Wolf Primers - Problem!!!

[Quoheleth]

Today I went to the range with my new-to-me Smith model 10 with 80 rounds I had loaded earlier this summer. Out of that box of 80, I had fifteen duds. Almost every cylinder had at least one failure to fire; one cylinder had three. Very frustrating.

View attachment 148148

As far as details, these were loaded with 4.0gr Universal under a 158gr LSWC using mixed brass. Primers were pushed in as hard as I could with the primer system attached to my Lee Turret.

Here are some photos of a small sample of rounds that fired perfectly.

View attachment 148150

Here are photos of some of the 15 rounds that failed to ignite. You cans see nicely centered firing pin strikes. Note: some of these have deeper firing pin marks because I tried to fire them 2 of 3 times.

View attachment 148147
View attachment 148149

Frustrated, I emailed Wolf. My email read:

Sir or Madam:

Today I went to the range with a box of 80 rounds of .38 Special I had loaded a few weeks ago. The rounds consisted of mixed brass, 4.0gr Universal, a 158gr LSWC bullet, and a Wolf Small Pistol Primer, lot Number 5-10 with a red dot above the number. Primers were seated deeply and firmly with my Lee primer system on my Lee turret press.

Out of my 80 rounds, I had 15 failure to fire out of my Smith & Wesson model 10. I have had some failure to fire out of my guns before, but only one or two per 100. This was a significantly larger number and, quite frankly, unacceptable.

It's not a gun issue. My box of factory-fresh Winchester White Box target ammo fired perfectly - fifty for fifty.

I do not believe it a storage issue, either. The primers had been stored in my garage inside a sealed can with dessicant. My garage is not climate controlled. I have not had issues with other makers' primers stored in this manner - in fact, I have a couple sleeves of primers from a major American manufacturer dated 2008 that still fire perfectly when I ran them through my .357 Magnum two weeks ago.

Do you have any suggestions as to what I might to to resolve my problem with these Wolf primers? As you can imagine, it's frustrating enough to have one or two failure to fires per box of 100; it's aggrevating to have 15 out of 80 fail to fire.

I will look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Q

 

[Steve Koski]

Crank up your hammer spring all the way, they'll probably light.

Or buy a Glock.

Koski

 

[jcwit]

Firing pin strikes sure do not seem to be centered.

Take a round apart and see if you can cook a primer off.

 

[LiveLife]

If you can try the same primers in other pistols, you may be able to verify the primer issue.

I have tested primers by seating them in the empty case and firing in the garage (doors/windows closed to suppress the noise) - of course with no powder/bullet.

If the primers are seated below flush (.004") and won't fire in different pistols with different hammer/striker pressures, then you identified the root cause to further communicate with Wolf as they have sometimes pointed to weak firing pin spring as the cause in the past.

There have been past discussions of Wolf lot # from 2010 that had harder primer cups that did not fire even with repeated strikes.

 

[Quoheleth]

Buy a Glock...puh-leeze.

I have had similar problems - although not to this extent - with my Smith & Wesson model 15, Ruger SR9c and CZ85. Today was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I should have indicated this in my email. If they respond, I'll include that in follow-up communications.

Q

 

[MickKennedy29]

I have gone through about 5k Wolf primers and in my Ruger Gp100 I have maybe 1 in every 100 fail to fire. I do get some that take a 2nd strike to fire off, but I am not counting those. The Ruger has a lighter-than-factory hammer spring installed, which I believe is my problem. In my HK P30 and Springfield EMP I do not think that I had any fail to fire, at least none that I recall. It sounds to me like you got a bad batch, it happens, which sucks. Maybe they will do something about it, but frankly I would be surprised if you get any more than a "We are sorry" email.

 

[LiveLife]

Were these nickel or brass/bronze colored?

I believe it was the nickel colored SP primer lot that had the harder cups that failed to ignite.

 

[56hawk]

I hope you have other guns that take small pistol primers. I had the same problem with Magtec primers a while back. Some guns would shoot them and some wouldn't.

Anyway, next time buy Federal primers. They are the only primers I have found that are 100% in revolvers.

 

[Quoheleth]

These are the nickel colored ones.

Anyone know - did Tula primers have this problem as well? I also bought a whole case of Tulas at the same time.

Q

 

[dagger dog]

Try cutting the radius from the edge of the primer pockets with a military crimp remover or 45 degree counter sink. I found my Wolf LP primers almost impossible to bottom out in the pockets on new and once fired brass and some of them were nickle plated Remington.

