In 35+ years of reloading - I've never had one of my reloads not fire. Today at the range, I was shooting my 7mm08 with a Winchester primer. It didn't fire. I shot it again - it didn't fire. All the other ones were fine. Ever had this happen?

Bad primer, or maybe even a piece of tumbling media in the flash hole?

Bad primer I think. New Nosler brass so there was no media. Glad it didn’t happen on a Cape Buffalo hunt.

It's happen to me 2 times over the years. Bad primers happen.

A few years ago there was a problem with Winchester large rifle primers, I returned them for a full refund. Their website may still have info regarding affected lot numbers.

For sure. Can you let us know how old the primers are? Thanks. Winchester had some issues with their primers about 5 years ago. Those were known to crater bolt faces, due to gas escaping. One reason I don't like to buy Winchester primers.

I dip into some CCI200's (on occasion) that were made in the 70's, and they always go bang. Mainly use those old ones in my friends 22-250 and 270 win ammo. Paid $1/100 for them a few years ago. Couldn't pass up that deal, and bought a couple bricks.

I had a model 70 that would no pop a cci primer. All others went bang.

Only come across that in factory ammo.

I’ve had two guns that did it. The most recent one has done it with two different lots of primers. A couple of the rounds fired the second time I tried to shoot them but the others didn’t. The fact it happened with two different lots of primers made me think it’s a problem with the firing pin or spring. I disassembled the bolt and cleaned everything with brake cleaner and a light coat of oil. If that doesn’t fix it, I’ll install a spring with slightly extra power from Wolff springs.

Happened twice with me in same gun working on a load for 30/06 savage 116. I changed primers and no problem since. Primers were Remington 9.5. I don’t know if it was primer or a light strike. I wish I would have kept them. Any way I have in my reloading notes for that gun in pretty bold writing Do not use Remington 9.5 primers

Funny this comes up now, since this just happened on my 444 reloads, using Remington 9 1/2 LR primers. I was recently checking the zero on my CVA V2 Scout in 444 Marlin. I had not 1 but 2 rounds fail to fire. The firing pin was hitting the primers but neither one went off, even after trying a 2nd time. All the other rounds went off just fine. IIRC I bought these primers about 5 or so years ago and they had been kept in my home reloading room (climate controlled of course). Also, all of my previous reloads using the Rem 9 1/2 primers (with exception of the 2 mentioned) have fired without a hitch. I only have about 15 reloads to go before I need to do more. I may well change primers when I do more reloads, though I must say that the rounds I have reloaded to-date have been scary accurate with the Rem 9 1/2s.

So far only had it happen a couple times early on reloading when using the RCBS press style primer seater. The reason was simple, I couldn't tell by feel when they were properly seated and had some that were not.

Went to a hand primer shortly after, and I've never had a fail to fire so far with any brand of primer.

I have a buddy that had a factory ammo cartridge not go off on a deer a couple yrs back. Can't remember the brand though. He ejected that one and the next one went off.

Could be one of several issues: primer pocket too deep, primer not seated fully, weak firing pin spring, gummed up firing pin (think WD40), excessive headspace in rifle, case sized too small causing excessive headspace, primer contamination, and yes, a bad primer. In my experience a faulty primer is the least likely (but still possible) reason for the rifle to not go bang.
The issue with the recalled Winchester primers had to do with the sides "burning through" causing bolt face pitting. They always went bang and were great primers other than that pesky side blow out thing.
Cheers

Only time I've ever had complete fizzle handloads was CCI200s with ball powders when it's cold out. BLC2 and H380 both did it pretty regularly when it was below about 20° outside.

My 327 Fed carbine gets squibby using standard SP primers. I just exclusively use SR primers for it now, never had it happen since.

When was this? CCI primers have evolved a bit over the last forty years.

What was the loading density?

It's been probably close to 20 years ago, so no clue what the loads were, other than BLC2 in 30-30 and H380 in 30-06.

