Wow, primers really do matter

[J_McLeod]

Target 5 is a 10 shot group of 9mm. I put a round next to it for size. Probably some of the best shooting I've done, in part because it was only 5 yards.

95gr RMR Pulled Speer TMJ (best deal ever on .355 bullets)
7.5gr of HS-6
Mixed cases
1.030" OAL
CCI 500 primer

Targets 6 and 8 (except for the red lines near 8) are also ten shot groups of the same load, loaded the day with Tula primers instead of CCI. All with an XD9SC.

 

[Patocazador]

Never tried the Tula primers but I've tried substituting primer brands and types in a very accurate load just to see if I could improve it. Rem, Fed, and CCI, plus BR primers in Rem and CCI and never could tell a substantial difference.

 

[LiveLife]

Based on my experience (so take my comments with a grain of salt ), I have obtained comparable, consistent and repeatable shot groups with 200 gr 45ACP SWC using LP primers from Winchester, CCI, Wolf and Tula. With 9mm/40S&W loads, slight consistency nod for PMC with Winchster/CCI/Magtech closely following and Tula SP being less consistent (not to mention failure to ignite issues for my lot #). YMMV

 

[Hondo 60]

I've tried all manner of small pistol primers.
(CCI, Rem, Win, Fed, Tula)
Can't say that I noticed any difference in chrono'd velocity or felt recoil.

What I have noticed is that Fed's have a softer cup & crush easier.
They also have detonated once or twice while seating.
This has not happened with any other brand.

Also noticed that Tulas are a bit bigger, so they seat harder & I've had a couple that were duds. ( less than 1%)

 

[J_McLeod]

I get 1-2 duds from every box of Tulas.

 

[ljnowell]

odd, my absolutely most accurate 38 special load is a Missouri Bullet 148gr DEWC over 2.9gr of AA#2 and Tula SPP. I mean one hole group at 25 yards when I am doing my part. Its my bullseye practice load.

I have never noticed a difference in any brand of primer in handguns, as long as they are powerful enough to provide consistent ignition, ie. not faulty.

 

[Magnum Shooter]

Many many years ago I had fail to fire problems with CCI SPP, but they went away after I finished using up that lot. I have never had any issues with Win, Fed, or Rem primers. I have not used any Tula yet, but have no reservations about doing so.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

This is not the first time I've heard Tula primers cause accuracy problems. In the past I have ignored the reports because they were just reports. This time there is proof so IMO it's more credible.

 

[LiveLife]

ljnowell, as reported in recent threads, even domestic primer manufacturers like Winchester experienced issues with a particular lot of primers.

I believe I gave my lot of Tula SP primers an objective and exhaustive assessment as to why I experienced failure to ignite (final root cause determination to be harder primer cups) but the issue could have been resolved on newer lots and I am open to conducting another assessment with a new lot of Tula SPP primers. When I do, I will update the thread - http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=630512&page=2

This from post #115 - http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?p=7979217#post7979217

It's been almost 2 months of further testing with Tula SP primers (2000+ rounds) and I have continued the "dirty" testing of not cleaning the primer pockets and seating them flush, .004" below flush, crush depth/.008" below flush in 9mm, 40S&W and 45ACP SP cases.

I also expanded the pistols used to include G17, G22, G27, G36, M&P40, M&P45, PT145, Sig 1911, RIA 1911. Two coworkers just bought G27 and G36 and I also included them in the test.

My G17, G22 and G27 slides were also completely stripped down to individual components (even the striker assemblies were disassembled) and thoroughly cleaned with care given to the bottoms of striker tube channels to ensure there was absolutely no packed fouling deposit at the bottom. QC was done by scraping the bottom of striker tube channels until metal surface was seen. Care was also given to ensure the extractors were free of accumulated fouling gunk.

In addition, I talked to several other reloaders and comparison reference loads were also tested using various lots of Winchester/CCI SP primers along with Magtech/PMC SP primers I have (1000+ rounds).

