How to store primers

[Doug b]

Snuffy said
"I still have primers I bought in the early seventies. They have NOT "popped off" by themselves! and they are still as good as the day they were made, sitting on a shelf in my loading room."

Me to Snuffy and I didn't say a word about popping off by themselves thats your statement in reply #24.But to say that your storage arrangement or lack there of ,to a person in say SoCal or in an apartment complex in Atlanta is acceptable is well.

 

[Randy1911]

I have always stored my primers on a shelf in my reloading room (spare bedroom with H&A/C). I have never had one go bad or fail to fire. I have been doing it this way for 27 years.

 

[tggdeer]

Good info.

Good to have acess to years of loaders experience. The day the misfires were loaded, I was teaching a friend how to load for his 270 win.. So, two variables come into play. Maybe it was his gun. Maybe, he did not seat the primers deep enough. Looking at the two misfired cartridges, they looked to be seated deep enough, but I suppose a few thousandths, from the bottom of the primer pocket, might be enough to cause a misfire. I have loaded 4k to 6k so far and have not had a misfire before this loading session. I think my parntner was being to careful while priming.

 

[Cosmoline]

Just keep them in their factory storage containers and they're fine. I'm not sure what some of the paranoia is. On the shelf--nothing wrong with that.

 

[qajaq59]

Primers are sealed pretty tight against water contamination. I had a water pipe break and it filled my primer drawer with water that sat there for a good 6 hours. I placed them on newspaper and aimed a fan at them for a couple of days and none of them failed to fire.

 

[TonyT]

I used to keep them in the original 500 pack cartons in a climate contolled basement. These days the quantities may differ but the storage conditions are the same. I always purchased a carton of 500o primers and resupplied when I got down to 1000. Now it's more hit or miss.

 

[Kernel]

I had a water pipe break and it filled my primer drawer with water that sat there for a good 6 hours. I placed them on newspaper and aimed a fan at them for a couple of days and none of them failed to fire.

Who'd thunk it?

This could be the basis for a High Roader experiment.

 

[rcmodel]

Primer compound is injected into the cup in a putty state when they are made. The solvent to make the non-explosive putty mix is water.

After the primers are finished they are dried & packaged.

Water is not going to hurt them if you dry them out before shooting them.
Afterall, they already have been wet once when they made them.

rc

 

[GW Staar]

I can vouch for the longevity of CCI 200's. I recently found a box of 100, I obvioulsly lost 30 years ago. Reloaded and shot them all. Worked like new.

 

[Kernel]

Water is not going to hurt them

That's good to know. Still have over 20,000+ primers that I bought back during the Clinton era primer scare. Until fairly recently most had been stored in a cardboard box in my not-so-bone-dry-during-summer-months basement.

 

[Sagetown]

by rcmodel : Primer compound is injected into the cup in a putty state when they are made. The solvent to make the non-explosive putty mix is water.

After the primers are finished they are dried & packaged.

Water is not going to hurt them if you dry them out before shooting them.
Afterall, they already have been wet once when they made them.

rc

That's interesting rc, thanks. I tried to neutralize some primed cases once by soaking them in water and some in diesel. It worked for the most part. I don't know if I'd try it again after reading this. So it could be possible if the putty is not displaced or disolved by soaking that the primers may still be active after drying. Wonder if Naptha would de-activate them?

 

[dcsafety]

Neutralize???

Hell with the price of primers why would you neuter them?

 

[Sagetown]

Neutralize???

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hell with the price of primers why would you neuter them?

It was old unpredictable ammo given to me. I removed the lead and powder and experimented with the primers to see if they could be neutralized.

 

[qajaq59]

Maybe the only way you could possibly neutralize them permanently would be to bury them in a wet area and hope for corrosion to do it's job.

 

[HighExpert]

There are two potential problems I have discovered that will cause primers to not ignite. One is they are not seated fully so the anvil in the primer is in the wrong position and the other is dropping them on a cement garage floor and them being cheap and picking them up and using them. Most of the time they fire, but sometimes.....

 

[ScratchnDent]

I store them in their original packaging in a filing cabinet out in my garage. No climate control, in Florida, so the temperature swings are pretty wide over the course of the year.

The only problem I've ever had with failures to fire, I traced back to insufficient sizing of bottlenecked brass. I wasn't bumping the shoulder back enough, and the firing pin would finish the job when I pulled the trigger. Once I adjusted my sizing die to set the shoulder back about .002 more, the problem cured itself.

 

[the_right_reverend]

put shelves in the back off my old safe