Winchester Primer Screw-up

Randy Jarvais

Randy Jarvais

New member
I bought some Winchester Small Rifle primers back when supplies were short. Most suppliers were out but I found some on the internet from a smaller company and bought the 8 thousand that they had. This past weekend, I started using them mid way through a match. I didn't finish the match as well as I would have liked and I mentioned to several that I thought my load fell apart toward the end. I never gave the primers a second thought.

Today, while getting ready to reload for a match this weekend, I noticed the 100 count tray they come in said small pistol primers! Yikes. I checked the larger carton that the 100 count boxes come in the it said small rifle on it. All ten of the 100 count trays said small pistol. I checked the other 1000 count boxes and found 2 others out of the eight that had but small pistol primers in them while the box containing them said small rifle.

The 1000 count boxes didn't appear as if they had ever been opened so I suspect they came that way from the factory. Luckily I wasn't on the very edge of powder limits in my load although they are stout. I do feel fortunate that nothing unpleasant happened in the way of an accident or equipment failure. I don't know what effect the pistol primers do for consistency of loads but it can't be good! Randy J.
 
You might want to call Winchester with the lot numbers from both the 1,000rd cartons and the 100rd trays to see if they've had any other reports of this.
 
A few years ago I bought 2000 pcs of Winchester .223 brass in 100 pc bags. Of the first two bags I opened, one contained seven pcs of .222 brass and the other had three. Haven't opened any of the remaining 18 bags yet. Unfortunately one of those .222 brass made it into my .223 rifle and blew the primer out. Should have caught it but didn't. "Trust but verify" must be our watch phrase.
 
Brian, good idea and I will try to do that the first of next week. I could only find the lot numbers on the 100rd trays. The pistol primers are all DCL 335G while all the rifle primers are DCL 528 G. Each of cartons that contain the ten trays hasn't anything on it but a bar code. That bar code is the same for each of the 8 cartons.

Jerry, I hear you and I am usually very good about checking everything. I had all the cartons (1000 count) stacked and as my supply gets down, I take another out to the loading trailer. They are stored in a bottom drawer of a tool box that I have mounted on a counter top. In the top draw, I keep about 3 100 count trays as that is the drawer with most of the loading tools. As the tray count gets down, I take another one or two from the carton in the 3rd drawer and so on and so on. I never checked inside the carton to verify that the individual trays were anything other than what was expected. In the haste of a match, I grabbed the next tray in the line-up and started to use them. The only difference in the exterior of the trays are WSP instead of WSR. I didn't pick up on that until I used them again today. Randy J.
 
well...i have a suprise for you...
they did think ahead,
they are color coded..
the priming compound is colored....just to help prevent such errors.
small pistol is a dark red, small rifle is a dark green a believe....(winchester)
all it takes is just one look

mike in co

XBBR Shooter said:
It would be REALLY NICE if they color coded them... Oh, wait, that would require thinking ahead :( :( :(
Click to expand...
 
mike in co said:
well...i have a suprise for you...
they did think ahead,
they are color coded..
the priming compound is colored....just to help prevent such errors.
small pistol is a dark red, small rifle is a dark green a believe....(winchester)
all it takes is just one look

mike in co
Click to expand...


The boxes.... then maybe the hired help at the plant could get it right.
 
well they expect people to READ the box/tray......
it is about the details in reloading.......
the color coding is just one more safety item,,,primers out of the tray...small rifle/ pistol( same with large pistol/rifle) can be seperated by the compound color.
randy admitted..he did not read the label on the tray of primers.
we have no proof the error occured at the plant, tho it may have.
its possible at the store someone repack shelf items in the wrong boxes....
i have seen that one before...i do work in the sporting good industry....
mike in co
XBBR Shooter said:
The boxes.... then maybe the hired help at the plant could get it right.
Click to expand...
 
I shot Large Pistol primers for years in my BPCR rifle a 45/90, as we were trying to duplicate the power of the old Black Powder primers of 135 years ago. The only problem with shooting them is Pistol Primers have a .007 shorter cup than large rifle primers. Large rifle being .127 and pistol primers at .120. I had a Neidner Firing pin converson in my 1885 high Wall that was hardened so that the primer slamming into the breach block didn't damage it. Some shooting 1873 Sharps had to replace there breachblocks because of this damage. This shallower cup I could see being a huge problem with our high Power rifles and there resulting Higher Pressures, can not be good for the Bolt Face.

Roland
 
sorta off topic, but yes primers can be switched when there is a need.
i have shot small rifle in 9x21...a hot 9mm round.
we do the opposite in some cast bullet shooting...shooting large pistol in medium cast bullet rifle loads.
..........
mike in co
 
I had the same thing happen last year with Remington. I bought 1K of 7 1/2 Br primers and shot a match with them. Looked at the 100 count box after I got home and they were 6 1/2 primers on all 10 of the inner boxes.
 
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