Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles WLR primer.

Well,I finally had a Winchester WLR primer fail. I'd heard there were some bad ones afoot a couple years ago. I've got 800 of them left from a brick. Guess Ill dig a hole for them. Nice little crater in the boltface now. The primer cup failed right out at the edge of the cup. Guess I should have chit canned them before this. Live and learn.

Call Sharon at Winchester, 1 618 258 2738. Give her your lot numbers. Chances are they will pick them up and pay you for them. Tell her about the damaged bolt face.

How old were they?

I need to call her I have 4 or so rifles damaged from those bastids!

Great advice on calling Sharon at Winchester. She was very responsive when I had my issue a few months ago. Pitted one bolt - but only one small place. They offered to pay to have it repaired, but I declined the offer. They replaced all my primers - mostly WLR's. Back when this was a daily topic, several guys just took a check instead of replacements which is probably the better idea.

I second calling Sharon. I took the check option.

Why did winchester change from the silver primers to the brass ones? It seems all the problems started after that.

Were the WLRM affected? I bought a 1,000 of the magnum primers a few years ago. Still haven't used any. Kind of scared to now..

I used several thousand of the brass ones over several years before the problems started. So it was after the change, but not immediately after and likely not because of it per se.

I spoke to Kristin at Winchester and she was very polite and responsive as well. I had a pretty large supply of various lot numbers from a few years ago and she took them all back. Small mark on the bolt face but I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. I took the replacement option as I have only had one bad primer in many thousands of WLRs-I'm willing to believe them that they have fixed the issue.

Has there ever been a problem with the old silver primers? I have about 400 remaining of the old white box, silver WLR primers and declined Winchester's offer to buy them back. Mine are at least 20 years old. Also, have the problems ever involved the WLRM Magnum primer?

BSA,

Apparently some of of the WLRM's were affected. I had 900 left out of a box of 1,000 and when I gave the lot number to Sharon she asked me to return them also. I shoot so few magnum primers that I asked her to replace them with WLR's - which they seemed happy to do.

I'd call her with the lot number - better to know.

Thanks Phil. I'll do that. I bought these when it was impossible to find CCI's locally (about 3 years ago). I found them at big 5 of all places, but go burned on them. Paid $45.00/brick. I'll call her and see if the lot # is listed..

I thought Mule deer posted Lot#s of the bad ones not to long ago.

It doesn't really matter; nobody has an all-inclusive list of which lots are bad.

You have to call them to find out.

When I called, they had me send back 4 cartons.

Not a bad deal though, because they sent me 5,000 primers back!

Yeah, I started the list of lot #'s a couple of years ago, when the problem first started, after an Internet search. But new lots kept popping up and Winchester started taking the problem more seriously. Now they're keeping a list.

If I'm not mistaken, the LR Magnum primers have a different cup and have not given folks problems, right? Or AM I mistaken??

No I have a batch of LRM that have the problem.

I have had 2-misfires with WLRM primers and 300WSM out of like 200 so far, same box.