Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters New Brands Of Primers

With all of the relatively new, or previously uncommon, brand primers on the market now, how about some of the experts doing some comparison testing? We pretty much know about the "old standbys" such as Federal, Winchester, CCI, and Remington. Now we are seeing various others such as Fiochi(sp?), Ginex, Aguilla, and others from Europe, Mexico, and South America, etc. Some of these new to the U.S. market brands offer not only small and large standard pistol primers, but also magnum small pistol primers and small and large rifle primers. I have not yet seen any, but there possibly may be magnum small and magnum large rifle primers offered as well by these newcomers to our market. It would be interesting to see a comparison as to cup hardness, reliability, and brisilense(sp?) - I cannot spell worth a dang tonight - So, how about it?

Speaking from my limited experience, Ginex small pistol primers seem to work well. Some seem to be a bit harder to seat than Federal, CCI, or Winchesters, but not much of what I would consider a problem. They go bang just fine. What I am most concerned with is with large rifle primers, particularly magnum large rifle primers.

I tried some of the Ginex LR primers.
First thing I noticed was they were extremely tight going into the primer pockets.
So tight in fact I was distorting them just putting it in.
Might be just the ticket for wore out brass with enlarged primer pockets .
Other wise no go for me



dave

I've never tried foreign primers in almost sixty years of handloading , but about half the comments mention some drawback, mostly hard to seat and sometimes failure to ignite. I'm willing to spend a little more for American-made primers.

I bought a couple thousand Sellier & Bellot large rifle primers at a great price at the beginning of the first primer shortage. I substituted them for Federal 210s in some .30-06 loads with 4350 and .308 with RL15 and could not see any overt differences in performance. They are in strategic reserve vacuum sealed.

I've got 5,000 Tula SR primers I bought awhile ago just because. There the only foreign primer I have and intend to own. They may or may not get used depends on my healthy supply of Rem 7.5's I've acquired in the last 5-10 lasts

I have used many of the Sellier&Bellot SR primers and think they are a Great primer with no issues.......
Bought a bunch of RUAG (Norma) sp primers a while back, they work great in my pistols but in my friends pistol's they have had several duds because of harder cups, they are also slightly larger making them hard to seat

I've used lots of Tula and Wolf SR primers, they work just fine.

Campro-Ginex are the only large rifle primers being sold at a retail level north of the border so I grabbed a couple bricks to try out and keep in reserve.

The Ginex SR primers are abit tight, I chamfer the pockets, then clean the primer pockets, no problems so far.

Have used lots of the Wolf LR and SR primers and found them good to go. Loaded about 500 of the Ginex LP primers with zero issues whatsoever. Used the Ginex in some R-P 44 Mag cases and they seated fine with no extra work done to the cases.

Aguila SP primers are not a favorite for me, they are hard to seat and have hard cups giving misfires in some DA revolvers that have been 100 percent reliable with Fed, Rem, and CCI SPs. They work fine in my 9mms and I’ve relegated them to that duty.

The Argentine SPs that Norma was selling not long ago are better. They’re much easier to seat and easier to set off. I’d buy more of them at $49 a brick with free shipping and hazmat. But I wouldn’t buy them over domestic primers if the costs were close.

One shop nearby has Fiocchi in the 1500ct bricks and I’ve thought about trying them but it’s hard when they’re right next to the Federals on the shelf.

I have used Wolf LR, Tula SR and Fiocchi SP. Wolf have given me some exceptional accuracy. They just have trouble running thru the tube on my Redding T7 primer system. A little large. Tula SR have been great. Fiocchi not been used much yet.

I've used Wolf/Tula SR, LR, SP, LP; Sellier & Bellot SR, LR, SP, LP; Magtech LR, SP, LP; and maybe one or two others I can't think of off hand.

The only problem I have had is occasionally some of the Magtech LP primers do not want to fire in a Para-Ordinance 45-14 or a Taurus 1911. That is using Ramshot Competition and 185 gr FMJ of some sort. Occasionally, the round will fire on a second strike with the Taurus but not with the Para. I have not had a failure to fire with a Springfield XD, Taurus PT145, or a Kimber CPD II Custom. That includes firing off those rounds that did not fire in the previous guns.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how well they perform.

I realize that some people are wary of brands that they haven't seen before, but the Euro brands that we are seeing in North America have been around for a while. Some just weren't imported, or only came in in small amounts.

Campro gets their name put on the Ginex product. Campro is a Quebec company that most people in Canada know as a plated bullet manufacturer. They are probably trying to grow their business by bringing in European stuff. I don't know how old you are, but before trade agreements grew with the US, Canada used to bring in a lot of Euro firearms, components and ammunition.

I got several good buys on Ginex SR and LR primers because some reloaders didn't want to shell out the money to buy that particular brand. Ginex produces primers for the European ammunition market and has for many years. With CCI, Win, Fed primers being so expensive (or unavailable), Ginex is a bargain by comparison. Enjoy!

Among the "new" brands of rifle primers I've used in the past decade (which have mostly been European primers that have been produced for quite a while) are Tula/Wolf, Sellier & Bellot and Fiocchi. All have performed very well.

One of the interesting things about all this is that many American handloaders apparently assume that European companies don't know as much about making primers as American companies--when some of the Euro-companies have been in business longer....

My suggestion is to take these opinions with a grain of salt.

My belief is that most of the observations you read on the Internet or overhear at the gun club are made by people with little or no practical experience with these brands. Often, it's, "I heard from a friend of a friend..." or worse, they read something unsubstantiated on the Web and repeated it with no first hand knowledge of what was said.

Fiocchi, Ginex, S&B and others have been in business for a long time. One of the reasons we are seeing these in greater quantities in North America is because the US companies are not producing enough product for the civilian market. As well, both the European manufacturers and US importers saw an opportunity to market their stuff here. It's capitalism at work. I wish that the Europeans could flood the market here with their primers, powders, cases and bullets. We would see big price reductions. Unfortunately, with the state of the world, manufacturers on the other side of the Atlantic are producing for the militaries over there.

We continue to live in interesting times.

I tried my first Ginex primers this week. Virgin Remington 260 Rem brass. They seated a little stiff with my hand primer. But I was working on a load. I would load 3 shots walk to may back porch and try them. I have no complaints. I would buy them again. I did about 30 rounds.

I notice some online retailers make it easy to try out these other primer brands with small order amounts.

If they work out fine, then order up some bricks. If they turn out iffy, then toss the remainders and move on.

Which is exactly why I have a few bricks of Sellier & Bellot LR and SR primers. The LRs perform very similarly to Federal 210s in several rifles.

Did an article about this years ago for Handloader, during one of the earlier primer "shortages," which listed the results with both the S&B primers and various American primers in the same cartridges, with the same powder charges and bullets.

Might also point out that Sellier & Bellot was established in 1825. They've somehow managed to stay in business ever since....