Primer systems by Home Workshop Research Industries
The tooling presented here can be used to manufacture
primers for small rifle and small pistol firearms, and
have been successfully tested in pistol using H-48
priming compound made from commercial grade
precursors.
Information regarding the tooling
Most heat treatable tool steels capable of reaching
hardness of 55-60HRC can be used for manufacture of
this tooling. The drawing tools must be concentric and
precise in diameter in order for them to produce
uniform, proper sized primer cups.
Small pistol primer cups differ from small rifles in
general only for material thickness, but since small rifle
primers can be used in both ammo, this manual focuses
only on this single type of primer.
The diameter of a cup is 4.45mm with 3.81mm ID with
overall height of 2.65mm to 2.93mm. The uniformer tool
is designed to produce primer cups of 2.9mm in height.
A primer pocket is 3.00mm deep, and primer cup must
always sit exactly flush or below flush to prevent
accidental slam fire discharge, hence the primers have
tolerance for lower height, and producing primer cups of
slightly smaller height is not an issue, as long as the anvil
fits.
The anvil is generally from 0.01 to 0.025mm larger than
the cup, so it forms a slight press fit and remains in place
during handling. The anvil is made from 0.8-0.9mm
brass sheet and is formed through a single stage by a
conical punch, that forms and shears the part from a
sheet.
It is imperative to use the last 1" of travel of a reloading
press, as it's mechanical advantage quickly diminishes
beyond this range, and blanking and drawing will
require so much force it will subject the press prone to
breaking. A travel of about 10mm is needed to perform
every of these operations.
A mount used in this is designed to fit in standard thread
slot of a reloading press. A mount was selected so the
need for larger and more expensive thread tools is
 Primer systems by Home Workshop Research Industries
mitigated.
The mounting thread of the top tool acting as a punch
can be anything that suits best for the user, as long as it
pairs as it is a non-critical dimension, presuming the
height order is followed.
The bottom mount clips directly to the shellholder of a
reloading press.
Primer cup blanking tool
The blanking tool simply shears off a round disk from a
brass sheet. The punch and die fitting must be precise in
order to produce even, clear edged disks, and it is
recommended to pair them by turning them very close to
spec, and honing the parts until they slide without
binding. The slot is required or the punch will bind to the
brass sheet and is very difficult to separate and will slow
down the work a lot.
The blanking requires the most force, so the tool must be
optimized so the blanking occurs during the very last few
mm of press travel. In this order, the disk is blanked off
very smoothly, but if the advatange is too low, the press
will jerk and cause a lot of noise. Blanking does not
require any other than general tool lubrication. It is
common for the blanks to pile up in the press, and it is
advised to occasionally check the disks fall out into the
primer chute of the press.
The primer cup forming tool
The cup forming tool consists of top toolholder, that has
male thread for mounting it to the upper toolholder, and
it encloses the drawing punch within it. This tool acts as
the guide for the drawing die that is pushed in, so
clearance between these must be precise and reaming or
boring is recommended to make exact fit. Asymmetric
tooling will cause cups to draw eccentric, causing a lot of
scrappings.
The die is mounted to shellholder mount with a thread,
however, in the first experiment, simple epoxy glue was
used and it remained intact, but it is recommended to
thread the joint, because when the die is retracted, it
needs to pull the cup off the drawing punch, and this
force may cause a glued joint to eventually fail.
 Primer systems by Home Workshop Research Industries
A small shelf, about the thickness of brass sheet is used
to easily place a disk on top of the drawing die, before
the drawing die tractrix begins. This should be made so
that it is easy and fast to place a disk, but shallow enough
that if two disks are placed, the second one will not
index.
The geometry of the drawing die is important to allow
drawing of the cup shape without blankholder, that is
otherwise required in a deep drawing process. This
shape is called tractrix, and a reamer geometry proven to
work great is provided with the files.
As this part of the tool is the most critical of the whole
process, the final diameter of the punch and die must be
turned and ground with allowance and finalized through
honing and lapping after hardening process, and unless
proper measuring equipment is available, test drawings
must be done and drawn cups measured using
micrometers and or fitting in a casing. The ideal OD of a
cup is 4.42mm, a slightly larger, up to 4.45mm will
ensure secure press-fit, but a bigger, up to 4.5mm is
prone causing crushed primers during reloading. If the
die is oversized, there is no way to recover it and it is
scrap – total of five drawing dies were scrapped during
development of this tool. The final lapping for the last
0.01-0.02mm should be done using fine lapping paste,
and the final surface finish must be mirror, using 2000
to 5000 grit polishing paste, more being better.
As the cups are drawn, they accumulate in the primer
chute of a reloading press. Drawing lube of any type can
be used, and common oils suit the need well. It is not
recommended to use EP additive oils as some of these
compounds may corrode brass.
After the cups are drawn, they have uneven rims, which
is commonplace for deep drawn items. Commercially a
trimming phase is used to uniform the cups, but this
process being quite involved, a more practical approach
was taken, and a 3D printed jig was designed, into which
the primers are pressed rims up, and the tray is brushed
against sandpaper on a flat, true surface, until the cups
are all even with the surface. This tool is designed to
produce cups at 2.90mm height. The wear rate is low, so
with one jig, several thousand cups minimum can be
sanded, until it starts to deviate below 2.85 to 2.80mm,
and then it must be replaced.
A perforating tool with pins fitting through the backholes
of each slot can be used to cam out all the primer cups at
once. A reloading tray is under works, but has not been
tested. A commercial handloader tray has small dimples,
which will touch against sharp primer rims, and cause
them to flip cupside up when carefully shaken, and this
method can be used to turn all the primers
unidirectional.
After the cups are sanded and uniformed, they are
washed to remove all the grinding dust and residue from
removed brass and sandpaper grit, and ordinary warm
soap water can be used in a sieve supplied with the files.
After this, it is recommended to tumble the cups to
deburr the sharp edges and burnish the surfaces.
Stainless steel pins with soap water and citric acid or a
cleaning product containing acidic compounds can be
used as tumbling aid to produce shiny, clean primer
cups.
 Primer systems by Home Workshop Research Industries
When the cups are tumbled and rinsed, they are left to
dry, and are ready to be reloaded.
Anvil tooling
Anvils are drawn through a single stage process from
0.9mm brass sheet. The anvil function is simply to act as
a surface for the primer face and priming compound to
compress against during primer impact, and without no
ignition may occur.
Being so small part, difficulties arised when developing a
tool, mostly due to it simply being so small. The short
version is, the two leaf anvil is much more easy to
fabricate, and multiple dies and punches were made and
they produced functional anvils every time.
Hence it is recommended to use two-leaf anvils for
improvised primers. Major reason why industry uses
three leaf anvils is it is easier to load automatically into
primer cups, and it being triangular, has more contact
area hence is less prone dropping out, and it also
expands the cup symmetrically, again making automated
high speed primer insertion more secure. Two-leaf anvils
are being used in certain calibers such as .50BMG
without issues, so generally there are no reasons to not
use this type of design in the context this manual is
written for.
The examples presented here are the first test die punch
pairs made, and the principle is same for every tool: a die
with precise ID is bored, and two flat bottomed holes are
milled, and two inserts are placed in, and the die is
ground flush, hence producing opening of two-leafed
anvil in shape. Mating punch is done in a similar manner
 Primer systems by Home Workshop Research Industries

