Some interesting old primers

[Donkin]

Acquired a partial box of 30 Remington ammunition recently on auction in my quest to gather components for a newly acquired Remington 14 chambered in 30 Remington, and there were a few interesting looking primers that I had not seen before. After some initial googling, the two on the right appear to be "protected primers", I will need to do some more research to find out more. Just found it interesting and thought id share.

 

[DGY]

Almost look like shot guns shell primers(the 2 on the right anyway)! Eager to know what you find out!!

 

[Otto V]

Very interesting. I have a (very) small collection of old cartridges and I don't think I've ever seen that type of primer construction. Please do let us know what you find out about these primers.

 

[BlackPowderBurner]

I have a few in the cartridge collection like that. 30WCF and possibly .45-75. Neat looking technology that didn’t last long.

 

[yomomma]

Seen a lot of these on WWII canadian produced 303

 

[Evanguy]

Yeah I have a lot of WW1 and earlier 303 ammo and the primers look like the one on the left. The ones on the right look neat

Edit I found some pics in an old thread.

 

[Potashminer]

Acquired a partial box of 30 Remington ammunition recently on auction in my quest to gather components for a newly acquired Remington 14 chambered in 30 Remington, and there were a few interesting looking primers that I had not seen before. After some initial googling, the two on the right appear to be "protected primers", I will need to do some more research to find out more. Just found it interesting and thought id share.
...

If you get a chance to look down those case mouths - tell us if you see a "normal" boxer flash hole, or a pair of the smaller Berdan flash holes - I think both types may or may not have been in use in the past in ammo made in North America - might be a clue what those are? I think modern large rifle size primers are .210" diameter or similar - I believe there were multiple different sizes of Berdan primers, at least at one time.

 

[Donkin]

If you get a chance to look down those case mouths - tell us if you see a "normal" boxer flash hole, or a pair of the smaller Berdan flash holes - I think both types may or may not have been in use in the past in ammo made in North America - might be a clue what those are? I think modern large rifle size primers are .210" diameter or similar - I believe there were multiple different sizes of Berdan primers, at least at one time.

Been super busy, but just had a quick look and they are boxer flash holes. will upload some photos when I get a chance. I do think you're right in that the size of the primers may be slightly larger than normal. This weekend I will do some research and post my findings.

 

[Donkin]

I got the following from a cartridge collectors website;

"Winchester Protected Primer used on cartridges for tubular magazines. It was introduced in 1895 using the Winchester #5W (0.210 diameter) primer for small caliber cartridges. In 1904 the #5 1/2 (0.237 diameter) was introduced for large rifle cartridges."


Unfortunately of the 18 I managed to obtain, 5 cases were split. Im thinking with the possible different size of those primers I'm not going to be able to reload them.

 

[9.3mauser]

I wouldn't risk reloading any of those old cases, or firing them. Winchester brass of that era tends to be brittle, and it's more common than not to find split necks on factory loaded ammo. I'm not sure of the exct timeline for production of those protected primers, but it was from the introduction of the cartridge to WW I- ish, and maybe into the '20's.