Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Winchester WLR primers still undersized:

I called Olin Corp about my problem primers and they told me to send them all back. They are going to replace them with new primers. I'll seal the new ones too!

I sent pix of my bolt face and they said that Winchester will pay for the repair if Kimber says it needs repaired.

Not too shabby!

Thanks for posting that. I'll have to tell my buddy. He has an Extreme Weather that he fd the bolt face up on, because of the old WLR primers that were bad/leaking.

i have old Win LRP (made in the early Obummer years) that i still use. i don't have problem with them. they were $30/1000 so bought alot of them. i got some Federal LRP in Trump years ($30/1000) but there still in safe. i bought Fiocca SRP last year, $70-75/1500, but all the CCI SRP are probably going to my sons when i die.

They will need to see the brass, primers and the lot number of the primers, along with pictures of the bolt face. If he has all that, I'm sure they will work with him.

Tag

If you are using Federal fired brass…. It ain’t the primers.

Federal and Nosler brass. Primers from the same lot number. Both brands had exactly the same issue.

Gawd I miss the years passed, where I was stacked with Lapua brass and CCI BR2 primers.

It's all gone now.

Yep. While talking with Olin, they couldn't tell me why the shelves were flush with primers. Said they are making more product than there were pre-Covid.

No issues with mine this morning
Must be old enough they they're pre-problem
I didn't see any improvement over Fed 210s though

I have a case of them. Be a long time until I'd ever get to them. Mine are older than Mainer's, so hard to say if there will be an issue or not.

Maybe I should dig some out and try them. Might be better to find out now. I don't have an issue with sealing primers if that takes care of it, and also have lower pressure rifles like 30-30's and 35 Remington's they can be used in, but I'd need another lifetime to use them up on those.

Does sealing them with glue keep them from flame cutting the bolt face??

Dennis, went out last night and shot off 9.3x62 325 grain oryx. WLR primers sealed with loctite 680. Ran the loads up towards high pressure where brass began flowing into the ejector cut out.

Not a single fkn primer loosened or leaked.

When I decapped the primers, the 680 loctite was still green, no black soot in the sides of the primer pocket.

Again, I've looked at the technical data sheets. 680 is the same chemical composition as various primer sealants.

I timed how much extra time it took to swab the primer pocket with a q tip. For handloading 50 brass, it added 3 minutes to the reloading process.

Decapping loctite 680 primers cured for 24 hours, was back up to 7-8 lbs of pressure on the reloading press handle to decap a WLR primers. Roughly the same pressure to remove a CCI primer.

In current times, I ain't getting rid of these primers.....

Good info there. Thanks for sharing. I'm certainly not getting rid of my current WLR's either!

Winchester and Leupold are a perfect match…

Those old silver WW’s were great. Still have some.

Never got the gold ones. Had heard they weren’t as good. Use CCI and Fed. Good thing I have some.

DF

I have 4000 Winchester LR primers in the blue box that I don’t trust. At least one of the lots was on the list started here. Still using the old white box LR primers. I should call Winchester with the lot numbers and see what they say.

Mine are in a white box
I would not have guessed that dealing with locktite would keep the pressure from leaking

Mainer,
Good info.

Thing is I have 3 bricks of WLR’s bought in Trump’s first year that seem to be oversized. They are so tight trying to seat in Lapua and Sig brass that I can barely get them in with my old style Lee hand tool. I resort to my RCBS bench tool.

Although they work great with some wore out WW brass……

I have 500 Winchester LR and 1,000 LRM blue box primers that I seem to recall checking the defective lot numbers against. I’ll use them if I ever run out of Fed 210, 215, or Rem 91/2M’s, which is not likely in my lifetime.