Bad primer

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  • Last Post 15 July 2020
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Ross Smith posted this 14 July 2020

First things first: I consider primers to be miracle. They never fail and they are also safe, you can crush one, or deprime a live one, just don't smack it.

That said, I had a dead primer today. I was shooting my muzzleloading bench rifle with an enclosed primer system. It uses small rifle primers. No pop. So I installed a new primer and went on my merry way.

Have any of you had a dud primer? This was my first. If I can remember to do this after two days of Dr. appointment I am going to try fouling a primer with water, oil, and something else. Any bets?

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RicinYakima posted this 14 July 2020

I had one in fifty years of reloading, until last week had two from the same 100 box. They were WW large pistol from the 1980's and had no compound in the cup upon disassembly.

The only things I have found to kill non-corrosive primers are acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, and toluene. Water and most other stuff will not "kill" the primer once it is dried out. The water in a wet primer will absorb enough heat to not ignite some powders.

Corrosive primers will be killed by wetting and having the water run off, taking the oxidizer with it.

FWIW

 

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skeet1 posted this 14 July 2020

Just the other day I was shooting .45 ACP and had a bad primer. I tried it twice, no go. I tore the cartridge down and could not find the reason for the misfire. This was a CCI large pistol primer. I have not had a bad primer in many years and may not have another in my life time. Ross, you are right they are a miracle.

 

Ken 

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Bud Hyett posted this 14 July 2020

Over my lifetime of shooting, I've had several bad primers. All Large Pistol and in a Bullseye match each time. I separated that lot number for only practice ammunition and had several more. At the next NRA Annual Meeting in Milwaukee, I talked to the W-W people and they were interested.

I would hate to think of how many primers I have shot in the last half-century with only this one problem, they are a miracle.

Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest

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rjmeyer314p posted this 14 July 2020

I had 3 bad primers last week, all from the same box of WW large rifle primers.

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shuz44 posted this 14 July 2020

About a year ago I had several Remington 9-1/2s that did not fire. I contacted Remington about the problem since I had bout 4000 left of the same lot. They never did admit that the primers were bad....but they did send me 5000 new ones to replace them. This was all done at their cost.

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Dale53 posted this 14 July 2020

Last week I had a call from a good friend who is in the "Re-manufactured" Ammo business. He runs, literally, a million primers a month. He has a real factory with inspection and safeguards that almost "blow your mind". His regular suppliers can no longer supply primers, apparently, due to the pandemic. Manufacturers of primers are using all of their production for the tremendous demand for factory ammo. None left for reloaders, including commercial ones. My friend has had to depend on a foreighn supplier. Suddenly, he is plaqued with missfires. The primer manufacturer is not interested in helping in any way. 

I guess it is possible, that with the demand, all resources are strained and bad products may be getting out. The pandemic, which in some industries is causing employee problems, is not helping.

FWIW

Dale53

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Duane Mellenbruch posted this 14 July 2020

Back in the late 1980's I had a problem with CCI SPP that seemed to have a hard or brittle primer cup.  A light hammer strike seemed to have a slow ignition.  Loaded in a contender, the hammer blow was harder, ignition normal.  Perhaps this might also be a factor in the pistol primer issues?  I would not think a rifle firing pin blow would not be hard enough to do the job.

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BigMan54 posted this 14 July 2020

I had my 1st in a Federal factory Champion 12ga Skeet round.

NSSA 1968 Ca State Championship shoot. It was the 3rd round , 24th shell of a 200rd match. At 14yrs old it flustered me so much that I never cleaned another round that day. and it blew me out for Sunday.

My Dad dissected  the shell  when we got home, NO STINKING ANVIL IN THE PRIMER. 

Had some bad LP's - Winchester's back when they changed from nickel plating in the early 2,000's. called Winchester. They said it was impossible and were kind enough to send me a coupon for half off 2 boxes of there factory ammo.

 

 

Long time Caster/Reloader, Getting back into it after almost 10yrs. Life Member NRA 40+yrs, Life S.A.S.S. #375. Does this mean a description of me as a fumble-fingered knuckle-draggin' baboon. I also drool in my sleep. I firmly believe that true happiness is a warm gun. Did I mention how much I HATE auto-correct on this blasted tablet.

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JeffinNZ posted this 14 July 2020

Had a Remington 9 1/2 dud last week.  First in memory.

