Primer Reliability

[Neilm]

The only ones I ever had fail were about 40 yrs ago. I used an inertia bullet puller to pull the bullet and just reloaded without changing the primers. BYT+w they were CCI but I blamed the bullet puller for moving the anvil in the primer.

 

[BattleRife]

I can think of two occasions where I had dud primers, there may have been more that have slipped from memory. The first was a 12 gauge target load about 15-20 years ago, I didn't open that one up to see what went wrong.

The second was a small pistol primer in a .38 Special, in 2012. I posted about it here. There was no compound in the primer.

I have always used Winchester and CCI primers in all applications.

 

[inthehizzy]

CCI first, Federal second , S&B third. Winchester is dead to me.

 

[hoytcanon]

The ONLY primer failures that I have ever had with CCI, Federal or Winchester were attributable to one of three factors; improper headapace, bad brass (sloppy pocket), or improper seating. The last thing I suspect in a misfire is the primer.

 

[Longwalker]

The only primer problems I can recall are very old factory loads, especially one batch of ancient Gevelot paper hull 16 ga shells with odd non-standard primers that looked like like a extra large rifle primer, not a more common 209 battery cup type. Made in the 1960's, they have about 25% hang fires and misfires. I still have a half dozen boxes. I use them for trimming tree branches in my woodlot.
I also had a bunch of misfires with ancient Winchester Western 7x57 ammo from the 1950's or so. So old that there is nothing to blame.

 

[dirtybarry]

2 duds out of close to 30K of various brands. 1 was an S&B and I don't remember what brand the other one was for sure. For what it's worth, I've had more FTF's with factory ammunition than with reloads.