Originally Posted by
johnd
I think that the "dont touch primers"talk is absolute crap. And is probably an old wives tale situation. People have tried to deliberately make them inert by pouring fluids on them to no avail.
Maybe we have better sealants on the foil of the primer these days, who knows.
There is a list to go through in regard to Fail To Fire.
Firing pin strike too light.... caused by grease in the bolt, rust in the bolt. firing pin bent and dragging, Spring worn or too soft.
Primer not fully seated, so when the firing strikes it, not only does it dent the cup slightly and causes the anvil to press lightly onto the priming compound but it also drives it forward into the flash hole... this will most likely never go bang, unless you put it in a vice and hit it with a hammer ( dont)
Cartridge case has been oversized, so when the striker hits the primer cup it pushes the entire case forward into the chamber, soaking up all the energy.
Primer pocket full of carbon this means you cant seat the primer fully.
So take your pick you could have one two or three different causes. Primers should be below the surface of the primer hole by up to 5 thou. If you look at a live primer you can see that the anvil sits high and proud of the cup, when properly seated the anvil is set to be flush with the edge of the cup.
Some people use a certain amount of "crush" when seating their primers.
Another area of complaint usually arises when someone that normally uses standard primers swaps over to magnum primers. This has drama with inproper seating as a more sensitive standard primer might have been going bang when technically it was improperly seated, but along comes Mr magnum with his thicker cup and now all that hapens is it gets driven forward as in the above explanations.