Thread: What are you using for pressure estimation in your handloads.

Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings all,
It was all warm and horrible outside this morning so I thought I should find out what three of my oldest manuals had to say on pressure estimation. They were Reloading Simplified by Cyril Waterworth 1961, Speer No 9 about 1975 and Reloading Manual for Rifle and Handgun by Nick Harvey 1980. All included primer leak, hard extraction and case head expansion as signs (Speer also included primer appearance). All three did not consider primer appearance to be a reliable indicator of pressure. Interesting.
Regards Grandpamac.

Primers are an interesting one. Soft primer cups can show marking, backing out and flattening that actually shows a too-light load rather than too-hot. Also, if the firing pin hole in the bolt face is excessively chamfered (Remington hey?) a soft primer can extrude back filling the hole or worse case - rupturing around the pin tip. This makes you suspect high pressure when you are simply at the bottom end and the case isn't setting back against the bolt face properly. Can also lead to short case syndrome which overworks the brass and creates other issues...