Possible cause of this issue? Fired brass has gaz leaks by the primer pocket

I had the same issue with Winchester small rifle primers, messed up the bolt face on my BRNO 222. Not using Win primers again until there is a major change in their ownership and/or production.

I can't just pop on a new bolt head..... Their response was pathetic to say the last, other than admitting it was the fault of the primer.
 
Kevin M. said:
Bad primers. Had the exact same thing happen in my .338lm using winchester primers, and it gouged my bolt face. No reply from winchester, so I'll not be using their reloading products in the future again.
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Exact same story for me in 308. Look for a pin hole leak in the primer... I emailed with pics, got no reply. Turfed the rest of the 1000 primers (about 600, happened 5 times in one box). After not getting a response, I tried to swear off WIN products. I even make sure I run HP-38 instead of W231. The only thing I couldn't avoid was old win wads for shotgun. Obsolete, so I need to grab them when I can. Not all lots of primers do this, but scoring your bolt face a few times and not getting a response from win will cause frustration.
 
I agree with a bad lot of Winchester primers. I've had two bolt faces ruined with bad Winchester primers. I've since thrown them all out.
 
Here are photos of my bad Winchester large rifle primers. Pics taken at CFB Petawawa rifle clinic, damage occured to my Remington 700 MLR .338LM. Winchester didn't even grace me with replies to my emails.



 
I will pop-up the primer to be sure that is the primer that had the problem. I didn't had any problems with winchester primers in the pas, but three of them did me this on the same 100 package...

Evil_Dark
 
I had the same problem with WLR in a 6.5 creedmoor load. The load was well within safe pressure according to load data and my chronograph. Apparently its a metallurgy problem in some lots of primers. You may see a crack up the side of the cup leading to the hole.
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Every faulty win primer I have seen ruptured in the same way. I seem to have lost the link that listed the lot numbers that were bad, was quite a long list. I just wish Winchester would have cared a little more for their customers and made good on the damage done. I could care less if they give me a a few bricks of primers, but would really have appreciated my rifle bolt getting repaired properly.

Their brass of late has went way downhill as well, every new bag I have seen has many ruined cases in it, and they are no longer as uniform in weight, and necks split sooner. Lots of banana shaped cases after firing as well.
 
Winchester primers did this to my bolt face ,I contacted Winchester and they are sending me a coupon for more free primers....don't think I will use the coupon.

 
I call win. For the same problem and gave them the batch number and they said i whas the only one with this promblem,i had the same problem with 4 different caliber and also with new win. Brass
 
I'll be staying away from Winchester primers after reading all this. I'd assume that this is a more recent quality control issue and if you have any on hand that are a few years old they'd be safe to use?

Makes you wonder now if their factory ammo uses the same primers and is safe?
 
I also had a bolt damaged by WW large rifle primers and like others got no reply form them. I destroyed the remaining primers and switched to Federals. I had to clean up my bolt face and set the barrel back to remove the damage to the bolt face, no more WW primers for me.
 
For last few years Winchester has outsourced some of their brass to S&B and ever since their brass quality took a dive.Maybe they did the same thing with primers?
S&B marked primers I had were great but if they produced substandard batches just for Winchester...Who knows.
 
I received a reply from winchester ...I had sent in pics of my damaged bolt face and the remaining 600 primers I had left. They sent me a coupon for $40 for any winchester ammo product. I dont think I will use it to buy more primers ...lol
 
noted to not use Win primers.

S&B makes great brass, odd that there may be a link to them with this? Tons of really great surplus 8mm mauser ammo is made by S&B.

something else to keep in mind, especially after just reading the thread on primer pocket cleaning and how many people don't clean their primer pockets. Is it possible that some crud could get lodged in between the primer and side of the pocket, allowing gas to escape? Not saying this has happened here, but after reading that last thread, I just wonder.
 
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