Sellier & Bellot Primers?

[khmer6]

Too bad it's only small and large pistol primers on sale. Ive given up small pistol primers and only stash small rifle now. Saves me space and allows me to stack em deep

[.50bmg]

I have used both small and large with no problems.

[chucky64]

I bought 5000 spm, because that was all that was available at the height of the primer shortage. I have had nothing but problems with this batch of SB primers. Yes the primers have all been hand seated to the correct parameters, but in my striker fired weapons I was experiencing multiple ftf in every shooting session. The rounds were struck a second time and most often they fired on the second strike. If they didnt fire on the second strike, I set the round aside and later on when a hammer gun was used they
were succesfully discharged. I am still sitting on the last thousand SB spm not wanting to use them because of the PITA factor. I will save them until the next primer shortage and use them for 38 spcl loads
because the SW 686 will fire all except one or two per range session. Because of my problems I would
never recommend SB primers to anyone. I see the full shelves of SB primers @ Cabelas , I just pass them by and pay the extra for Win or Fed primers.

[ReloaderFred]

"Yes the primers have all been hand seated to the correct parameters"

Are you sure you've set the anvil into the priming pellet? I seat primers -.004"/-.005" below flush, and I've yet to have an S&B primer (or any other brand of primer) fail to go off in any of my firearms that haven't been highly tuned for match use only. For my match guns, I only use Federal or MagTech primers, due to the lightened hammer springs, but for all my standard firearms (over 100 of them) primers that are properly seated go off, and that's striker fired, hammer fired, etc.

Primers detonating on the second or third strike is a sure indication that they weren't seated properly to the bottom of the primer pocket the first time. The first strike of the hammer is simply seating the primer the rest of the way, and the second strike is hitting a properly seated primer at that point.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[jeepyj]

"Yes the primers have all been hand seated to the correct parameters"

Are you sure you've set the anvil into the priming pellet? I seat primers -.004"/-.005" below flush, and I've yet to have an S&B primer (or any other brand of primer) fail to go off in any of my firearms that haven't been highly tuned for match use only. For my match guns, I only use Federal or MagTech primers, due to the lightened hammer springs, but for all my standard firearms (over 100 of them) primers that are properly seated go off, and that's striker fired, hammer fired, etc.

Primers detonating on the second or third strike is a sure indication that they weren't seated properly to the bottom of the primer pocket the first time. The first strike of the hammer is simply seating the primer the rest of the way, and the second strike is hitting a properly seated primer at that point.

Hope this helps.

Fred

I don't know if it helped Chucky64 but it helped me!
Thank you,
jeepyj

[ReloaderFred]

jeepyj,

I'm afraid a lot of reloaders aren't totally familiar with what takes place in the priming process. They figure that if the primer is seated "flush" they're good to go, but that may leave the legs of the anvil a couple thousandths short of the bottom of the primer pocket. This just cushions the firing pin blow and the primer can't go off, no matter the brand of primer being used. The primer pellet has to be contacted by the anvil, and the anvil has to be solidly contacting the bottom of the pocket for all this to work.

In reloading well over 800,000 rounds of ammunition, I've only found two bad primers that I can remember. One had no priming compound, and the other was missing an anvil. That's almost beyond statistical computation, though I'm sure someone will go to the trouble of mashing the numbers for us. Personally, I'm amazed that out of the millions and millions of primers produced annually, that the quality control is as good as it is. In fact, I'm really, really appreciative for the care used in making them, since without a good primer, powder is just fertilizer and bullets are just fishing weights.........

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Wayne Smith]

Fred, that's not all of it. American primer producers leave the anvil proud of the compound and our seating the primer actually seats the anvil on the compound. Russian primers do not do this, they seat the anvil on the compound and we have to seat those completely to get them to go bang.

[Virginia John]

I find S&B to be good. Their brass does have a tight primer pocket.

[ReloaderFred]

Wayne Smith,

I know about the differences, but I was trying to keep the explanation as short as possible. I don't buy Russian anything, since I grew up in the 1950's, when ol' Nikita was telling us he was going to burn the U.S. to the ground and we had "duck and cover" drills in school weekly. I'm not the forgiving type. In fact, I'm still mad at the Japanese for trying to kill my Dad at Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal and all through the South Pacific...........