Range report:

- None of Winchester/CCI/Magtech/PMC SP primers failed to ignite
- None of 45 caliber pistols failed to ignite Tula SP primers
- 23 9mm/40S&W Tula SP primers failed to ignite in Glock 17/22/27 (including the new G27)
- 9 of failed to ignite Tula SP primers fired on second primer strike

At this point, I feel that I have given this particular lot of silver colored Tula SP primers more than sufficient opportunities to ignite in various pistols, cases and seating depths. I have considered replacing the strikers in my Glocks but since they ignited all the other brand/lot of primers, I am not so sure that it's striker-related. I still think that the failure to ignite issue is based more on harder primer cup than anything else - it's odd because the same Glocks have no problem igniting Tula .223/military primers that are supposed to have harder cups ...

Post #120

I have shot 30,000+ reloads with Wolf LP and Tula LP/SP primers and have experienced no failure with bronze/brass colored Wolf/Tula LP primers. I have also shot several thousand reloads with Tula LR/SR/.223 primers and no failure to ignite.

The failure to ignite has been with silver colored Tula SP primers only.

BTW, 15,000+ reloads with Magtech/PMC SP primers with no failure. Of course, 300,000+ Winchester and CCI pistol/rifle primers are continuing to fire without failure.

 

[243winxb]

5 Yards

 

[ljnowell]

ljnowell, as reported in recent threads, even domestic primer manufacturers like Winchester experienced issues with a particular lot of primers.

I had some of the primers that had really bad FTF issues. About 4k of them actually. What I mean is, I seriously doubt that in pistol calibers the primers were causing that accuracy issue, at that distance especially. if it went off and the powder fully burned, it wasnt the primer causing accuracy issues, thats all Im saying.

 

[EddieNFL]

I've had excellent results with Tula/Wolf primers.

I've had less than excellent results with Tula/Wold primers.

I can say the same about every other primer I've used.

Some combos (bullet, powder, primer, cartridge, barrel) work better than others. About 30 years ago I had a Redhawk that shot like nobodies business with Sierra 240s, H110 and Federal primers. Change any component and groups looked like shotgun patterns.

 

[LiveLife]

I've had excellent results with Tula/Wolf primers.

I've had less than excellent results with Tula/Wold primers.

I can say the same about every other primer I've used.

In my limited sampling of 300,000+ reloads, I have never experienced Winchester/CCI/Magtech/PMC and Wolf/Tula LP primers that failed to ignite. However, I have experienced primer ignition issues with Tula SP primers as others have reported similar.


ljnowell, I agree.

To be honest, there are enough variables to affect accuracy for pistol loads that unless you absolutely ruled out the others, it would be difficult to say a single reloading variable attributed to deviation in accuracy.

When I initially started match shooting (USPSA) mentored by a Bullseye match shooter, I was in pursuit of as much reloading consistency as I could so I tried different things including weighing/sorting bullets by exact weight to 1 gr, weighing same headstamp cases, hand weighing powder charges and hand priming. I did comparative range tests using different powders (Bullseye, Clays, Titegroup, WST, W231/HP-38, Universal, HS-6, WSF) and primers (Winchester/CCI).

In the end, I concluded the quality/consistency of jacketed bullet (Montana Gold with less than 1 gr variation) and consistency of powder charges (less than .1 gr variation) mattered the most and headstamp of cases/primers mattered second. Of course, if your primer don't ignite, it will matter significantly and all of my pistol match rounds are loaded with Winchester primers. YMMV

 

[ljnowell]

ljnowell, I agree.

To be honest, there are enough variables to affect accuracy for pistol loads that unless you absolutely ruled out the others, it would be difficult to say a single reloading variable attributed to deviation in accuracy.

When I initially started match shooting (USPSA) mentored by a Bullseye match shooter, I was in pursuit of as much reloading consistency as I could so I tried different things including weighing/sorting bullets by exact weight to 1 gr, weighing same headstamp cases, hand weighing powder charges and hand priming. I did comparative range tests using different powders (Bullseye, Clays, Titegroup, WST, W231/HP-38, Universal, HS-6, WSF) and primers (Winchester/CCI).

