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Commie Primers

6K views 27 replies 19 participants last post by  moxie 
#1 ·
My first choice in primers is CCI, but I often use Winchester and Federal as well. But as you all know, during the past few years sometimes we have been forced to use whatever is available.

That being the case, I did buy some Wolf primers last year. I loaded them and fired the ammo, no real issues to report, they all fired normally.

The fired cases have been stored in plastic coffee cans, for about a year now. Yesterday I tumbled the cases and began to reload them. Of the 200 or so cases, 6 of them sheared off the top of the primer, leaving the primer sidewalls in the case.

Oh yes, the dreaded "ringer" :) This happens from time to time, but it usually occurs with a crimped primer pocket, and/or a case that has been left out in the rain.

The two cases on the left are showing new primers that jammed during installation on the sidewalls of the old primers.
 

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#2 ·
"Commie primers"? Whatever. Anyway, Wolf (Murom) large pistol primers in my experience don't have a greater tendency to stick or separate when recapping than anything else but they do generally seat hard in certain brands of cases especially Winchester. I HAVE seen a tendency of primer cups separating lately in a lot of brands even some CCI's I decapped this morning (no ringers though). A tight fit in your cases plus fouled primer pockets (Wolf primers are dirtier than CCI's) plus sitting for a year and probably attracting a little ambient moisture to the fouling probably caused the problem. The longer fired cases sit especially ones you have reloaded and have more fouling the more likely this will happen. At least they all went off. Wolf and Tula SMALL pistol primers (all made by Murom) are notorious for duds not because they are too "hard" but just plain dud primers.
 
#4 ·
I use Tulas, among others, and I would buy them again. I've only had a few duds out of probably 3000 plus rounds now. That is acceptable to me for the price paid and general paper punching. But those few were DUDS, not improperly seated primers.

I know you aren't a fan of the primers Paxson, but thank you for calling the duds exactly what they are.

By the way, they've all decapped, no problem. But I decap my pick-ups within a day or two of the range trip.
 
#6 ·
That's right, Commie Primers. It's part of a communistic plot to take over the world :)

Actually, the long time members here will remember a respected Senior Member, who humorously called Wolf and Tula primers "commie primers" anytime someone posted an issue with them :) A running joke, but obviously, the newer members would not get it. Sorry about that.


"Ringers" happen, but not very often. A new Reloader may go for years without seeing one.

In this particular case, I had 6 occur in less than 200 rounds. If you consider just how quickly one can load 200 rounds using a 550, then you will see that I was dealing with one of these every few minutes.

I had 200 primers remaining in the brick, so I only have 600+ Wolf primed cases yet to de-cap :) I'm now going to de-cap them separately.

All-in-all, I suspect their QA has slipped in the past few years while trying to keep up with a market that has gone crazy, as I see many reports of duds, and now this.
 
#7 ·
I don't know about Wolf, but my Tula SPP have been as reliable as anything made in the states. The only time I ever had an issue with them were during a local match. I later discovered the problem wasn't the primers at all and have continued using them. I've got about 4k fired last year and only 3-6 misfires.
 
#10 ·
I've shot 5000 Wolf standard and am working on 5000 Magnum, with no issues . . . I may have had one or three "ringers", but attributed it at the time to tight primer pockets.
 
#11 ·
I have shot ten of thousands of the Wolf and Tula primers, and don't see a failure rate reloading them or shooting them any higher than the CCI, Magtech or Winchester brand that I have also used in the last few decades. The only ones that I have had regular issues with seem to be Winchester, every once in a while I get a box of them that just doesn't play nice with a primer feeder.
 
#12 ·
Brother Snow, that manufacturer Murom Apparatus Producing Plant* was famous for using rather thin cups for standard primers, and forming them to max SAAMI size for a tight fit. A tight fit would presumably help hold a thin primer cup in the pocket, but the result was a primer difficult to seat fully and sometimes flattened even under modest pressure. Folks thought they were over pressure when it was just a thin cup flattening prematurely. Recently they changed to standard cup thickness but still at (or near) max SAAMI diameter. Still hard to seat but the newer Tula and Wolf primers don't 'ring' so easily.

A thin cup likely contributed to your problem. They use standard cartridge brass sheet, perhaps there was some corrosion but equally perhaps not likely unless you find whitish bluish deposits in the pocket. Probably just one of the thin cups, your poor little buggars tore apart upon decapping. You'll probably just decap the rest of the 600 separately so you can inspect before loading.


*Owned by the holding company Rostec (short for Russian Technology in the Russian language), which is actually the Russian government. Do a Wiki search on Rostec for more info on how a communist -- err, sorry, they aren't communist anymore but the an independent Federation, 'cause they is modern now -- government nationalizes industry for its own control and profit.



Note: Go do a search on the old PMC benchrest primers highly favored by those benchrest shooters 20 or 30 years ago, who lamented when PMC stopped production. [We're talking about Patton Morgan Corp in Eldorado Valley Nevada, mailing address Boulder City but the plant was on the west side of Eldorado Valley; not Poongsan Metal Manufacturing Corp of Korea which is the PMC we know today.] Actually, PMC didn't stop production, those were Murom primers. They stopped when Patton & Morgan went out of business. Murom has a reputation for very consistent chemical manufacturing, PMC subcontracted to Murom for their competition primers but when the PMC went out of business it all evaporated.
 
#16 ·
I have never had 6/200 failure rate in anything I have ever loaded. Worst case was probably in the 1 per 2k range, and that was with Winchesters.
"Ringers" as described, are a fact of life with reloading. I load pretty much 100% used brass, from many sources. I can feel a ringer when I got to prime, and never loose the primer in the loading station because I back off as soon as I feel anything abnormal. After you have loaded many, many many thousands of rounds, you know what everything feels like, and don't ruin parts, components or fingers.
 
#17 ·
Wolf SRM primers will lower SDs with H322 and 8208xbr
 
#24 ·
Yup that's terrible. Even one is unacceptable. In 27 years of reloading I've never seen it. Not once. But then I never have used Wolf or Tula, preferring not to subsidize Mr. Putin's hijinks. And yes, as far as I know, Federal and Winchester make all of their primers in the USA, Winchester in Illinois, and Federal in Minnesota.
 
#20 ·
They make your velocity more consistent which will affect where the round hits.
 
#22 ·
I bought a bunch of Wolf and Tula SR primers a few years ago when there was nothing else available. The pejorative "commie primers" applies to the Wolf primers. Their QC and manufacturing tolerances suck. Too many mis-shapen cups, turned or ragged edges on the upper rims. They "crunch" when you seat them. Yeah, they all went "bang", but when these are finished, never again.

The Tula on the other hand, are extremely well made. They seat beautifully and consistently, and seem to work well with W748 and 77 grainers. We'll just call them "thug primers". :)
 
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