Sellier & Bellot Small Pistol primers - trouble!

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gwesson

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Hi all.

I bought 1,000 Sellier & Bellot small pistol primers - usually I buy CCI but they didn't have any, and the box of Federal primers takes-up so much space I can't fit it in my lock-box, so I decided to try the S&B's. Had a big Club event last weekend, so loaded-up a couple hundred 9mm's, .38's and .357's, and went to the event.

The .38's in the revolvers were a DISASTER. Numerous misfires - 2 or more per cylinder-ful. I feared it was the revolvers (a Dan Wesson and a S&W 686) as they've sat for a couple of months; but then I realised that the misfires were all from the rounds I'd loaded with S&B primers.

I had topped-up the ammo boxes with the S&B rounds - which means I had a bunch of CCI-primed rounds in the back of the box. I switched to them. The 686 is new to us, and it misfired one or two of the CCI's - it's going to get a new mainspring before it goes back to the range. The Dan Wesson didn't misfire another round all day.

Investigating further, I see on the primer box that they are "For Rifle, Pistol and Revolver". Let me clarify that, from my experience - they're hard enough for rifles, which means they're too hard for pistol and revolver and your hammer or firing pin will just bounce off them.

So I recommend if your local store only has S&B primers, only buy them for rifles - if you need pistol primers, do without rather than buy the S&B's. I just can't WAIT to try-out the 9mm's in our floating-firing-pin auto's... :(
 
I've fired almost 2k of them in my light main spring cz shadow without a misfire...
I have a friend with a 929 that can't use them though due to light strikes
 
S&B makes both rifle/pistol/revolver and pistol primers. I've purchased both and with a hammer fired semi-auto they both work fine. My S&W revolver is finely tuned to use Federal primers and won't fire with the multi use S&B primers. (or CCI which are the hardest on the market). Striker fired semi-autos don't do well with the multi use primers either. Your warning is not entirely erroneous, just for the multi use primers. I find it curious that a gun that will fire with CCI primers won't set off the S&B primers though.
 
The two types of primer I normally use are CCI and Federal - I've literally, never had a misfire with either, other than the 686 this weekend - and yeah, spent last night researching Wolff springs for S&W on teh interwebz.

The Club bought a pallet of Winchester rimfire ammo; none of us will use it, it's so unreliable, they provide free rimfire ammo for Club events but we all bring our own. Centerfire though, up to now I only ever had one misfire; a Fiocchi .455 in the Webley. And I tried that round a couple times (something about paying a dollar for it >_< ), it never went off - but I pulled the primer and it went off just fine with a ball peen hammer - the stuff you learn... Use CCI in the Webley (small and large), again without a problem.

Thanks for the word on S&B pistol - I'll know what to watch out for next time. Have to try the 9mm this weekend, see if either of mine will set them off.
 
I've gone through 10k small pistol s&b and had only good results. I've probably gone through a total of 50k different primers, between remington, winchester, cci, s&b and federal. All small and large rifle and pistol. Out of all my reloads I think i may have had 1 or 2 that didnt go off no matter how many times i smacked the primer
 
My 'backup' primers are S&B. They are quite hard, but i've never had an issue with them not going off in any of my rifles, pistols or revolvers. CCI are pretty hard, so i'm surprised you didn't see issues with those.
 
I've used thousands of them in SP, LP and SR. The old packaging was a little confusing because it did say "For Rifle, Pistol and Revolver" but that is just their generic box. Look for the black print that says something like "4.4 SP"
Their new packaging is a whole bunch less ambiguous and quite clear on what style of primers are in the box.
 
I have used over 20K (heck i'd say even closer to 30K) S&B in 4-5 different IPSC 1911s/2011s in the past 4 years.
Recently changed back to federal.
As i had a batch of 3K S&B primers, clearly marked pistol primers, that i couldn't lite one time out of 3-4.

The gun store blamed my weak spring 1911s for this.
So i reloaded 9mm with that batch.
Shot in factory G17, CZ Shadow 1 factory setup, and tanfoglio stock ll, not one gun could fire them reliably.

I had a feeling they had slipped some rifle primers in pistol packaging, and went federal since for peace of mind shooting matches.

Edit : Still got some here i could check packaging and post them, they we're a real POS and had to drop them.
Too bad thats all i shot for numerous years, they we're cheap.
 
S&B small pistol primers have worked fine for me. The small rifle primers are also fine, but are definitely not suitable substitutes for pistol primers in my experience. As noted, disregard the "for rifle, pistol and revolver" written on the box and check for the actual size e.g. SP, SR, etc.
 
The only issue I've had with S&B primers is that they tend to be a mole-hair wider than CCI/Remington Small Pistol primers. They seat harder, especially with mixed headstamp, and don't flow as well in most standard primer accessories or progressive primer feed systems. The LP primers seem less susceptible to this issue. Otherwise they've gone off reliably in all my firearms (including striker-fired, hammer, and revolver).
 
These are my exact defective ones



And for reference, this was around august 2016
And 2 other guys at the club, also purchased the same around same timing as me, but at different retailer
They also did not light 1 out of 3/4
With double actions you can light them up eith 3-4 consecutive trigger pulls
 
I have used their small rifle by the thousands to load for all sorts of different pistols. I think I had 2 duds and that was it for issues...
 
S&B work fine in my HK SFP9 but I get about 20% misfires (light strikes) in my SIG P226. Re-cocking the hammer and firing again always sets them off. Never had a problem with CCI which I also use.
 
That's a bad batch or mix up between SR and SP.

They're cheaper for a reason. Or multiple reasons. One of them is usually QC. Check the lot number, and next time you go to a retailer, check if it's the same lot #. If it is, refuse to buy it, switch to another brand, or go next door. Make sure you tell the retailer why you do so.

Actually, everyone who got those bad primers should post the lot# in this thread, make sure everyone will avoid them.
 
Not trying to judge your reloading practices but are you sure your priming system is completely seating the primers? If the rounds will go off on a second strike there's a good chance the primers aren't completely seated. I had this happen with my Lee Loadmaster. It loaded 9mm cartridges perfectly but when I switched it to 38 Special without adjusting the primer seating punch I got a lot of misfires with my 686 that all detonated on the second strike. I primed a few more 38 cases on the Loadmaster and then tried reseating the primers with my Lee hand priming tool. I could feel a distinct movement in the primers as they bottomed out on the primer pocket. When I adjusted the Loadmaster primer seating punch so it pushed the primers in a little further the problem disappeared. Remember that primer diameter varies slightly from brand to brand and if one brand is slightly bigger in diameter it will be harder to seat than one that is smaller in diameter. You can 'feel' the difference quite readily using a hand primer but press primers have so much more leverage that the different 'feel' is harder to detect.

Or maybe they're just a bad batch of primers. ;)
 
Just went downstairs and checked my primer stock - they're SR primers. I guess that explains my problem at least. I've still got 4,000 of them, I guess my HK is going to be busy or I'm going to have to load a s***load of 5.56!
 
My dillon 650 has loaded a total over 50K rounds
Never had high primers, or so i have noticed

And we we're 3 guys at the club with medium-long term pistol reloading experience, all having problems with same primers in same time frame, all purchased in different places
 
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