I recently bought a brick of the Sellier & Bellot primers as my stash of large rifle primers was getting low. I've used about 70 of the first tray and have had 2 duds out of the 70.

Both of the failures had good hard strikes by the rifles firing pins. In both times I did a second attempt after waiting for any hang fire. One rifle was a Marlin in 38-55 that has never had any issue with previous Federal or Winchester primers. Approximately 40 rounds of 38-55 were shot with the S&B primers and all except one worked correctly.

The same experience happened with a 32-40 load on a TC TCR87. I waited for a possible hang fire and then tried a second strike. I have never had any such issues with the Federal or Winchester primers and 29 rounds of the 32-40 loads all went bang.

It seems to me that 2 out of 70 primers failing is more than high. This would be more than an irritating experience if this happened while hunting.

Has anyone else seen or heard of similar problems with the S&B primers? So far, these 70 are my only experience I have had with S&B primers. I have 930 left to see if a failure rate remains only to two.

As a note, one of the interesting experiences that came out of the recent range time was comparing two 10 round loads that were the same brass/powder/bullet but used Federal primers in one 10 round load and S&B in the other 10. The Federal load was a 4" group while the S&B was a 1.5" group. This 32-40 barrel has been proven to be fussy but I never had such a wide difference with a given load between the Federal and Winchester primers.

Ken

Ken,

A couple years ago I bought 1000 each of S&B large rifle and small rifle primers. Have tried them in around a dozen rifles with never a misfire.

They resulted in better accuracy with some loads, not as good accuracy with others, and no change with a couple. Both the S&B's were "standard" primers, not magnums, which no doubt affected accuracy with some loads.

Perhaps the most interesting result was the best accuracy I've gotten yet from my 6mm PPC benchrest rifle, beating out Federal 205M's.

Try a heavier hammer spring or shim the one you have with a small washer.

I've fired more than a brick of the large rifle, no failures so far.

Been using them on a Marlin rebore to 38-55 with cast loads for a few months with no problems. Just starting to build 25-20WCF cast loads with the small rifle version but haven't really tested them much yet.

Yes, have had the same problem....but think it was me more than the primers. I use RCBS priming tool, and while it does a great job, you can set it for primer depth, one needs to be sure the primer is fully seated, as pockets vary in depth. After making sure this primer is fully seated, I`ve had no more failures...200+ now.

I use the Lee auto prime for my primer seating and I investigated the brass & primers (those shot and the 2 failures). They are fully seated and all the primers are deeply indented. The failures are just that, primer failure.

In my shooting and loading for more than 50 years I believe I have had only a couple of other failures and that was because the primer had not been properly seated. The second strike however took care of that. I cannot remember any of the FC/Win primers failing when properly seated (never used other brands till the S&B's).

It appears no one else has had issue with the S&B primers and it may well be I managed to get a bad production lot. I will continue to use the rest of the 930 S&B primers on other calibers to see if it was just an anomaly.

I will load up some 33 WCF, 40-82, and 45-60 for the next good weather day with these primers to see if any others fail to go bang.

Ken

On my 3rd brick of small pistol S&B's with no issues.

Almost through one brick of Small Rifle. No misfires, excellent accuracy, low ES and SD.

I've easily burned thru 10 plus bricks of S&B... they are cheap,& accurate.. darn good primers...

but like with all brands of primers, you still end up with misfires as times... S&B has been no different...

its the law of averages..

I buy them every time I am at Cabelas in Potland and they have them on the shelf...Small rifle, large rifle, large pistol and small pistol...

Interesting.

I've had two BR2s not go off recently. Appeared to be struck adequately. Disconcerting...

I've got about 10k of them in stash.

I've only used Small Rifle. Never had any issues yet.

Like Seafire states - The Law Of Averages....

They are a hard primer, so if you have a weak firing pin spin, they will let you know.

This is an update to my experience with the S&B primers.

I've loaded and shot another tray of 100 primers in 32-40, 38-55, and 45-60 WCF. All those primers functioned without any problems in two of the same rifles that had a misfire each. I'm inclined to agree with Seafire that perhaps it was just a statistical anomaly in the manufacturing.

In addition to my 32-40 liking a load with the S&B primers; more so than previous WLR and Fed 210's, I now can add the 45-60.

In the past a load combination with Jamison brass, IMR 3031, and Sierra 300 gr HP was a so-so load with both the WLR and 210's. Just for consistency, I tried the same load with the S&B's, and lo and behold a tight 4 shot group with 3 of the 4 touching and one about 3/4" to the right. I'm using a Uberti 1876 with a Marbles tang sight. These old eye's are pretty iffy with iron sights but my targets were the 5.5" black rounds on white paper.

I've loaded up another 15 rounds to see if it can be reproduced with consistency.

I seem to remember some months/years ago one of the writers having an magazine article on the sometimes magical effect a primer change can make to a given load. I must admit I had a somewhat jaded view of that, but two loads that were so-so being a nice group with the S&B's; I'm coming around. If anyone wants to know the rifles, one is a 32-40 24" TCR 83 and the other the Uberti.

One further note.

I forgot to note that I had switched the TCR 87 receiver over to a TCR 83. I used the same forearm with only changing the receiver. I had a variety of new loads (including the Hornady FTX) and wanted to use the set trigger of a '83.

I used the S&B primers for all the load combinations. One of the FTX loads looks promising.

Another note on the 32-40. I use 8mm 150gr spire points from Hornady, Speer, and Sierra and size them down with a Lee sizing die to .321".