Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Well, I got burned by the Winchester primer pinhole thing today...

I had some of the copper-colored wlr primers that were close in lot number to many of them that were reported.... I hadn't had a problem with any of them and today I had 2 go bad and do it in 5 shots. At least it was just my Marlin 270 bolt action and I got a little burn pit in 2 spots on my bolt face. I probably wouldn't have known anything happened except the second one took out my extractor.
This was a test lot of 5 Winchester shells and I had made a note on the reloading label not to reload the Winchester primers next time cuz they seated ez.... next loading would have been federal primers.
I stopped by my Gunsmith and showed him the extractor pieces and he thinks he can put it back together for me and clean up the boltface. He seemed very aware of the pin holing problem and said the Remington copper primers can do the same thing.... he feels it's related to the loose primer Pockets giving too much expansion at the edge of the cup which is already made poorly with the thin metal. Bottom line is he said you wouldn't have had a problem if these were one or two Fired cases with good tight primer pockets. I've got about 300 of the Winchester primers left and they're going to get buried in my flower garden!

If you contact Win as noted in previous thread, they will help. They offered me repair work to the bolt face and would refund or replace the "questionable" primers.

I sent them 4 defects. I decided on replacements and they replaced 2600 primers I had from 2008 with 5000 new ones. I did not feel my bolt face damage required repair.

I was pleased with Winchester's handling.

Had some of those junky primers come apart on rockchucker while he was shooting my old 500 S&W revolver, peppered his face right good.

Went home and pulled over 300 rounds loaded with the 440 gr LBT hard cast bullets and reloaded them with CCI-250 mags, no more problems.

Has this happened to anyone with small pistol primers? I was having trouble finding a recall notice or anything like that on google.

I might be wrong, but not aware of any recall notices issued.
Only aware of issues with older WLRs.
Tim

Since when has Winchester made copper-colored primers? I've only seen nickel plated and plain brass from Winchester. It's the plain brass primers that have issues.

Ok wise guy....I'll make you happy....let's call em brass colored...are you happy...lol!

You can add WLRM primers to the list I had 2 let go last week.Winchester sent me a shipping label and they're going back.

As I said on another thread, I had hoped we were past this primer problem. As long as CCI and Federal make good ones I'll be okay. No more Winchester primers for me. One slightly messed up boltface is enough.

Not trying to be a wise guy, just asking for clarification because it's an important detail; if I was Winchester customer service and you called to say you had a problem with copper colored primers, I'd say you have the wrong number cause those aren't Win primers.

That's one of those little details that can make a big difference in figuring out a problem like you've encountered.

What lot numbers????

Tag.

If you have a lot of Winchester primers on hand I would call them and give them your lot numbers... tell them you don't trust them and you want new ones I'll bet they replace them all. I'm not sure they even know which ones are good or bad.... if you don't have a lot of them on hand I would just toss em ....I'm all done with them!