I didn't even really keep notes back then other than the load stickers I put on the boxes, and both those rifles are long since gone.

Interesting. I'm still waiting on the OP to answer my question, as to how old his primers are. That could shed some light on things. Like others have said, about 4-5 years ago, Winchester let out some really bad primers. Wondering if these are new primers, or some of those bad ones that got out???

I got some bad CCI250’s almost two years ago. Almost 10% of the sleeve of 100 did not fire. My last range session, I had a WLR not go bang. This brick dates back from the 80’s I found out and I’ll take one of 1,000 not going bang for what I gave for them.

Good post, but those Winchester primers were garbage. That was also about 5 years ago too, so they may have had other issues than just fu cking up bolt faces. The reason I'm asking how old the primers are that he's having issues with. Personally I won't buy Winchester primers, or Winchester brass. I've seen too many issue with both, to be concerned. Never had any issues like this with the CCI primers I buy.

If this is your first time in 35 years, you're not shooting enough.

I got 4 bricks of CCI 200's made back in the 90's for $12.50 a brick, January of 2022 during the height of component shortages. About like winning the lottery. They are the blue/silver/yellow boxes and packs. Every one so far has all gone bang and can't tell any difference on accuracy or consistency in what I've shot so far.

Sometime back in the 80's CCI had primers that some guys were fussing about getting primers mixed in that wouldn't go off. I know 2 guys that wont use CCI's to this day because of it.

I read an article by a gent and I can't remember who, that worked at Speer I believe and moved to CCI during that time. He had never had an issue, ever, so investigating farther they discovered that the primer if crushed at all when seating, the primer compound was brittle enough to break up if crushed, and then wouldn't go off always when the anvil was struck. Seat them properly, no problems.

They changed the makeup of the primer compound shortly after and that potential problem went away.

I bought these primers a couple weeks ago at Cabelas.

I don't think age is the problem, unless they're over 70 years old. The problem is more like the assembly of the primer at the time it was made.... F__k ups happen.

My thoughts exactly. I have it happen what feels like sort of frequently.. several times a year.

The brand that is the biggest culprit has been Czech small rifle primers. But even those in ratio to the number of rounds I shoot, has been a fairly low percentage.....not enough to overly concern me... I just disassemble the round when I get home and reload it again for my next range trip or varmint field outing. Its not like I am out with only ONE Bullet to shoot.

or lost a trophy game animal....

I’ve only had it happen twice, both times with cci primers. I won’t use them for hunting anymore.

Don't know what kind of tool you used for seating the primers in that batch of ammo, but it's worth considering or looking into the possibly that that could have contributed to the dud you had, or possibly a tight primer pocket.

Back in the mid-70's, I had two duds and one hang-fire with CCI 200's in new Winchester brass in a Ruger M77 in .300 Win Mag. The load was a starter load out of the Speer manual of the day. I loaded that batch using the primer seater arm built into my Rockchucker press, which does NOT have a very good feel to it when seating primers, compared to other commonly available tools/methods. The primers had been a little tight to seat. I looked over the duds and unfired ammo carefully and compared them to some of my other handloads. I determined that the primers were not seated to a consistent depth and some looked like they were seated a little too deep into the pocket, and possibly crushed or fractured the priming pellet.

I disassembled that batch, and reloaded it using a Lee tool to seat the primers, because it had a MUCH more consistent feel to it. Have never had another dud or hang-fire since then on any of my handloads. Later switched to the bench-mounted RCBS Automatic Priming Tool and use it exclusively, except when running stuff on one of my progressives.

The CCI’s I had an issue with were new. I bought them in late 2021. Now the Winchester ones, I was betting on an auction for some .33 cal bullets right at the beginning of COVID and before all the craziness really occurred. I won the auction went to pick up my bullets, paid my money and was told to wait a few minutes. The worker at the auction house handed me a brick of WLRM and a brick of WLR primers. They weren’t even advertised in the auction, so I was excited to say the least.