Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Sellier & Bellot primers and miscellaneous rambling

Some weeks back, I posted a query about my first encounter with Sellier & Bellot large rifle primers. In that post I noted 2 failures on the use of the first 70 primers in a tray. I asked if any others had similar experiences.

The comments back reported no such issues and were positive responses on Seller & Bellot primers. It was suggested my experience may have been a statistical anomaly. After using roughly 500 more of the primers I am inclined to agree. I used the S&B primers in 6 different rifles in load experimentation in addition to the two I reported as having the misfire; a Marlin 38-55 and a TCR 83 in 32-40. Since that time I have had no further issues; and in fact surfaced some interesting results that had brought me to this point and this post.

At the time of my original query, I noted the following: “As a note, one of the interesting experiences that came out of the recent range time was comparing two 10 round loads that were the same brass/powder/bullet but used Federal primers in one 10 round load and S&B in the other 10. The Federal load was a 4" group while the S&B was a 1.5" group. This 32-40 barrel has been proven to be fussy but I never had such a wide difference with a given load between the Federal and Winchester primers.”

Because it was such a significant difference from my previous loads with this 32-40, I decided to conduct more experimentation with different rifles and load comparisons with the same powder and brass and 20 rounds each of the 3 primers, the 210’s, WRL, and SB’s.

In addition to the 38-55 and 32-40 I selected
1) a pre-war custom Springfield that I had re-barreled to 338-06 some decades ago,
2) a custom Remington 788 originally 30 WCF that had been re-chambered to 307 WCF
3) a TCR 87 in 308 WCF
4) a TCR 83 in 280 Remington
5) a Ruger #1 in a 40 caliber wildcat roughly equivalent to the 450/400 NE 2 3/8
6) a TCR 83 in 243 WCF

I chose loads for those rifles that had previously demonstrated good accuracy with either 210 Federals or Winchester large rifle primers. I tried to keep the comparisons to one or two powders and use the same brass, powder load with each of the three primers. For the 40 wildcat I added Winchester Magnum primers to the list. After 80 rounds (20 each of the four primers) of what I call “the brute”, I was well glad to have finished; the Pachmayr shoulder pad saving me from a complete beating.

Powders used were IMR 3031, Win 760, H380, and H4350. Each rifle had a favorite powder for the given load.

Bullets used were:
338-06 – 215 gr Sierra SP
307 – 170 Hornady RN & 165 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip
308 - 150 gr Hornady BTSP
280 – 139 gr Hornady SP and 140 gr Sierra SP
243 – 87 gr Hornady SP
32-40 – 150 gr Sierra SP (8mm sized down to .321)
38-55 – 220 gr Hornady FP

So what did my going down this rabbit hole result in?

The 338-06 and 40 wildcat were mostly a wash, with the 40 wildcat mostly favoring the magnum primer with the SB coming in second. But the groups were closely within each other.

The 307 loads was also a wash, the Winchester primer was marginally better for the 170 gr but swapped places with the S&B primer and the 165 gr Ballistic Tip.

The 280 was consistent with the best groups around the SB primers but 210’s and WLR’s not far behind.

The 308 shared the spotlight with the 32-40 in showing the biggest differences. H380 and the 150 gr Hornady BTSP were wildly different, nice 1” groups with the SB primers and 4” groups with the 210’s and not much better with the WLR primers.

The 38-55 was a wash; most groups were consistent with whatever primer was used.

Previous use of a primer comparison with the same load was done with an Uberti 1876 in 45-60 and a noticeable difference with the SB primer. I have discounted it from the effort since it is iron sights and my old eyes make it a challenge beyond 50 yards.

After climbing out of the rabbit hole, what did I get from all this? It is that primers can make a significant difference, all things being equal, with powder, brass and given rifle. It is not a guarantee, but definitely worth trying once you think you have a load you like, there might be one better by just using a different primer.

I would be interested in the professionals opinion of this mildly insane experiment.