by turning a punch of exact diameter, and milling off
slots from both sides.
A backing plate, being critical for preventing brass plate
adhering to the punch, is missing from the picture, but
holes for mounting one are shown at the perimeter of
the die. A more advanced tool, similar to blanking tool
prior, is included in the files.
can be swiftly cleaned, but if the use is intended for
tactical purposes, it is presumable the reader of this
manual is interested in primer reloading because of lack
of availability, hence potential long term corrosion is a
less of a concern than being able to source ammo at all in
the first place. Especially pronounced it is, if the weapons
used are not highly collectible high value items, but of
low grade or improvised in nature, hence low value, and
minor corrosion does not affect their usability in any
way.

Extra: ball bearing as an anvil

Primer reloading

As this manual focuses on making primer cups and

anvils, the reader is directed for Aardvark Reloading site,
which contains detailed information for reloading
primers.

https://aardvarkreloading.com/primers.html

The easiest compound to obtain is H-48, and the benefit

of this compound is that it has actually been used for
several decades as universal priming compound, and the
major downside of this compound is it's sensitivity,
however, for small scale reloading, it is not such of an
issue, because the amounts handled at once are too small
to cause any significant damage, but in a factory
environment where raw materials are handled by the
barrel, things are completely different. Another frowned
property, corrosion, is also very easy to mitigate by
simply rinsing the components exposed with soap water
and wiping with water displacing oil.
This concept was presented online, and it was also
investigated upon. The concept is to replace the anvil as a
separate special part with commercially available 2.8mm
ball bearing is presented, requiring slight reshaping of
the flash hole to allow free propagation. An existing
casing can be converted by using a triangular broach that
can be made even manually with a file.

For recreational use, this is not an issue, as equipment

 Primer systems by Home Workshop Research Industries

From this, a variation with even more simple geometry

was thought out. In this instance, an existing casing with
a round flash hole, the hole is simply slotted with either
drilling two holes to the perimeter of the hole, or using a
needle file, to remove sufficient amount of material for
free flash propagation. Limited amount of testing has
been made with this type of primer, but mechanically the
system should work, and triangular primers are
apparently being manufactured for military use in
certain Asian countries.