Win small rifle primer BAD!

[snuffy]

I was setting up to load a bunch of .223 on my dillon 650. First thing to do was load some primer tubes. I upended 100 win small rifle primers on the primer flipper plate. That orients them all anvil up in neat rows of ten X ten.

I scanned them visually, noticed one looked "different". The bottom of the anvils all have a bright spot of the colored lacquer they use to seal the primer compound. This one didn't have that. Examination of that primer under 30X magnification showed that the anvil was inserted SIDEWAYS!

I seated that one in a sized .223 case, then chambered in my super 16 contender. DUDD

After two hits from the hammer/firing pin, it did not pop! These are the "new and improved" brass colored ones. It would have resulted in a FTF in my AR, not a catsasstrophy, but it might have been embarrassing.

 

[Steve C]

The best Six Sigma level production is one bad product for every 1,000,000. I'm sure Winchester makes well over 1,000,000 primers a year. I'd guess you just got the "bad" one.

I've personally never had a bad Winchester primer yet, but did get a bad Remington in a factory primed case where the back of the primer was so thin that when the firing pin hit it, the flame came out the back side of the prime and didn't set off the round. I did pull the bullet and check to see if there was a flash hole in the case, and there was.

 

[snuffy]

Steve, I agree it's exceedingly rare. BUT, I'm now going to look a little closer to see if I can catch another one! I'm 62 YO, so I'm sure I'll go to that big range in the sky before finding another one.

 

[TexasSkyhawk]

You know what they say. . .

"Lightning has to strike somewhere."

Sometimes I wonder, though, if I have a lightning rod stuck somewhere on me that I don't know about.

Jeff

 

[scrat]

Agree i have never had a FTF in a Winchester primer

 

[Pumpkinheaver]

I inspect every primer before I seat them. I have gottn several primers over the years that didn't have an anvil at all!!! No particular brand seems to be worse than another in this dept either.

 

[NDGeek]

PERSONALLY I've never had a bad Winchester small primer but..

I loaded up some 300 mag with Winchester large rifle for my dad. He goes out deer hunting, gets one in the sights.. click. ***? he cycles the bolt, takes aim, click. Cycles again and finally boom. Of course the deer was way out by then.

Now I've loaded up I don't know how many thousands of rounds for myself and NEVER had a bad primer.

He gets two in a row for his first shot deer hunting this year. Ya.. I had fun explaining that. He shot at least 30 of the same loads before hand at the range, zero problems.


Anyway, I didn't get to see the rounds because he left them in the field somewhere in Kidder County, North Dakota. Maybe they were seated too deep, who knows. Just really sucked since it was the first time he was convinced to "save the money, let me reload for you".

 

[45ACPUSER]

Maybe they were seated too deep, who knows.

Actually the contrary might explain the problem of a dud? You might not have seated the primer deep enough, and thus the firing pin drove into the primer just pushing the primer deeper in to the primer pocket.

 

[sublimaze41]

Write them a letter explaining what you found. I'll bet they will make it more than right. Companies like to know these kind of things. Heck, I once wrote Ben & Jerrys about a pint of ice cream I bought that had very few chunks of cookie dough. Got a nice letter and a couple of coupons. BTW, I love WSP primers.....they seat well and priced fairly.