Does .22lr still use mercury fulminate?

[.cheese.]

Does it still use mercury fulminate, or have they changed the primers to use a different primary explosive, and if so - what? Mercury fulminate was used in days past extensively, but has since been mostly replaced to my knowledge.

I was reading the July G&A article about the history of .22 rimfire ammo and it made me wonder.

Thanks.

 

[benEzra]

I think most ammunition these days uses lead styphnate. Mercury compounds are hyper-toxic and very heavily regulated, so I don't see them being used for OHSA/environmental reasons, as you'd incur a lot of added costs and health risks.

 

[Jim Watson]

I have a reference to the change from mercuric to styphnate priming compound for .22s in a book nearly 50 years old. It was not a new thing even then.

Manufacturers are cagy about product details, but the early noncorrosive but mercuric priming mixes like 1917 Remington Kleenbore had a short shelf life and the companies were looking for replacements early on. So I think 50 years is a very conservative estimate.

 

[JohnBT]

www.talkabouttheatre.com/group/rec.pyrotechnics/messages/221239.html

History of Primers, reprinted from American Rifleman

A very brief excerpt:

"By 1910, nearly all straight mercury fulminate primers had been replaced by fulminate chlorate mixes. These mixes were good initiators and were used to load some commercial ammunition into the 1940s. Some military match ammunition was loaded at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant with these formulations as late as the mid 1960s."

 

[.cheese.]

interesting. Thanks for the info guys.

When I read that in the G&A article I got concerned. I was thinking that if they still used it, that would definitely put a shorter shelf life on .22lr than I had previously thought.

So, is lead styphnate by default yellow in color? Here's a question, why is the primer in typical .22lr ammo a different color than the primer/propellant used in .22lr shotshells (for shotshells the primer is the propellant). If you've ever taken the two apart and compared (I get bored sometimes), you'll notice on almost all .22lr ammo the primer is yellow, but on shotshells it's white. Different chemical I guess? Is lead styphnate not enough to propel the shot out of a shotshell?

Also, on a related subject, while I was googling the subject, I stumbled across this Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMEAUC0nXno

Do you think I would be overreacting if I put that URL into the FBI crime tips contact form on the FBI site? Something about that just seems a bit unsettling. It's probably just me overreacting due to the times we live in, hence why I ask.