Winchester Primer Quality?

[tpe187]

I just got done reading a thread about Winchester turning over their primer production to an off shore manufacturer. The rumor is that quality is worse and variations greater in the newer lots of primers. Has anyone experienced this? Is it all Winchester primers or just a certain type. I know that Winchester is a popular primer for Shotgun loads and they are really the only primers I load with. If the quality has gone down hill, I might just have to turn to Remington primers. Anyone hear anything else on this?

Couple this with Winchester canning the Model 70 and model 94 and I'm wondering what the world is coming to

[TonyT]

The manufacturer of Winchesterv firearms and Winchester ammunition are not the same. Olin corporationm sold the Winchester trademark for firearms to US Repeating Arms Co which was subsequently sold to Fabrique National of Belgium. The ammunition is manufactured by the Olin Corporation. They may be outsourcing production to keep costs down. AThis will continue as long as Americans are dumb enough to buy the cheapest product without supporting American manufacturers.

I just got done reading a thread about Winchester turning over their primer production to an off shore manufacturer. The rumor is that quality is worse and variations greater in the newer lots of primers. Has anyone experienced this? Is it all Winchester primers or just a certain type. I know that Winchester is a popular primer for Shotgun loads and they are really the only primers I load with. If the quality has gone down hill, I might just have to turn to Remington primers. Anyone hear anything else on this?

Couple this with Winchester canning the Model 70 and model 94 and I'm wondering what the world is coming to

[Viggen]

In the pistol and rifle primer world I have noticed no decline in quality. I don't know anything about the shotgun stuffl.

But let's face it, even if it's produced somewhere else - it's a business. If a company or an individual can do better for themselves by using plants located somewhere else, that's how it will go. The marketplace determines where something is best produced. It may not be where someone wants it produced but that is the way things work economically.

Now, if someone wants to pay more for something made in a particular country, that's fine. They can do as they choose, as long as there are enough folks who ae also willing to buy the higher price.

[pandashorts]

I recently (within two months) started having problems with my WSP. I figured it was due to a light striker on my "tuned" Glock 34, but I was denting them with a stock G23 and "it no go bang". I know Winchester has hard primers, but to have about 10 FTFs in 100 rounds seemed a little high I thought I had a bad lot, but now I wonder. Anyhow, I went ahead and made the switch to Federal and I've been quite pleased. Thanks for the info about Winchester/Olin.

Edited February 27, 2006 by pandashorts

[straightshooter1]

I load mostly rifle and usually use CCI Match Primers and sometimes Federal Match Primers. A couple of months ago, I bought 500 Winchester Large Rifle Primers and noticed an occasional failure to go bang (5-6 per hundred). Never had that trouble before. And, only have that trouble with these primers. Primers were fresh from my wholesale supplier, not improperly stored, not contaminated. On a couple, I could recock the gun and it would fire the second time. Others were simply dead.

I don't know if Winchester has changed the quality or their source, but I do know I won't be buying any Winchester primers after that experience.

This is the only problem I have seen with any primers in years. I recall 10-15 years ago, maybe more, that the Dillon reps would suggest not using CCI Small Pistol Primers because they apparently weren't perfectly round and would not work too well in the Dillon primer feeds (and all my priming problems with small pistol disappeared when I quit using CCI back then), but apparently CCI fixed that problem (??) and other than some brands of primers being harder to set off in handguns than others, they have really been a non-issue, at least for me.

5-6 out of a hundred sounds a lot like a 20% failure rate. I just won';t use that product until I hear, through this forum I suppose, that the matter is resolved.

Edited February 27, 2006 by straightshooter1

[sargenv]

Funny, now that some people are having problems with Winchester primers, I'm happy that I invested in 10,000 Remingtom Small Pistol primers. They were a little cheaper than the Winchesters and I'd had good luck using them before. No matter really, since I'll be shooting my Revolver till June, I'm going to be using nothing but Federals anyway and those always go BANG!

Vince

[tpe187]

I just called Dillon, to see if they had heard any of the problems that people were having and to see what they recommended for my 650. The person I talked to said they had heard a lot more complaints over the last year with winchester primers. He asked if I was shooting any revolvers with light trigger pulls and I told him no. He then said I might want to give Remington primers a try, since they had been the most dimensionally consistent primers they had measured recently. Thats good enough for me. I was leaning toward the Remingtons anyway.

[AZ38super]

I have used over 10,000 WSR primers in the last 7 months with no problems at all and am working through another 5,000 right now.

[JFD]

Out of the last 10,000 WSP primers I bought, I've had more failures than I've had in 3 decades of reloading.

I've got 4K left and then will make a switch.

Any details on the Remington hardness? Hard like CCI, or more like Federal? Right now I'm thinking of Federal.

[Derek45]

I shot them an email, asked them if there primers were outsorced, or imported, here's the reply.....

Thank you very much for taking the time to contact us here at

Winchester Ammunition. We are always glad to hear from our many friends and

customers who share in the shooting sport.

Not True

Thank you again for contacting us here at Winchester Ammunition. If

you should require additional information, do not hesitate to contact

us.

Sincerely,

Winchester Technical Department

Edited March 6, 2006 by Derek45

[Harmon]

Ive noticed some troubles with the winchester primers a little while ago..i have since used federal exclusively in everything i load.

Remington primers SHOULD work OK, since their ammo is loaded with them and nobody seems to have any primer related trouble from them

[eric nielsen]

When I was having ignition problems last year with one of my light-trigger Glocks, I had many many more misfires with Winchester than Federal and CCI combined.

EricW had some problems with Win. primers too:

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=33218

[kevin c]

I just bought a sleeve of WSP. I had a little trouble using primer pick up tubes with them - occasionally the already loaded primers would start coming back out the pick up end, once the tube was half or three quarters full. I also had a feed jam with my SDB where a primer worked its way free of the fingers that hold it at the end of the magazine, ready for pick up by the primer cup.