In the end, I concluded the quality/consistency of jacketed bullet (Montana Gold with less than 1 gr variation) and consistency of powder charges (less than .1 gr variation) mattered the most and headstamp of cases/primers mattered second. Of course, if your primer don't ignite, it will matter significantly and all of my pistol match rounds are loaded with Winchester primers. YMMV

Your experiences are similar to mine then. I find that consistent powder charge matters the absolute most in pistol rounds. I have had loads that could have as much as .010" OAL length difference and have no inconsistency, even using mixed brass.

Thats dependant also though by powder. Unique or 700x for example dont seem to be nearly as sensitive to a .2gr variation. When I used 700x I had a load that was supposed to be 4.8gr. It would vary from 4.6-5.0 at times and not be noticable and still make great groups at 15 and 25 yards.

Winchester is definately my favorite primer for many reasons, but I do use a lot of the Tula primers in the last few years. IMO, as long as they go off, they pretty well work all the same in short range pistol loads.

 

[918v]

I use FC, CCI, and Win primers. FC are the softest and CCI are the hardest. In my accuracy testing I have found that no single brand is more accurate than another, but a single brand may cut groups in half over another in some loads. You just have to try snd see. Primers are a variable, just like powder charge weight, bullets, and brass- they are all unique.

 

[EddieNFL]

In my limited sampling of 300,000+ reloads, I have never experienced Winchester/CCI/Magtech/PMC and Wolf/Tula LP primers that failed to ignite. However, I have experienced primer ignition issues with Tula SP primers as others have reported similar.

I just started using Wolf/Tula about three years ago and my experiences are limited to LP and SR (no more than 40K) so I will bow to your experience. I've read of a couple of issues with Wolf/Tula. I always buy in large quantities so I probably just got lucky and missed those particular lots.

The only ignition problem I ever had was with BR2s.

 

[gamestalker]

I have been reloading for more than 30 years, and in that time I have used Winchester on limited occasions, but CCI has been the one I use unless they are out of stock. Regarding accuracy and consistent velocities, I have always noticed CCI to be in a class of it's own. I don't notice much accuracy difference with handgu at 5 or 10 yards, but for my high powered rifle needs I can see a pretty good difference in group size and consistency.

I'm not knocking Win, as I've never had a single mis-fire with any primer brand, but CCI has always seemed to produce a far more consistent flash / bang, for what it's worth?

And another difference between primer brands that I like about CCI, is that they seat with a with a more positive indication of such.
GS

 

[TonyT]

I have used Remington, Winchester, CCI and Federal primers in bullseye pistol and action pistol loads for more than 50 years and have never seen any significant difference in the accuracy of the loads produced with pistol ammo.

 

[Bush Pilot]

Just for plinking purposes I've never noticed enough difference to matter. I've loaded batches of ammo with two different types of primers and they all grouped together.

 

[oldreloader]

I think Tula may have corrected the problem with the SP primers. I'm over halfway throught the second thousand without a single FTF. I still use Win, CCI, and Tula in SP,LP,SR,and LR. They all work fine for me. I can't tell any difference in the accuracy of them.

 

[LiveLife]

oldreloader, could you post the lot number and are the cups nickel/silver color or bronze/brass? Also, what pistols have you shot them out of?

I am wanting to buy some newer lot of Tula SP than what I have (my lot # 20-10) to do more testing.

Thanks!

 

[oldreloader]

bds..The lot number I have left is 19-10. They are nickel in color. I'm shooting them in a S&W Sigma 9VE. I have about 400 of the left out of this box and have used up a 1000 count box before this one. There have been no FTF's at all.

 

[LiveLife]

Well, even though my lot # is newer than yours, I will give Tula SP primers another shot. There's a gun show coming up in several weeks, so hopefully I will find some newer lot # primers to buy to test (I'll contact the vendors to see if they can check the lot # before the show ).

 

[coalman]

Has never mattered for me. I remain the biggest variable in how well or poorly I shoot.

 

[LiveLife]

coalman, I would agree with you if all of my Tula SP primers ignited - http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=630512&page=2