Priming the engine and Mag check questions

A person told me it is better to push the primer slowly rather
then quick shots.

Slower is better on pulling out the primer as this allows the primer cylinder
to draw in all the fuel it can take. Pushing the charge in quickly is probably
best as the velocity may help in atomizing the fuel

..Another person said I should hesitate before going
back to both mags when checking the mags. He says that I should let it
run on one mag for 3 or 4 seconds. All I am checking for is the drop.

When doing the mag check whichever mag you are on you want to let the RPM fall
until it stabilizes. At that point you note the drop. Depending on the engine
and magneto this could be anywhere from 50 to 150 RPM. Typically it is 50 RPM
and anything over 100 is worth looking into even if you think the engine is
running fine and making RPM at power. The point is to let the engine RPM
stabilize while running on each mag individually. If you quickly flip from
left to right and back to both as soon as you see the RPM decay you might miss
something crucial like an entire magneto not even working or a drop of 200 or
more in RPM or even fouled spark plugs.

John Dupre'