Challenger Primer Change

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Pete G

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Just prior to Covid, I stopped using Challenger shells for Sporting Clays because I was getting a significant number of pierced primers. Those primers were silver in colour, and perhaps a little rounded. Now, post Covid, I note the primers look and act differently in my shotgun. They are now brass/ copper coloured and have a flatter base. I no longer get pierced primers, so have been using Challengers regularly once again. Has anyone else noticed that pierced primers with Challenger shells are no longer the problem they once were ?
 
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Our clubs stock is still old, but i have heard there was a change. Was avery common problem for a while, with challenger, score and some kents, they all used the same primers.

Of course no one wanted to admit there was an issue, ammo guys blamed the guns, gun manufacturers were blaming the ammo. However i heard rumours the primers did get changed, so newer production ammo is hopefully better
 
I've shot tens of thousands of Challenger shells over the years in probably a dozen different shotguns from low to high end and never experienced a pierced primer problem. They happen occasionally but not enough to notice and Challenger/Kent never seemed to have the problem more than other brands.
 
Last week at sporting clays a guy running challengers had a few duds. I took them apart to grab the shot out of them. They look to be running Hodgson powder of some type now instead of the green flaked Nobel Sport Vectan (AS ?) they used to load with.
 
I’ve never cared for challenger shells but I have shot them off and on over the last several years. My supply of other brands dried up last spring and they were the only shell that my main club has so I started using them again. I noticed that some shells have a different coloured primer than others so something has changed. I haven’t had a single misfire ever with any challenger shell.
 
I have experienced 20-25% pierced primers in Challengers in my K20 and F3, but I recently used a newer batch with the copper colored primers, and only had 1 pierced primer, out of 75 shotshells.
 
stubblejumper said:
I have experienced 20-25% pierced primers in Challengers in my K20 and F3, but I recently used a newer batch with the copper colored primers, and only had 1 pierced primer, out of 75 shotshells.
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Stubblejumper, I used to have approx the same 20-25 percent of pierced primers in my K80 Parcours. After firing about 2 flats of Challenger shells with the "new" copper coloured primers, I have not seen a single pierced primer......Still, one out of seventy five from your experience is still not good. Was it from the K20 or the F3 ? If not too much trouble, please let me know how things go when you shoot more of the "new" shells.
 
Pete G said:
Stubblejumper, I used to have approx the same 20-25 percent of pierced primers in my K80 Parcours. After firing about 2 flats of Challenger shells with the "new" copper coloured primers, I have not seen a single pierced primer......Still, one out of seventy five from your experience is still not good. Was it from the K20 or the F3 ? If not too much trouble, please let me know how things go when you shoot more of the "new" shells.
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It was from the F3, I had three boxes laying around, but I will go back to my Kent/STS/AA loads that I have for sporting clays.
 
I've often had the niggleing thought that some of these pierced primers may be gun related and I'm not saying that challenger didn't have primer problems but some guns seem to have more trouble with them than others. As I mentioned earlier, I've shot challengers off and on in the past and my Beretta at the time had no issues with them. For the most part I've avoided them if I could until this summer when I didn't have much choice but to use them in my Perazzi but I've had no problems with it either.
 
Falconflyer said:
I've often had the niggleing thought that some of these pierced primers may be gun related and I'm not saying that challenger didn't have primer problems but some guns seem to have more trouble with them than others. As I mentioned earlier, I've shot challengers off and on in the past and my Beretta at the time had no issues with them. For the most part I've avoided them if I could until this summer when I didn't have much choice but to use them in my Perazzi but I've had no problems with it either.
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I've shot Challengers in many guns including a Perazzi, Krieghoff, Beretta DT11, Browning Citori, Garbi sxs, multiple semi-automatics and pumps without noticing pierced primers any more than other shells. I also know the staff at a private shooting club that shoots hundreds of thousands of Challengers each year isn't reporting a primer piercing problem. If some shooters are having them then I suspect a gun issue too.
 
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^^ No issues here with challenger ammo

Ran through browning, beretta, franchi, perazzi, winchester, kreighoff
 
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Lower barrel of Browning 725 is known to do this.
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Upper barrel is fine.

Falconflyer said:
I've often had the niggleing thought that some of these pierced primers may be gun related and I'm not saying that challenger didn't have primer problems but some guns seem to have more trouble with them than others. As I mentioned earlier, I've shot challengers off and on in the past and my Beretta at the time had no issues with them. For the most part I've avoided them if I could until this summer when I didn't have much choice but to use them in my Perazzi but I've had no problems with it either.
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Yes I have seen this problem with Challenger target loads in the past. Not all guns, but very common on the bottom barrel of some Citoris. Never seen it happen on other guns with the same lot af ammo.
 
I had pierced primers on the lower barrels on both my Browning Citori and my Baikal Sporting. I attribute this to the angled firing pin "smearing" the primer. I was able to remedy this by re-radiussing the firing pin to a flatter profile. While picking up spent shells at the local club, I noticed that a fair number of Challenger hulls displayed pierced primers. Obviously, the owners of the shotguns were unaware of the problem. I suspect this is more common that most shotgun owners realize.
 
I also have noticed this a fair bit when scavenging O/F Challengers hulls from sporting clays events. I usually have several of my own in my 100 round mt hull saver bag. I have a 425 and a 625 Citori...culprit seems to always be the bottom barrel.
Not uncommon to see 15 or 20 out of 4-500 gathered up mt hulls!
 
Not having kept count of how many pierced primers I've had, I'll add that my 725 is known (lower barrel, at least) for piercing primers. Polishing the FP tip has helped some.
Of late, I've had a few on my upper barrel–not something I'd ever seen before the silver-coloured heads.

Finishing off my Challenger, and switching to Federal Top Gun.
 
My own experience with the new primers in Challenger factory target loads as reported earlier in this thread has been "so far, so good ".
Let's try to keep this thread alive and continue to report our experiences with Challenger clay target loads.
 
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