Cheers from New Zealand

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Little Debbie posted this 14 July 2020

My experience with bad primers has been very low. With “fresh” primers that have failed I cannot think of an occasion that the primer itself was defective. Improper seating that damaged the priming pellet or defective firearms have been the cause. I’ve had one factory round fail to fire, a Federal 9mm. The case had no flash hole! Several years ago a friend bought a large lot of reloading equipment and supplies from an estate. Included were primers from the 1950’s if not earlier. They included Remington, Winchester, Federal, Western, and CCI. All but the CCI and some of the Remingtons were the old domed style. All were large rifle type. There were about 27,000 primers and my friend didn’t want to use them because he feared some might be corrosive and he didn’t want to figure out how to seat the domed ones. All the 100 primer cartons were marked as being non-corrosive in one way or another. He wanted to dispose of them safely. I suggested he could put them in my pickup and I’d destroy them (one at a time). From the condition of the cartons these primers had not been carefully stored; sun fading, water stains, and mystery stains that looked like mildew. Most of the primers were not plated and the cups ranged from very bright and brassy colored, to dark, to having black stains and/or spots of green verdigris. Five minutes in the lathe modified an RCBS priming punch to seat the domed primers.
I just finished the last of these primers and was surprised that I had one failure to fire with the Federal primers out of every 200. There were just under 4,000 of these primers, all the same lot. About half the “bad” primers fired on the second try. There were a fair number of hang fires with the Federal which really re-enforced the need to follow through. All the loads fired were in light cast bullet loads and there was vertical stringing with certain lots of all the primers indicating they were not aging that well. One Remington and one CCI primer failed to fire, but went bang on the second try. I’m very impressed that 70 year old or older primers worked that well, especially with the obvious poor storage. My friend also found several old glass baby food jars of various unidentified primers in this lot. At that time I was unwilling to experiment with these. We filled the jars with used motor oil and they were later placed in the trash. Under present conditions I wish I had taken these too, but then I think of the two times tubes of Federal small pistol primers have detonated in my Dillon 1000. Wow, thankfully Dillons outer tube protected me and sent everything through the ceiling. Also taught me to wear earplugs and safety glasses when reloading. A hundred or so primers sympathetically detonating is loud and impressive.

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max503 posted this 14 July 2020

I've got most of a carton of WW LR primers that are too big to seat.  Had them for 20-30 years.  

I wouldn't call them "good" primers so they must be bad.

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Boschloper posted this 15 July 2020

I had a failure to fire on the 4th of July in my .38 spl. blank cannon. CCI 500 under 17 gr. of 3f.  At first I thought I must not have had the breech closed correctly but after going over it in my head several times I think it must have been a bad primer. 

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John Carlson posted this 15 July 2020

Years ago I had 3 fail to fire's from a brick of Remington small rifle primers.  I sent them an e-mail which they did reply to, even thanked me for informing them.  Had similar results from the next brick so I changed brands and never went back.

John Carlson. CBA Director of Military Competition.

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Ross Smith posted this 15 July 2020

I see there has been more failures than I thunked.

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Wineman posted this 15 July 2020

My primer failures are usually D/A revolvers and seating on the press (Lee Turret) vs with the Lee (old style) hand primer. I pierced some LPP's I used in a Ishy 2A 308 Win, but they went off. So far I have never had a rifle primer not go bang. Berdan primers are said to be very prone to misfire due to crushing the pellet when seating. I always use a shim to keep from going too far. A few years back, Tula brought in Berdan primers LR but they were designed for 7.62 x 39. In a 7.5 x 55 Swiss they were fine with shotgun and pistol powders but were erratic with full charge loads. The correct Tula NATO LR Berdan did fine.

Dave

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Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 15 July 2020

... do you know how long it takes to shoot up a case of 5000 rounds of 22rf that have such bad primers that only 4 out of 5 fire the first try ... ?  and when they do fire ..

it sounds like a 4th of july home fireworks in your back yard ... big Bang, then Pop then pffffft ... 

and on the quiet ones you have to look through the barrel to see if one hasn't stuck up there ...

**************

answer:  i bot a case of steel case Russian ammo (  on sale for $80  !  DUH ) in 1992 ... still have 3 bricks ...

... but the bullets are all real pretty ...

ken

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