Henry Rifle Forums

I have always used the Winchester brand primers and had good luck with the Large Pistol and Rifle primers but do have a problem
with the small primers in .38/ .357 sometimes maybe 1 out of 50-100 that fail to go off.
Couple weeks ago I had some .38 Specials I loaded a year or so ago and 1 resulted in a squib fire and then another didn't go off after repeated
fire attempts. This happened in 2 different revolvers.
Then yesterday had a recent .38 Special round I had loaded ,1 out of 50, that failed to go off in the revolver after 2 attempts and a final try in my Henry rifle.
Never have these issues with the large primers. I load my primers using the RCBS hand primer tool and you do have to switch out the plunger
and busing for the smaller size for the small primers. I only use enough hand pressure to seat just below head surface and stop even though there
is a bit more compression travel left in handle travel which can slightly deform the primer.
I may slightly shorten the seating plunger for the small primers to ensure not to have too much compression at end of stroke.

Could be random issues with the Winchester brand small primers? Don't know.

a while back I couldn't find CCI small pistol primers so I bought a brick of Winchesters .... have use several hundred and don't recall any issues

I have Dillon Presses and thats what they recommend is Winchester and Remington primers. I dont recall ever having an issue with any of them. I seat primers with my presses as I dont care for any of those hand priming tools.

Forty...I think your problem lies with the fact that you don't seat the primers all the way in...I seat all primers till seated completely (till I feel the "stop"). I use Winch. primers in everything (I used to use CCI Match primers for High Power Silh, but quit as they cost about $10 more a brick). I've never not (to use a double negative) had one go off of either WLP or WSP. Seat em deep!

BigAl52 wrote: ↑

Thu May 14, 2020 9:12 am

I have Dillon Presses and thats what they recommend is Winchester and Remington primers. I dont recall ever having an issue with any of them. I seat primers with my presses as I dont care for any of those hand priming tools.

I used to have issues with my Dillon 550 seating primers and then went to hand priming which has worked well with the large primers.

I did did the same as JEBar, use CCI couldn't get them so I got a couple of bricks of Winchester WLP and WSP. That is what I loaded with the test rounds yesterday. Have had no problem with either CCI or Win after thousands of rounds, various calibers.

I used the Lee Auto Bench Priming Tool (I know, I know most of you don't like it, but I never had an issue) and now use the auto primer on my Hornady Progressive Press (The only press priming system that I like). I agree with BobGinVa, seat em deep !

Hmm, thinking you got some bad ones maybe? I don't recall having issues with Win primers. I have to believe you're good at seating them, so, don't know. Hmm.

I seat them all the same just sometimes it will be a .38 or .357 round that might have an issue. Usually if the primer isn't seated all the way it will go off on 2nd hit. All of them below flush. The one that failed to go off the other day had plenty of indentation after 2 revolver strikes and the 3rd in the rifle. That had to be a defective primer. Of course I have had a factory Federal round that didn't fire one time and it was a .45 Colt didn't fire after several good hits. Just happens sometimes.

Only time I ever had issues with the priming of my Dillon machines is when I used CCI primers.

BigAl52 wrote: ↑

Thu May 14, 2020 4:07 pm

Only time I ever had issues with the priming of my Dillon machines is when I used CCI primers.

Ohhh, don't tell me that! I have a train load of CCI primers. Well, maybe not a train load, but.......
I'm a single stage loader, so, I'm good. Whew!

Still use CCI primers and I have some down at the reloading bench. Just dont use them in the Dillon

When I first started reloading, my buddy and I had problems with Winchester primers not going off. Tried being very careful about seating, which didn't help. Switched to CCI and problems went away. Later that year when .22 was hard to get I got a couple boxes of Winchester .22lr. Had nothing but trouble with them. I avoid WInchester ammo and primers whenever possible now.

I've been reloading for about six years and have only used Winchester primers, since they were used to generate the load data in my Hornady manual.

The only time I had any that did not fire was once, as a novice reloader, when I seated them as deep as they would go with my hand priming tool. Foolishly, I thought if the tool can push them that deep, it must be OK. Of course, that was wrong. They were too deep for the firing pin. Never made the same mistake again. And, that was the only time I ever needed to use my impact bullet puller.

The only issue I have ever had with any round, factory or home grown, was a Winchester 30-06. It would not fire after repeated attempts. This was shooting at paper. Had it been a nice buck,
I would not have been happy.
Haven't had any use for Winchester after that.