If they don't bottom out they won't ignite with any consistancy. Also follow the tip by Koski and crank the hammer spring strain screw all the way they have harder cups.

 

[Hondo 60]

did Tula primers have this problem as well? I also bought a whole case of Tulas at the same time.

Boy, I sure hope not!

I just bought a 5,000 Tula primers.

 

[LiveLife]

Tula primers are made in the same factory as Wolf.

Wolf/Tula LP are bronze/brass in color while SP have been nickel in color and the nickel colored SP primers have been reported to have ignition problems.

I have used Wolf/Tula LP bronze/brass colored primers without ignition problems, but they require more effort to seat them to proper depth due to slightly larger size.

As to nickel colored Tula SP primer, I have experienced similar ignition problem as reported for Wolf SP primer. I have not used Wolf SP primer so I can't comment.

 

[EddieNFL]

I've witnessed several misfires with Wolf/Tula primers lately. Most were in a friend's Glock. All were high primers.

 

[gennro]

Primers were pushed in as hard as I could with the primer system attached to my Lee Turret.

Pressing your primers in as hard as possible can damage the primer also and could be causing your issue.

 

[Quoheleth]

Advice I was given previously is seat them as hard as possible - someone said they actually use "crush setting." Lee doesn't have that, so I seat them firmly, rotate the cartridge 180* and bump them one more time.

Q

 

[gennro]

I would just try seating them till they are flush with the head of the case. "Crushing" the primer can cause the anvil in the primer to be damaged and not fire.

 

[floydster]

After 15,000 Tula/Wolf primers fired in the last two years I have not had a single misfire or other problem in all of my handguns and long guns---it is not the primers in my estimation, look elsewhere.

 

[LiveLife]

As many of you know, I am OCD about primer seating depth and hand prime match grade reloads to .004" below flush.

The Tula SP "nickel" primer cases with misfires were hand primed as they were initial test batch and I wanted to make sure I did not have the similar reported Wolf SP misfire issues.

Mind you, I have yet to experience misfires with Wolf/Tula LP "bronze/brass" primers (over 10,000 rounds fired) and their performance has been on par with Winchester LP.

FYI, here are the lot numbers:

Tula SP: 20-10 (nickel color - several misfires per tray of 100)
Tula LP: 15-10 (bronze/brass color - no misfires)
Wolf LP: 2-09 (bronze/brass color - no misfires)

 

[lono]

I just finished a box of Tula primers. All 1000 rounds fired without fault in my Springfield 1911.

 

[Joe_556]

I've never had an issue with wolf primers. Operator error maybe?

 

[zxcvbob]

I have not had a single misfire using brass-colored Wolf SP primers (or any color of LP primers.) I never tried any nickel Wolf SP's, I heard too many problems with them.

I bought 5000 of the Tula SP's (I thought the Wolf nickel primers problem was just one lot) and they are nickel and I've had a few misfires in a DA revolver. They work just fine on the second strike, so I think they might be OK in a semiauto with a really strong hammer spring.

 

[OrangePwrx9]

I've had problems with Wolf LP primers in .44 magnum. Neither the Redhawk or the Super Blackhawk will set them off reliably. The .44 mag. Contender does, however.

Haven't tried them in the 1894 Marlin yet, but with the whack that thing delivers, I'd be surprised if there's any issue.

 

[oldreloader]

The only problem I had was learning to seat them firmly. Once I got the hang of that no more misfires with either Wolf or Tula.

 

[gamestalker]

Those prime strikes don't look right. Some look harder than others and all seem to be pretty far off center too. They also look kind of nasty, no offense please, it's just that they are very inconsistent in the apparent seating depth, and the edges look rough.
Does your gun spit lead? It' looks like it is in need of a timing job, or maybe the action is real loose?

 

[greyling22]

I'm about 2000 primers into my case of tula SP. no duds, and no light strikes in my marlin 1894c running light springs or my 686 with a light spring kit. My Witness elite 9mm with stock springs gives me about 1 light strike out of 35. 2nd whack always sets it off. I think I may need to buy a longer firing pin for it. The 686 dents the primers in further.

the witness ran fine with federal, winchester, and remington. My experience is that wolff/tula makes a solid, but hard primer. Really the only primers I've ever had issue with were magtech, and that was mostly just primers missing from boxes. (as many as 9 from a tray of 100)