Primer piercing and recoil pad

[edgarspencer]

Cheddite primers are much more easily pierced than any I use in reloading their hulls. At one point I had a half dozen top lever 16s and two were notorious primer piercers. I removed them and had them ground to a very even radius as they were more sharply pointed. Never pierced another. I buy lots of Cheddite NPEs without any fears.

[WHO]

80% of the time, my 20 gauge top lever pierced the RST primers. The primers must be made of a thinner gauge metal. I know others have complained to RST to no avail.

[Seth Mackay-Smith]

Well I don't completely trust internet research, but from what I can gather they use Cheddite primers, who in turn use a little thinner gauge metal. Hammer guns, at least in some cases -including mine- seem to have pins or plungers that protrude further than others. When combined with a plunger that extends at an angle I could easily see that a thinner gauge metal would have a tendency to tear when subjected to the sideways forces from the angled impact in addition to the usual inward ones. I'm hoping to get some numbers from other members on what their plunger measurements are (without getting too personal) so that I have an idea where it would be good to end up for an overall length. The radii on both plungers are very smooth (thanks for the info, though, edgarspencer) so I'm not sure what else I could do.