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Small Rifle Primers - Federal vs Winchester?


tomneal

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I am nearing the end of my supply of Winchester Small Rifle Primers.

AND

No one seems to have Winchester in stock.

I use them for .40 S&W, .38 Super, and soon .223 Rem. in a Dillon 650.

Is there a "BIG" difference between brands of Small Rifle Primers?

I use Winchester because that was the Large Pistol Primer I started using in 1997.

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Both work great, but Federal is a bit softer. Federal uses Basic Led Styphnate rather than Lead Styphnate as the priming compound (there is a slight chemical difference between the two). It's interesting that you are finding it harder to get Winchester than Federal - it's usually the other way around.

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I use Federal when I can't find Winchester SRPs. They work fine and yield the same PF as near as I can tell. I don't like the Federal packaging nearly as well but other than that and the color there doesn't seem to be any substantive performance difference.

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I use federal primers whenever possible. I will use winchester and have no problem with them but prefer federal. I try to keep 80-100k of federal in stock for myself at all time and fill in with winchester if the pther isnt available. Federal is much harder to get in quantity when you need them. I have a friend who has started shooting wolf and has so far had good results with them and they are cheaper as well.

Velocity wise I dont see any advantage to either but as Rob said the federals are easier to hit and most of the production shooters love them for that reason. I use the Small rifle / small magnum rifle and small magnum pistol in my open gun ammo interchagably without problem. I typiccally load my limited gun ammo with winchester and save my federals for the open gun.(that is where I like to play).

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Federal uses Basic Led Styphnate rather than Lead Styphnate as the priming compound (there is a slight chemical difference between the two).

Exactly. Again:

Federal primers = BASIC lead styphnate.

Winchester primers = NORMAL lead styphnate (as does CCI & Remington).

As for Wolf rifle primers, there's a guy named David Tubb who bought several pallets of Wolf rifle primers due to their superior quality/accuracy and he swears by them over all other brands; they say that Tubb guy knows a thing or two about shooting (though I have never met him in person).

Anyone know whether Wolf is using basic or normal priming compound?

Edited by Carlos
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hmm.. I load a lot of 223.. and I won't use the brass colored WSR anymore. The primers are much softer then the older silver ones. If you were using the 'silver' ones, ya might try out a hundred before you find/buy a whole bunch of the WSR.

Edited by Para 16
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Federal uses Basic Led Styphnate rather than Lead Styphnate as the priming compound (there is a slight chemical difference between the two).

Exactly. Again:

Federal primers = BASIC lead styphnate.

Winchester primers = NORMAL lead styphnate (as does CCI & Remington).

As for Wolf rifle primers, there's a guy named David Tubb who bought several pallets of Wolf rifle primers due to their superior quality/accuracy and he swears by them over all other brands; they say that Tubb guy knows a thing or two about shooting (though I have never met him in person).

Anyone know whether Wolf is using basic or normal priming compound?

I never met him either... what I'm saying is that I have been using Wolf Small Rifles and was having seating problems with them. This is first hand knowledge of a recent batch. If you are going to refute something I'm saying, I would hope you have recent firsthand knowledge. I'm just trying to save some of my friends here from the problems I had. I bought them because everyone was out of Wolf Small Pistols, which I continue to use to this day. I have no issues with small pistols.... Loading in a Dillon 550

Hell, may be some Russian was having a bad day or drinking to much vodka... all I know is the batch I had sucked.. one was missing an anvil too.

Edited by JThompson
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