Noob primer question(s)

[Comrade Mike]

Since the overwhelming opinion here seems to be that it was not poor seating that caused my failures I'll go ahead and conceded that these were Winchester primers loaded in both 9mm and 40. I say it wasn't poor seating because they didn't go off the second time either. These were all from the same batch of 1000 I picked up at Bass Pro one day. I had been using Federal primers but Winchester is all they've had for awhile. Never had a failure with the Feds on the same press, same practice, same hand on the lever. I figured maybe I got a bad batch, or leaving them exposed in the shuttle was a bad idea, or maybe Winchester primers just suck...I dunno. As far as the last point, I shot 1000's of rounds of Winchester bulk 115gr Wally World ammo before I started loading myself and never had a misfire like that and I'm pretty sure they use their own primers in those as well...lol.

I've never had a problem with Winchester primers, in fact they're almost all I use. If they're newer production though it wouldn't surprise me if QC has slipped a bit in favor of getting products onto shelves

 

[mdi]

never? wow. seems like get a bad primer every few thousand. You must have super primers. congrats.

Me neither, no pfffts, no failures. Amazing isn't it? A mass produce item that is extremely reliable! May be hard to believe but it's true. I've been using CCI, Winchester and Wolf for over 25 years. All went bang...

 

[kc9aop]

mrcylinder thanks for the advise. I will certainly take my time and great care when loading my own. I already have several printed sources and more online resources for formula and charge data for a number of powder manufacturers. My intention is to load at or just above the lightest load (I have a Smit & Wesson M&P 40) with my initial hope of just cycling my gun cleanly. I only target shoot so I'm not particularly interested in hot or high velocity loads anyway.

I will certainly take a deep breath and be very sure of what im doing. I plan to load maybe 20 rounds and test to see if they perform the way I expect. I will not double charge or make squibs because I'm using a single stage and am not rushing to produce quantity (I'll quality check every round). I don't care if I only make 10 rounds an hour.

Jim