WLR Fail To Fire

[hunter24605]

Today I had some FTF with WLR primers..First time this has ever happened. At first I was a little concerned because this is a brand new never fired rifle, but it looks to me like they were good strikes on the primers. One I re-chambered and it went off the second time...A guy at the range told me that I should use Magnum primers with spherical powder, but I didn't hear the primers go off, just the "click" This was new Hornady brass..I'm very leary of using this batch of primers because I only shot 12 rounds and of those 12, 3 were FTF...I guess I'll be taking the rest of the ammo apart and using primers with a different lot number or another brand all together..I attached pics of the primer strikes..

 

[DrMike]

That has happened to me on several occasions, and not only with WLR primers. Check to ensure first that the primer is seated firmly in the primer pocket. Failure to ensure that the primer is fully seated allows the primer to move forward when the firing pin strikes. Again, ensure that the firing pin spring is sufficient or that there is not a piece of crud caught in the firing pin hole; ensure that it has free movement. Lastly, ensure that the case is seated tight against the chamber so that there is no movement forward when chambered. If these things are verified, then you may have a case to make that the primers are at fault. In all my years of hand loading, I've only had one lot of primers that needed to be returned. In every other instances, I found the cause of failure to fire to be related to one of the issues named.

 

[kraky1]

As always dr. Mike has excellent advice....I'll add a little more.....
You might just be lucky they didn't ignite with the reputation wlr primers are getting for having pinhole leaks and burning holes in bolt faces.... I'm glad I'm down to my last three hundred because I never intend to use them or Buy Winchester primers again!
Do a Google search using the words.... Winchester primer leaks.... you can be entertained for hours!

 

[DrMike]

It is interesting to note that WLR primers were top notch when they used a steel cup. When the changeover to brass cup was brought in some years ago, I began to have some problems. The fit in the primer pocket of many cases was loose and the primer was much more sensitive to such matters as seating flush in the primer pocket or head space of the cartridge. I noted that they were somewhat like Remington primers at that point. I like CCI and Federal primers for that reason, though these primers with steel cups can give some trouble with seating in Nosler brass in particular.

 

[hunter24605]

Thank for the information I'll check everything out. Dr. Mike the first thing I did when I got the gun was break it down and strip the bolt and thoroughly clean everything. I load small batches of ammo 30-40 at a time and I'm pretty meticulous and double/triple check everything as I go..I even went through each piece of the new brass and checked the pockets and flash holes. I seated an unloaded case and close the bolt and with a cleaning rod down the muzzle, I couldn't pick up on any play in the case with the bolt closed..Not saying I didn't make a boo-boo seating the primers, but I was pretty vigilant about checking them as I went. When loading them I did notice that some of them seemed to be a little more past flush than the others.

 

[DrMike]

When loading them I did notice that some of them seemed to be a little more past flush than the others.

That could be sufficient to cause a misfire, especially if the spring is somewhat weak. Consequently, even on NIB rifles the spring can be weak. I have had to change the spring on a couple of NIB rifles in the past several years.

 

[kraky1]

If those are only one strike hits on those primers there ain't nothing wrong with your firing pin.... I'd say it's downright awesome!

 

[hunter24605]

To settle it once and for all, I just got finished with 30 cases with just primers seated (no powder or bullet) 15 from the suspect lot and 15 from a different sleeve and fired them........

4 FTF out of 15 on the suspect lot.
0 FTF out of the 15 in the other sleeve.

So I guess that settles it once and for all, a bad sleeve of WLR's..Weird because in all the years I shot the ones my dad loaded, never did one not go off..Guess there's flukes in everything...

Now just have a lot of clean up! Primers are dirty little boogers!

