Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Anybody had a Winchester Small Rifle primer leak?

I have had two pinhole perferations using Fed. GM215 primers in a GMA custom 338RUM. They put two big divots in my bolt face. Both from the same lot of 1000 kept sealed in an surplus ammo can. I called Federal and asked if they had any primer problems - the tech "expert" told me my lot was nine years old and no doubt had an embrittlement problem from being stored close to ammonia fumes of some kind. Not likely as I don't use any ammonia bore cleaners or have cats. The tech told me to dispose of the remaing 450 or so of that lot, at my expense. My load was 90gr of RL22 with 210TSX in Rem brass @3100avg. Not a hot load. The gun shoots .5" groups from the bench, the headspace is good.
Thanks Federal.

Good lord. I have no interest in the exact color of primers and I find it amusing that you seem to be fixated on a less than precise reference to the color of Winchester primers. In order to help advance the discussion, and keep from upsetting you in the future I have actually dug up some of these primers and made a mental note so that I will always recall in the future that they are exactly the same color as brass. A thousand pardons.

And NO, I am not color blind. I have perfect color acuity. I Do, however, seem to have a certain weakness when it comes to color recall. As often as not, I do not recall the color of a vehicle I have seen.

Can we talk about primers now?

The brass colored ones aren't as wide as the old silver colored ones. After 4 or 5 reloads they fall out of the cases (Winchester .223 brass). And 24 grains of VARGET with a 69 grain SMK is not a particularly hot load. Remington's (brass colored) do the same. Silver colored ones last until the case necks split, generally about 12 reloads.

I'll second that.

Got these two little cavities in the last month thanks to the Winchester large rifle primers. They were really mild load shooting 100 grainers in my 270 Winchester....

This was a new bolt I had just installed in an M1 Garand. I put a new barrel on so treated it to a new bolt, and this happened within the first 200 rounds.

The load was a Garand-safe load at about 42 Kpsi.



The perps.

Sure it wasn't that Folgers Classic Roast?

Hmmm.....It is the size that "makes 270 cups", so you might have something...

I could post this with claims of being wronged. Except it was me that had my numbers screwy a few years ago. I was pushing a 270 150 grainer to a goal of 3000 (rather than 2900) in accuracy seeking bliss till it was pointed out to me. Then saw this on one of the cases - Dohhh! I changed to Yuban Dark...

I have to give that a try.

Small, no. Large, yes.

Amazing how that little gas jet is just like a plasma cutter.

Be a shame to retire a brick of primers, but even at 40 bucks that's still cheaper than a new bolt or even a firing pin.

While you may have been pushing pressures a bit with those particular loads, the WLR cracked primer issue doesn't seem to be caused by high pressure. I thought so at first, but then had the same issue happen on low pressure subsonic loads as well.

My theory is that they crack when the primer explodes, not when the chamber develops full pressure. The leaks are obviously worse at high chamber pressure, but that's a secondary effect.

I have not had any issues with the WSRPs, but they were made quite a while back.

I was happy with the exchange rate of nearly double for replacing my WLRPs in batchs where I had leakers to show them.

I was disappointed that I could never get them to admit there actually was a quality problem (just reports) or that they made any changes to their production process.
Hoping that did happen and I have no further issues.
jmho

After managing to get my money back from Olin for the WLRs in my supply, I've decided to stay away from the Winnys altogether as there's no telling (they certainly aren't advertising the issue) what's still out there or what other issues there may have been. I wonder if they ever issued a recall to their distributers for the WLRs known to be bad?

Midawy is offering free Hazmat on Winchester primer orders over about $150 bucks, possibly to tempt buyers scared off by all the hubbub.

Just a little off subject, when did the problem begin with the large primers. I have some that range from 3 to 5 years old?

I had some bad WLP primers when Obama got elected the first time, and then some bad WLR when he got elected the second time. Clearly his fault! LOL I suspect it was quality control issues from trying to meet high demand.

Yours are definitely within the time frame of the bad ones.

Having shot tens of thousands of WLR and WLRM I have never had one do that. Never fired a single small rifle primer from Winchester myself. You guys are scaring me with those blow-torch pinholes!

When I commented on the failures of Winchester small rifle primers, I actually recalled incorrectly. It WAS LR primers I had been reading about. And now I find myself in a conundrum of sorts...I acquired my first .264 Win Mag (a pre-64 M70 ) about a year ago and developed loads using some old Winchester magnum large rifle primers because that was what I had (only a hundred or so) besides some CCI LR primers. I tried the CCI, but the Winchester primers seem to do much better in the rifle so I snagged a brick of the first Winchester magnum LRs that came along and they happen to be the brass colored ones. I am hesitant to use them and think maybe I'd best see if I can find something else.

The days of component scarcity SUCK.

Winchester will tell you if the lot number you have is problematic and replace them. Check old posts on the subject for the contact info and/or lists of known bad lots.