Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Bad brass, or bad primer?

So, here is a picture(bad one)of two pieces of 308 win brass. Both are twice fired Federal with a very mild load(42.5 Varget, WLR primer, 155 Lapua Scenar). I'm getting these "pin hole" blow outs at the edge of the primers. Primer pockets are good and snug. Is this from bad brass, or a bad batch of primers? Thanks!

How old are those primers? Winchester had an issue with WLR's a few years ago, they will replace or refund on them (at least they did back then).

P.S. Bet you have a pitted bolt face too.

Definitely bad primers. I think there is a list of the bad Winchester primers serial numbers posted on the internet.
It’s too bad, but I don’t buy any Winchester components anymore. The brass is pretty much crap too.

I had the same thing years back with Winchester LR primers, I called Winchester and they send me the Fed Ex label and told me to send them all unused primers and any unfired ammo, I sent them about 1200 primers and some ammo and they sent me 5000 new primers. They also had me ship my rifle to Ruger where Ruger replaced a bolt that had craters on the bolt face due to faulty primers, Winchester covered the cost as well.

What is the lot number?

Primers. Identical problem in a couple of rifles. A bunch of lot numbers are involved. There have been lists of problem lots by guys here.

They are a few years old. Was trying to use some older stuff up. Man, I've never had this happen before!

Yes, my bolt face is now pitted in 4 spots. Barely used Kimber Mountain Ascent. Dammit!

CNL589G

Standard Large Rifle primers

Thanks.

The pitting is cosmetic but can be repaired. I had the same thing happen with Federal primers.

How can pitting be repaired?

I called Olin and left a message with the person they said I needed to talk to about this. We'll see...

Question: is a couple tiny pits on a breech face truly a bad thing? I've owned a few old rifles over the years that had some pitting, on one in particular the pitting was pretty egregious. I ignored it, the guns shot fine, and I couldn't see a thing wrong with brass, extraction, etc. Am I overlooking something?

It's purely cosmetic, but on a like new Kimber Mountain Ascent. And,,I now have 3k large rifle primers that are potentially faulty. With large rifle primers being expensive and hard to find, I'd like them replaced. I can live with the bolt face, just bummed that it happened.

You were hiding under a rock weren't you? This is old news. Very old news. That sucks about your rifle. I'm not sure Winchester will fix it now, since the issue with those primers was about 5-10 years ago. I have a buddy that used those primers around 2016 or so, and it really etched his bolt face. He still uses the rifle as is. Still makes me leery about using WLR primers. Hopefully Winchester still honors the primer replacement, and maybe even fix your bolt face..

Ask Winchester, they were liable a while back, when their bad primers etched a lot of guys' bolt faces..

Will do!

Not under a rock😂! I've always had a great stash of CCI and Federal. I haven't bought a primer in 3 years(like a lot of folks). But I did have a few bricks of WLR for back up, and broke into them last month. This is the first time in 28 years of reloading that I've used Winchester.

Tig weld and re-face the bolt face to factory dimensions is how the bolt face could be repaired.. .

I had the same blow out, twice, but it was with the FC brass in 270Win. For me it was the brass that caused the problem. Rifle is a Rem 700. Face is etched but still using with no problems. I quit using that lot of FC brass and haven't been a fan of it since. Years ago, FC was good brass.