 

[kraky1]

Well.... that's good but seriously do that Google search I posted above.... shortly you will find an 800 number at Winchester to call with your lot numbers and find out if they're bad primers.
I have no doubt that Winchester knows how many bad primers are out there and are refusing to do a recall.
Maybe I'm just peed off since I have 4 burn marks on bolt faces on a couple of my different rifles... on one rifle it blew the extractor right off. And the brass colored primers are the potential bad ones! These were not hot loads at all as a matter of fact a couple of them were pretty mild....just saying!

 

[bob_dobalina]

Well.... that's good but seriously do that Google search I posted above.... shortly you will find an 800 number at Winchester to call with your lot numbers and find out if they're bad primers.
I have no doubt that Winchester knows how many bad primers are out there and are refusing to do a recall.
Maybe I'm just peed off since I have 4 burn marks on bolt faces on a couple of my different rifles... on one rifle it blew the extractor right off. And the brass colored primers are the potential bad ones! These were not hot loads at all as a matter of fact a couple of them were pretty mild....just saying!

If anyone has that 800 number please post it up. I have a case of WLR primers I have not even cracked into

 

[kraky1]

I think this link will get you where you need to go.... they are collecting Bad Primers... and either replacing them or giving you money back....

http://allcustomercarenumbers.net/Custo ... mmo-016685

 

[TackDriver284]

Does those bad bad primers also apply to WLRM also? I loaded some of those brass primers in my 7mm Magnum a few weeks ago to test group 150 Nosler BT with IMR4350 for deer season. After selecting a load that produced .4 to. 5 MOA for hunting, I made 40 rounds with WLRM as the primer of choice. I had 2 boxes of those WLRM primers on the shelf, I was like " What the heck, use them up and stick with CCI 250 after." I have a stockpile of CCI 200, BR2, BR4 and CCI 250 primers and some Fed 210's and 215's. I rarely use Remington , WLR and WLRM primers, had those old boxes from about 10 years ago. Just noticed I also have two boxes of WLR. I might just as well toss them in the bin to avoid problems in the future. I have not had any misfires on the WMLR primers yet.

 

[Partisan]

I had 3 pierced WSR primers out of 16 loads in a New Ruger American .223. I had the batch for about 4 years. I had been using them in a Contender .357 Maximum. No problems there.
I only use CCI 400 in the 223 now days and no piercing issues.

 

[kraky1]

I believe there are some reports on the WLRm also. But I haven't seen nearly the frequencies of the wlr. You may want to take those lot numbers and call Winchester. I think my offending primers were somewhere in the four to eight year old range but I'm not 100% sure. I'm guessing if it wasn't for the fact that hazmat fees are so expensive for Winchester to recall and ship small amounts of primers they might be more forthcoming....

 

[kraky1]

I changed out probably 60 to 80 rounds of loaded ammo to different primers. Luckily I have a collet bullet puller which was pretty easy to use. My method was to pull the bullet...dump the powder into a cup... gently push out the primer and reseat a new federal.... put the powder right back in. Move on to the next shell and repeat.
That left me with a block of charged Brass ready for bullet seating but I wanted to reset the neck tension. I pulled the mandrel out of my Lee collet dies and carefully set them so they would give me exactly the amount of tension I wanted just by using the collet.... it really doesn't take a whole lot of fiddling . Then I would reseat all the bullets.
This is what works for me and it actually went fairly fast.

 

[truck driver]

I had problems with WLRM primers blowing out the side and cutting my bolt face, called Winchester they took the lot numbers and sent me a prepaid shipping box and scheduled UPS to pick them up. They offered to pay for the repair to the bolt face and sent me a check for the returned primers. the bolt face wasn't badly hurt so I declined the repairs.

 

[tddeangelo]

I had ftf's with WLR primers. One was when I pulled the trigger on a buck, too.

He was rut crazed enough that I chambered a fresh round and still decked him, but I wasn't a happy camper.

Out of that 1000ct brick so far I've had 4 ftf's.

 

[kraky1]

I just remembered I have a 3030 that does light strikes..... I had some ftf with wlr but the federal 210 have never missed a beat.
I was never upset at the wlr because the strike dimple was so shallow....