Tula Primers...any good?

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Guillermo

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$20 per 1000 makes them the cheapest on the market.

Anyone have any experience with them, positive or negative that they are willing to share?

As always...thank you.

G
 
The only dud primer that I can remember having in the last 20 years or so was with a TulAmmo large pistol primer.

I bought two thousand in 2009, shot about half of them so far. I probably will not buy any more unless I have no other choice.
 
Ive been through 5,000 that I recently ordered from PV without any hiccups. They are a little more difficult to seat than others, especially in winchester 38 cases- I really hate those cases, they always have high riding primers that I have to reseat. with all of my weight.
 
My brother has gone through no less than 10k and has yet to say anything negative about them.
 
Around 10K of various sizes seated and shot with no problems in the past 6 months. They are slightly larger in diameter so they are tight in some pockets. BUT they will give at least an extra use out of brass that already have loose primer pockets because of this.:D
 
BUT they will give at least an extra use out of brass that already have loose primer pockets because of this.

I like it. I always appreciate a fellow brass rat. Except when they're looting my(edit) claim!

I bought a couple thousand SP from PV. Have yet to try them, but read good things about them. I've only had one dud primer and it was a WSP.
 
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Just picked up 5k of the Tula sp after doing some research. What others have stated here is also what I found. That they're a tad larger in diameter so are a tight fit.

With that in mind it seems most of the ftf may be related to them not being seated adequately. Many posts have stated any misfires functioned the second time struck. I'm seating firmly and haven't had any issues to date. Unless something really changes the Tula are going down in my book as a good buy....
 
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Never tried Tula-but my failure rate with CCI, Federal and Winchester is absolute ZERO. I can't remember a single failed primer in 31 yrs of loading. Therefore I'll stick with what I know unless there is no choice in a desperate situation.
 
I've used about 20K Tula. Used Wolf SR for a couple seasons of HP competition. Accuracy velocity and ES as good as BR4s and 205GMs.

Th only misfire I can recall was a CCI BR2.
 
I've been through several thousand Tula small pistol and large pistol primers. The small are great but will misfire alot if you are running reduced power hammer springs in your gun. They are very tough primers. The large are not as tough but fit into primer pockets very tightly. They are more work to get in but as others have noted, will prolong the use of your brass as pockets loosen.

When I switched from Winchester/CCI to Wolf/Tula it was to save $10 per thousand and I'd do it again in a heart beat. When reloading for 45acp or 9mm the 8lbs jug of powder is essentially free when comparing the price to other brands of primers.
 
I was good through 3k of them. Only had maybe one dud, and wrote it off as a freak incident. Then I had about 10 duds with my last 1k batch of Tula SPP. And I've had 1 dud through 1-2k of the Wolf 223 primers. These were not seating issues. Some may have been firing pin strength issues, as many of those 10 duds happened in the same gun - a stock GP100. But at least 3 of them happened in Glocks with very clean firing pin channels.

I've used 2k of the Wolf LPP, and no problems. I will probably keep buying those.

I've read of people having the occasional bad batch of domestic primers. But until I've experienced that, I'm sticking with CCI and Winchester; cuz my failure rate with them has been zero. And that includes when I first started loading and my seating consistency was all over the place. One bad primer is a waste of not only one round/primer, but also your confidence in the rest of the batch. There's nothing worse than socking away hundreds of rounds of ammo before finding out your batch of primers is unreliable.

I realize this is completely anecdotal; lots of people swear by Tula's reliability, but I can't help it that I no longer trust them. If I'd had a bad experience with Win or CCI, and never had a misfire with Tula, I'd be buying Tula.
 
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Never reloaded with Tula, but their loaded ammo I've had a 1-2% failure rate on the primers going bang. I've used Winchester, Federal, CCI, and Fiocchi primers for my reloads and not once have I ever had a dud.

With that in mind unless its all I can find I won't use Tula. The Fiocchi's I'm using now I paid $20 per 1000 for less than a year ago and they've been absolutely fine.
 
IME, Tula SPP and Wolf SRP seat no harder than CCI. The particular lot I actually measured was actually a hair smaller in diameter than the CCI I had at that time to compare to.

The Wolf LPP have been way harder to seat than normal. (Well, I mean they take more pressure to push the primer in. Not that that makes it any harder to use them).

All the dead primers I've ever had were the Russky small primers. The LPP have been perfect.

I always examine/rechamber/refire a dud to see if it was a seating issue. At least the first few times it happens in a session (If there are more than that, I figured it's the same problem as the others, and I'll just leave 'em in the dirt). I've never seen a high primer nor have I ever had a second (or third, or fourth) strike fire a primer on one of my dud (i.e. Russian-primered) reloads.

I'd almost like to experience a dud with a domestically manufactured primer. So I can give Tulammo another try and possibly save some money. But until that happens, I'll be happy to pay a little more. You guys that are happy with the Tula primers, you're lucky. I hope I just had a bad batch, and that everyone else is continues to buy them and save a lot of money on a quality product. I wouldn't want the price of domestic primers to go up. :)
 
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I load with every different brand/size of primer that I can get my hands on already so that IF something is unavailable I will know what to expect with a substitution and not have to spend lots of time working up a completely different load yet again during a shortage. If I had any problems I would also be wary of them. I also have subbed SR primers for SPP ahead of time to see what will work reliably should there be the need in my handgun rounds.
 
Enough bad reports that I decided to go CCI.

have 8000 on the way from Powder Valley along w a few pounds of powder.

THANK YOU for the input.

THR members are the best!!!
 
I've used tula SPP, LPP,SRP.and LRP. As long as they are firmly seated I've had no problems with them. The SPP have NEVER given one problem in a S&W Sigma 9VE.
 
For the money I can't see why not to use them. I bought 55,000 of them just incase they went into a shortage. Regardless the stuff isn't gettin any cheaper and i had money to burn. If I only needed a few thousand I may of went a different route. I shoot a lot so it was worth it to me, and I haven't had any failures.
 
id buy them all day if i could. the failure rate is still very very low that it still the best bargain on primers. ill go russian primers due to cost. there good stuff.
 
Tula SR primers are excellent if you're using extruded powder.

ES and SD are lower than FGMM primers, and accuracy in my .223 loads is actually better. Velocities are lower (actually a good thing in this case, less variability from the primer). You do need a touch more powder as they're very mild.

Stay away from the SR or SRM for ball. They're mild enough even the "magnums" at times will not reliably ignite H335 or equivalent.

I wouldn't wish the nickle plated SPP on my worst enemy. Hard cups, hard to seat, missing anvils, etc.

I have no experience with their LPP or LRP.
 
I use nothing but spherical powders...period. I use Tula/Wolf small rifle primers, exclusively for .223 loading for my ARs and for 9mm loading for my Glocks. My experience, having used tens of thousands of Wolf and Tula primers is that their failure rate has been 0%.

I recenlty acquired 10k Wolf .223 small rifle primers from Wideners @ $14 per thousand, plus shipping and hazmat...still way under $20 per k. I currently have about 50k Wolf and Tula primers on hand. Might order some more in the next couple of days, just to make sure I don't run out during a "run" on primers period.
 
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