Caution buying old primers

[Reefinmike]

I thought I caught a deal on some old remington primers. A primer is a primer, they all go bang and will last forever, right? 3 of the 8 boxes I bought were remington #9.5 and almost every one had a very minute stress fracture. The other 5 boxes were spp boxes but actually were all repacked with 100ct boxes of large pistol primers I dont even use LPP.

I had no reason to believe the seller had any ill intent, damn this sucks. Next time I buy primers second hand I will inspect every tray!

 

[Reloadron]

Many of the primers I have currently loaded with are early 90s vintage CCI and all have worked just fine so far. Also have some same vintage Federal, Winchester and Remington but literally tens of thousands of CCI. Have even done some loads using powder that dates the primers. Recently did a post which included a picture of a box of CCI primers and one member caught the look of the package and questioned it.

Ron

 

[Walkalong]

Very interesting. My guess is they came that way when new.

 

[matrem]

Just shot some CCI 200s weekend before last that I bought to load in a .243 I sold almost twenty years ago. Not a single issue.

Over the years, have used primers well over twenty five years old without issue.

I've got to agree that those were suspect from day one.

 

[Reefinmike]

i sent an email to remington curious of the lot date and whether they had other calls on that lot or a recall. It would be nice if they replaced them but im not expecting that.

 

[Robert101]

load a few in cases, put cases in gun, pull trigger, and see it they fire.

 

[Reefinmike]

Robert- im sure they will fire, thats not the issue here. Issue would be the cracked primer cups I show in the picture.

They will leak gas. At 50,000 psi in a relatively "open" firearm.

Doing so would at a minimum trash my $1.00/pc brass. Likely cause gas cutting in the revolver and possibly throw little pieces of primer cup into my wrist.

I value my $1,200 revolver and in tact epidermis more than that $50 worth of primers.

 

[Ole Joe Clark]

I have some primed .243 brass that I've stored since 1980. Recently loaded and shot some of them. All went bang except 1 or 2, can't remember, and the groups were as good as I can hold with my shaky arms and hands.

All of the primers stored in a ammo box fired.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

 

[FROGO207]

Time to buy that 45 ACP you know you always wanted now.

PM inbound with an idea.

 

[fecmech]

Primers are pretty tough critters. I came back from a cruise this spring to find 6" of water on my basement floor. I had a thousand SP and 1K 209 primers on the bottom of my wooden powder magazine. The water level was such that the bottom 600 primers in both boxes were under water. I dumped the primers on a towel to get the water off and then placed them on top of my boiler housing (always warm, not hot) for a couple weeks. Loaded a few empty cases for trial, all went bang. tried a few target loads both shotshell and pistol ,all good. I used up the rest of the shotshell shooting my normal sporting clays loads and had one weak sounding shell but it broke the target. No misfires or odd sounds with all the SP primers. I was pretty pleased with the results but it's really not surprising since primers are made wet.

 

[Reefinmike]

Well, I have called(had to leave a callback request) and messaged(through their site) remington with no word back. after 4 business days. Guess I will try both again as well as sending a letter...

 

[Saw-Bones]

Reefinmike - "Well, I have called(had to leave a callback request) and messaged(through their site) remington with no word back."

I believe you are being ignored. On three occasions when I contacted Remington on relatively minor problems that would have cost them money all I got was ignored.

I started competitive skeet in 1973 when the king of autoloaders was the 1100 and I have seven in various guises. The last time I recommended any Remington product was after the third cold shoulder in 1988.

Customer relations and customer recommendations are reciprocal relationships... maybe I'll drop 'em a note and remind them about that!

I hope you faire better than me..... Doc