Primer discussion

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Wiley

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I've been wondering about something and recently I've seen some posts that prodded me even more. This is purely hypothetical for me since I know how my primers have been stored, BUT........ have any of y'all ever very closely inspected the open side of a primer looking for any difference, subtle or otherwise, vs any other primers that you have on hand. I ask because I've never done it and I wonder if there's any defect identifying 'things' that can be seen other than one that's maybe green from corrosion. Anvil seating differences, maybe? Just throwing this out there out of curiosity.
 
I can't say I ever looked for that in a primer. I have some that are at least 10 years old ( I bought them by the thousand ). I've reloaded hundreds of rounds with them and haven't experienced a failure. Great question!
 
I've sorted primers by weight and you'd be surprised at the SD's on them but then tested them and couldn't discern any differences on precision. So, I don't sort anymore. I will visually inspect them but never noticed any differences.
 
I can't count the number of rounds I have fired though my Garands that were more than 50 years old. I might have had a fail to fire, but I sure don't remember one. So I don't worry about the whole, "this is old" concern. However, they were in sealed cans. I still have one from 1970. So I don't think primers being old would be an issue if they were stored properly and I was the one storing them.
 
DaveTN said:
I can't count the number of rounds I have fired though my Garands that were more than 50 years old. I might have had a fail to fire, but I sure don't remember one. So I don't worry about the whole, "this is old" concern. However, they were in sealed cans. I still have one from 1970. So I don't think primers being old would be an issue if they were stored properly and I was the one storing them.
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Related to what you have said, a few years ago I fired some Lake City 30-06 dated 1954. Every one of them fired and they were still pretty hot!
 
The idea of a FTF at the wrong point in time is kind of disturbing to me. When I needed SP primers and no Federals were available We tried a lot of brands and started running into FTF's that 99% of the time fired on 2nd trigger pull. Sometimes same gun, most of the time on another.

I have inspected new brands (to me). I put a Fed SR/SP primer and a XXX SR/SP primer side by side and use my magnifying glass.

Not funny funny but weird CCI had the worst looking primers. Winchester was next. Fiochhi was surprisingly good. Winchester had the most plain old dead primers. Fed had none.

I think the SD is caused by variations in the sheet metal used to stamp out the hulls. I have seen some that could legitimately explain FTF's. Particularly when the round fires on a second attempt. Study the pin impact and do a compare. Pistols seem to need the firing pin cleaned really often. Our 223's had more than a few FTF's with WOLF. I finally put them away and decided I'd rather run out than use a primer I could not depend on.
 
FTF is never a good thing. I think a faulty primer will crop up every now and again from any manufacturer, but not very often in my experience. I think the firing pin and primer seating depth would cause more of a FTF than a faulty primer. Also, if you have any type of oil on your fingers this can lead to ruining the primer. There's alot of different scenarios in play here. I'm not an expert by any means. Just my 2 cents worth.
 

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