Winchester primer failures

bat119

bat119

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I just heard about several cases of the primers blowing holes out of sides damaging bolt faces with Winchester primers has anybody here on CGN seen this?

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I just picked up a brick not sure if I want to risk using them
 
Yes it happened to me.....I believe if you do a search on here there will be some info and possibly even lot#
But if you just purchased them you should be ok as this was happening a couple years ago.
 
There has been quite a few pierced WLR's.
I have a box at the back of the cabinet I don't intend to use, not sure if its a good or bad batch, either way they're poor quality primers compared to CCI and Fed consistency.
Perhaps ok for some low pressure hunting loads but even that worries me.

Get some CCI 200's.
 
Its been 35 years and thousands of rounds I've never had this happen, If Winchester has some bad primer lots they should step up post the bad lot numbers.

These are not isolated cases after doing some googling I found lots of damaged firearm reports
 
Had 2 winchester magnum primers nicely etch my sako bolt face...not impressed! Just use cci and federal since.
 
Mechanically speaking how does something like this happen? The side of the primer is supported by the brass around the primer pocket and the open side of the primer faces the primer hole in the case. Maybe something other than gunpowder was blocking the primer hole. All of this assumes that the primer cup was of uniform and correct thickness. If thin on one side then it was the primer.
 
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well for the guys holding onto Winchester primers they don't intend to use send me a PM, I prefer Winchester primers, especially when it comes to large pistol.
 
Gun5tuff said:
Mechanically speaking how does something like this happen? The side of the primer is supported by the brass around the primer pocket and the open side of the primer faces the primer hole in the case. Maybe something other than gunpowder was blocking the primer hole. All of this assumes that the primer cup was of uniform and correct thickness. If thin on one side then it was the primer.
Click to expand...

it's from uneven thickness in the metal, i suspect the tooling they used might have been bad and caused a thin spot in the base of the primer. it turned into a pressure based fuse if you will.
 
I have posted this before, and will briefly repeat.

It appears the Winchester primers are the recent "bad boys"

But, in my 50+ years of reloading, I have had these same primer "blowouts"
from CCI, Federal, RWS, Alcan, CIL, and Norma.....so it is not an unknown phenomenon.

Just a weak spot in the primer cup right at the radius, and bingo! little hole in primer, and a defaced bolt.
Doesn't have to be a high pressure load, either.

Regards, Dave.
 
I had the same thing happening several times within the first 100 pack of a 1000 box of winchester large rifle primers. And also on wlrm's purchased around the same time. Gave up and switched to cci and remingtons. Havent had any issues since. Heard of some people getting money back from winchester for this. I had a thread posted a few months back about this same issue.
 
I have loaded thousands of .223 with Winchester primers. Never had a problem; not saying I won't as I think that if you shoot enough, everyone will have a bad primer.
 
Have had is happen exactly like the pic in the OP with a WLR primer. Cut a little channel in the edge of the ejector hole on the face of the bolt.
 
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