Fred

[gunauthor]

I went to our new Cabelas today and wanted to buy some Sellier and Bellot small pistol primers (much less expensive than other brands they carry). I found two different varieties labeled SR and LR (small rifle-large rifle?) and both said they were for use in pistols, revolvers, and rifles. Am I missing something? I was always told to use rifle primers for rifles and pistol primers for handguns. Needless to say, I left without buying anything (the staff was no help, couldn't find anybody familiar with S&B primers). Anyone have success with this arrangement?

[Mike Z]

From their website
http://www.sellier-bellot.cz/en/prod...nents/primers/

[gunauthor]

Mike, thanks for the info.

[Gunny K.]

Wayne Smith,

I know about the differences, but I was trying to keep the explanation as short as possible. I don't buy Russian anything, since I grew up in the 1950's, when ol' Nikita was telling us he was going to burn the U.S. to the ground and we had "duck and cover" drills in school weekly. I'm not the forgiving type. In fact, I'm still mad at the Japanese for trying to kill my Dad at Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal and all through the South Pacific...........

Fred

I take some offence to your statement. Sellier and Bellot is not Russian but Czech. I am Czech and have spent 28 years in the US Marines because of my dislike of the Soviets also. The Czechs withstood Russian occupation, ruthlessness and torment much more than you can even imagine despite your duck-N-cover drills. But anyways on the subject of primers, I have now loaded some thousands of the LR primers and I use them in 8mm Mauser and my 7.62 x 45 Czech cartridges and have not had a SINGLE misfire. Matter of fact my groupings with these cartridges have tightened up from using Federal, CCI and Winchester primers. The most important thing to remember with them, as has been mentioned before on this thread, is proper seating. If you do not seat them all the way and you have a light striker on your weapon, you may get a misfire. So far I have used them exclusively in 93, 95 and 98 Mauser actions without failure. These actions are both stock military and also fully sportarized. I will try them also in my Thompson Contender with my .307Win barrel and see what results I get. That is about as light of a striker as you can find in my collection.
P.S.
Fred;
Never call a Ukrainian a Russian either if you do not want a black eye. They hated Stalin more than you ever could.

[JimB..]

I take some offence to your statement. Sellier and Bellot is not Russian but Czech. I am Czech and have spent 28 years in the US Marines because of my dislike of the Soviets also. The Czechs withstood Russian occupation, ruthlessness and torment much more than you can even imagine despite your duck-N-cover drills. But anyways on the subject of primers, I have now loaded some thousands of the LR primers and I use them in 8mm Mauser and my 7.62 x 45 Czech cartridges and have not had a SINGLE misfire. Matter of fact my groupings with these cartridges have tightened up from using Federal, CCI and Winchester primers. The most important thing to remember with them, as has been mentioned before on this thread, is proper seating. If you do not seat them all the way and you have a light striker on your weapon, you may get a misfire. So far I have used them exclusively in 93, 95 and 98 Mauser actions without failure. These actions are both stock military and also fully sportarized. I will try them also in my Thompson Contender with my .307Win barrel and see what results I get. That is about as light of a striker as you can find in my collection.
P.S.
Fred;
Never call a Ukrainian a Russian either if you do not want a black eye. They hated Stalin more than you ever could.

Welcome to the forum, and thank you for your service. FWIW, if you spend any time on the internet at all you’ll find current posts that offend you, no need to dig up old stuff

[mdi]

Welcome to the forum, and thank you for your service. FWIW, if you spend any time on the internet at all you’ll find current posts that offend you, no need to dig up old stuff

Amen...

[ReloaderFred]

Gunny K.,

I wasn't referring to S&B primers as being Russian in this old thread. I know the difference, and I've also loaded about 25,000 of the S&B primers, mostly in small pistol. They're good primers. You just need to read the previous posts in the thread to get what the conversation was about.

And Welcome to the forum.

Semper Fi (1965-1971)

Fred