I was going to write it off as worn pick up and feed tips, but read this thread, and then remembered that I still had some old WSP's around, old enough that they are the nickel plated type. I loaded up several hundred no problem. That's not definitive, mind you, since I have 16 pick up tubes and didn't set aside the ones that had the problem. Still, it makes me want to go mic the old versus new primers to see if there is a difference in diameter.

I'll keep you updated.

grammatical edit (yeah, I'm anal)

Edited March 9, 2006 by kevin c

[sargenv]

I've always equated Remington primers with those of Winchester re: hardness. I find them both to be harder than Federals to ignite and I generally use the same loads in Winchester small pistol as I do Remington small pistol. I guess I spoke too soon re: the Federals but that may be attributable to firing pin shape on my 610 and my loading style on this batch of a few hundred 40's I made up for an icore postal match. I had about a half dozen misfires in about 150 rounds. It could have also been attributable to a few other things. In general though, I have no issues igniting the Federal Small pistol primers with the 610.

At our little local match, including the misfires, I still was able to manage 2nd in stock division out of 8 shooters. I figure I could have been a bit closer to Dan had I not had those misfires. Man that trigger was like butter though!

Vince

[Flyin40]

I used them all last yr and I never had a light hit or a misfire. I'm still using them until they prove otherwise.

Flyin40

[bobaloo]

Loaded about 15K last year, no problems at all, 100 percent fire. The only problem I had was for a while I ran out of WSP and went to WSR, just cut the powder charge a little and they worked fine, except in one gun, a Steyr S9, it just couldn't hit the primers hard enough to set them off, but worked fine with the normal pistol primers. My other 9mm's fired the WSR primers without issue.

[JFD]

I traced my WSP problems to a weakened main spring on my Para, and an improperly adjusted (I'm a Glock newbie) trigger stop on my Glock.

With the changes made, I've had no further problems with Winchester pimers. Still bought 5K Federal primers for the Glock - Just in case

[21 shooter]

I switched from WW primers years ago because they are easier to ignite in my 686. I don't understand why they make them(WW) so hard, as Federal has to be hurting them on sales of primers.

[L9X25]

I have no idea if Winchester changed the manufacturing methods of their primers but I would not doubt it. I CAN confirm that they WILL lie about the manufacture of their products when asked.

A few years ago we started having problems with a projectile that we had been using sucessfully for years. We confronted them about changing the specifications used in the production of the 9mm 115gr FMJHB and they denied any changes whatsoever. We cut old and new bullets in half and measured the jacket thickness and confronted them with the facts before they finally admitted what we had already knew ... that they reduced the jacket thickness considerably to reduce costs.

In my opinion they have NO credibility.

[ricciardelli]

I have had no problems with Winchester primers of any type. But then again, the last time I purchased any was over a year ago.

Edited March 22, 2006 by ricciardelli

[spd522]

I have had problems with the Winchesters not picking up in my pick up tubes and not always feeding in my SDB. I also noticed several times they were hard to seat. I am talking specifically with SRP that I use both pistol and rifle. I inspected them closely and found several were out of round right from the box.

I don't recall problems with the old Winchesters that were chrome and not gold colored.

May have to go back to Federals even though they are a few bucks higher.

[38superman]

I used Federal until I discovered that they are so touchy that sometimes they go bang when you don't want them to.

I had about 6 rounds in a tray that fell off my bench and one of the rounds detonated.

It send brass schrapnel all over the room like a hand grenade.

After that I switched to Winchester and have not had a primer related problem since.

If the Winchesters start to exhibit reliability problems, I will probably move back to CCI.

I used CCI for rifle and handgun for 30 years and never had a misfire.

In the pistol and rifle primer world I have noticed no decline in quality. I don't know anything about the shotgun stuffl.

But let's face it, even if it's produced somewhere else - it's a business. If a company or an individual can do better for themselves by using plants located somewhere else, that's how it will go. The marketplace determines where something is best produced. It may not be where someone wants it produced but that is the way things work economically.

Now, if someone wants to pay more for something made in a particular country, that's fine. They can do as they choose, as long as there are enough folks who ae also willing to buy the higher price.

You're right about one thing, it is a business... big business.

The problem with big business is that it is short sighted and would happily sell your children into slavery if it would push their stock up 2 cents per share.

Is it good business to gut your market by removing the income of your customers?

What good does it do to lower your prices a bit if the people that buy your goods are all unemployed?

Who will be left to buy the cheapened products?

Won't be the guys that used to build Winchesters.

If you think this is just the way things work, hurry down to your local China Factory Outlet.......while you still have money to spend.

Tls

Sorry for the flame, this just hit a nerve.

[DougCarden]

I went through almost 50K of Winchester primers last year, mostly WSP but about 4K of WLP. I think there were three primers that hung up in the tubes, and when miked on the caliper they were just a bit larger. It still seated in a case and went bang.

I just got 40K in, and have loaded 5K of the WLP and 5K of the WSP, recent manufacture. No problems yet, everything seems ok going through my two Dillon presses. If I hit a snag I will let you all know.

DougC

[JFD]

I've had a problem with CCI primers being temperature sensitive. On 2 different days I had .38 Super, .45 Auto, and 45-70 loads varying really badly (could easily feel the difference). On the second day I brought along the same loads except primed with winchester primers...No problem at all.

Never heard this from anyone else though.

Temp at the time was 24 degrees.

[eric nielsen]

I agree with Leo. I'm no longer using Winchester primers & I'm not 100% in love with their Super brass either.

I've had happy results with CCI small rifle primers. Not easy to set off but great quality control.