Got a response from the barrel maker.
“It is a K&P cut rifled barrel. The chamber is also a SAAMI speck chamber.
There is no reason for the blown primers other than ammo. Shooting with a suppressor will actually cause slightly more pressure. So it should be worse with that.”
How could factory ammo be THAT high pressure? Should I contact Hornady and ask about this batch? I bought 400 rounds
Hold the phone for a second.... It could have nothing to do with the ammo.
You need to know to the 4th decimal place what the barrels bore and groove sizes are made to! If it's a tight bore/tight groove at all that can easily drive up pressures and blow primers.
The OP might want to consider calling K&P and sending the barrel back to have the bore and groove size rechecked.
Also you don't know how many barrels that chamber reamer has done. If the throat is cutting undersize that will cause issues also.
You could have both of those things going on and compounding the problem.
A barrel with a bore and groove size just a .0005" undersize will drive up pressures about 10k psi.
Having a throat area of the chamber even just .0001" to .0002" undersize and bullets at max tolerance.... that drives up pressures about another 6k psi.
If both of those things are going on.... you take a 65K psi round and add another 16k to it... now your in the 80k psi range.
We pretty much make all of the ammunition test barrels for Hornady. When we ship a test barrel to any ammo or bullet or powder maker we also include an inspection report that gives them the bore and groove size so they know exactly what the spec it was made to.
We also chamber all of the pressure barrels for Hornady (OK probably like 98% some of the R&D stuff we might do and might not). If there was a pressure issue with any barrel and it blowing primers etc.... I would get a phone call yesterday from Joe or Jayden and I would've known about it... and if it was happening.... Hornady wouldn't be running that lot of ammo etc...
Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels