Primer question

waco

Springfield, Oregon
Concerning Small Rifle Primers. Which ones have the softest cup? My recent outing with my Ruger in 300blk
shot loads using S&B primers. The worked 100% reliably. I have had issues in the past with other primers not firing. I will continue to buy and use the S&B when I can. Are there others that would work well also?
I have had problems with CCI.
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
Winchesters are pretty soft .
All of my 223 and 6.8 get CCI#41 or 450s .
The LRP brass gets CCI 200s .

I had a problem with Agulia 223 in a brand new Savage Axis but I also had a problem with my hand loads in it .
Winchester LRP gave me slamfires in an SKS and the CCI 200 fit better anyway .
Ultimately I taped a case in the Savage and found the head to shoulder length to be .01 too long .

A simple matter in a Savage if you have a vise jaw set and B nut wrench handy . Not so much in others .

As an unrelated note the SKS displays the incredible shrinking brass gig . So I had an occasional misfire after 5-6 cycles I had to neck up to 8mm and the faux shoulder bit to refire form . It's almost 8mm anyway .
 

waco

Springfield, Oregon
I don't know why but Federal primers are very rare around here. I'll try to stock up on those S&B primers from Cabela's. The price sure is right. $22 when they are NOT on sale.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Winchester is soft in my opinion. Had a few pierce in my AR with loads that don't ever pierce with a Remington 7 1/2 or CCI.

Federal has long had a reputation for being the most easily ignited primer.
 

creosote

Well-Known Member
I learned about soft primers in an "ar" back in the early 90's
Shooting at the bench next to the local swat teem. It went pop pop really fast. Not sure if I heard what I thought I heard, I looked at the guy to my left, he was looking at my gun. I put it away, and got the winchester 1886 out.
 

Ole_270

Well-Known Member
My 110 year old '94 Marlin 25-20 broke a firing pin a while back. Found a replacement and put it in but was getting misfires with S&B primers. After some looking around I found that the locking bolt wasn't raising up high enough to align the two piece firing pin correctly. Sent it to Ranger Point Precision for a work over. When I got it back it was still not firing with the S&B primers, but the last of my supply of Wolf SR primers worked every time. I switched to Federals and haven't had any problems since. I've been thinking about trying Small Pistol primers since the load I use is fairly low pressure.
Funny thing is, the S&B primers only showed a shallow firing pin impression, the Feds and Wolfs were much deeper.
I use alot of the S&B Large Rifle primers in the 38-55 with cast loads.
Wondering what I was going to do with the S&B I tried them in the M700ADL 223 with Benchmark and 50gr TNT. Fires every time and groups small enough that I won't mention it for fear of being called a liar.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
And since nobody else asked....

Do you prefer latex or oil?
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Oil or latex primer?

Ian is face palming already.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Uh-huh. I use PVA, Brad, silly question..:rolleyes:

Every pharmacist knows latex and oil don't mix.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
latex and baby err I might have almost went too far..:rolleyes:

I have had some pretty good luck with the Wolf primers.
other than they are rounded on the cup edges and like to tip over in my auto primer tube fillers they have actually shot some very small groups and have slid right into place in tons of different cases.

I don't see them around like I used to since the Obama regime.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Something about an import ban on components, I never got the details. Tulammo (same as Wolf I think) was importing them for a while, had good luck with them but they stink terribly.
 

USSR

Finger Lakes Region of NY
A little known fact: About 18 years ago, the only way you could get Tula primers (and they weren't packaged or sold as Tula - they were simply known as Russian primers) was thru a guy in Phoenix, AZ. David Tubb thought so highly of these primers due to the low ES and SD numbers they produced, that he bought 700,000 of them. I bought 5,000 of them in the original Russian box and still have a few.

Don
 

waco

Springfield, Oregon
I have never tried Wolf or Tula primers. I have never had a gun that had primer issues until I got this little Ruger.
 

Ole_270

Well-Known Member
Still got a couple bricks of LR Tula, one is Magnum primers that are working great in a couple loads for me.