit.

I've been a reloader almost thirty years now and have never had one go off in a press...

Heck just messing around on day I hit a lose primer with a 21 oz framing hammer... had to hit it twice to make it go off and I hit hard both times...

no if they were that dedicate we'd have guns going off all on their own every time someone dropped one.

Very, very common? Really? In that case we're all lucky we haven't been blowed up and consumed in a raging river of primer-related DEATH.

It's Primer Gnomes . . . that's what caused it!

Cane toads will take over the world!

LOL! Ok, now I know who you are talking about. I saw that same answer. Is this the same guy who had the headfull of bad info about Walmart Vanguards and AK74 sniper rifles? Seriously, you need to relax and let it go. We get all kinds of kids here on this forum who have a little bit of video game gun knowledge and think they're John Taffin. Just ignore the know nothings and concentrate on trying to give good, fact filled and helpfull answers. People who know what they're talking about here also recognise the kids who know nothing, and hopefully people who ask questions can tell the real knowledge from fantasy.