The "MagTech" primer

[FAsmus]

Gentlemen;

I have a primer question for the membership;

With the current & on-going primer shortage I went ahead and bought 5000 MagTech primers. These items are made in Brazil but had good recommendations.

I got the primers and when my stock of WLR ran out, began using them.

Right away I noted that they; #1 would not 'turn' in my Lee auto-prime tray as all US - made primers always have. #2 are quite a bit 'harder' than the typical US primers, I cannot use the Lee tool to seat them in everything since the stress is great enough I think it might break the Lee tool. #3 They seem to be subject to some failure-to-fire problems - far worse than anything I've ever seen before, sometimes as bad as 10% missfires in my M70.

Now, when the primers work, they work very well. No change from previously set zeros at vrious distances with WLRs and excellent shot-to-shot performance.

My question is; Has anyone else used these primers? What results have you seen with them?

Good evening,
Forrest

[leadhead]

I just aquired 600 of them, but haven't tried them yet.
wolf primers are kind of hard to seat too.
Denny

[angus6]

went through 1K and didn't notice any thing differnt using them

[theperfessor]

Does the anvil sit out as far as a known "good" primer? I wonder if a short anvil and a hard to seat primer is keeping the anvil from seating firmly against the bottom of the primer pocket, causing problem #3.

[crabo]

I loaded 1,000s in pistol cartridges and have had no problems.

[runfiverun]

the perfessor hit it on the head wolfes are the same way.
make sure you seat them till they stop.
wish i could fing 5k of those magtechs

[fecmech]

I've gone through about 10k small pistol and 3k large pistol Mag Techs with no problems. I load mainly on CH Auto Champ progressive presses and they run through their primer feed system just fine. Ballistics and reliability are great, I'm perfectly satisfied with them.

[Rockydog]

I loaded about 500 small rifle mag techs in .223 with no misfires. Savage 112V, LC brass, H4895, 55gr Vmax. Only problem seating was with a case or two with the crimp not properly removed. Seated all primers with a Lee hand primer. RD

[lwknight]

I have had a high FTF rate with Magtch large pistol primers but, there are other varibles at play in my case. It could be my light hammer spring so I hesitate to blame the primers till I get more tests done. The magtech will usually fire on second strike, indicating a light hammer fall.

I do have a 10%FTF with the last batch of CCI primers that I got in and I know the gun has not changed and I can shoot some ammo that I loaded up a few years ago with zero FTFs. These will not fire on second strike.

Maybe in the hysteria to fill orders they have let QC go to pot. Beats me.

[dudel]

I also picked up some Magtech primers when there was nothing else on the shelf. I've loaded several hundred of these in SP on a Lee Auto prime hand tool without a problem. IT was a couple of months ago; but I don't recall any particular difficulty getting them to flip in the Lee tray. I do recall that the box was larger than the Lee tray and moving the primers from package to tray was tedious. However, they all fired when the pin hit.

Bottom line, I'd buy them again.

[primersp]

i load in sp primers no problems

[FAsmus]

Gentlemen;

Thanks for all the feed-back, needed to figure out if I have a marginal lot of the primers or what.

The answer seems to be narrowing down to the anvil and the way this lot's anvils are seated pretty much flush with the top of the primer cup by the manufacturer.

These primers won't turn because the edges of the anvils do not catch in the groves of the flip-tray. I know about seating to the bottom of the primer-pocket - I always clean pockets and in the instance of these hard-seating primers I have gone back to seating them one-by-one in the press instead of the Lee tool so as to assure that they are fully bottomed-out. I have measured primer-picket depth of the cases that failed to fire ~ normal within tollerance in all of them.

My failure-to-fire problems have mainly been in my M70. This rifle has the typical good reputation for reliability and up to now I never encountered FTF while using it. The next step is to change firearms and see if the FTF problem follows the primer ~ I'm going to the range today with 50 loaded for the SKS.

I'll post results soon, good morning,
Forrest

[sqlbullet]

I went through 2000 LP primers in my two 10mm's. They worked great for me. Zero issues.

[ReloaderFred]

I only have experience with the MagTech Small Pistol primers, but I've loaded approximately 30,000 of them, and have yet to have a misfire or any other issue. I find them to be as sensitive as Federal primers in my tuned handguns. I have a large order pending for them, and will continue to use them.

If primers go off with the second primer strike, that's usually an indication of a primer seating issue. I stopped using handheld priming devices many years ago, and now use the Ram Prime method of priming, since I find it much more positive.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[mag44uk]

Here in the UK there are alot of Magtech primers. They are a bit cheaper than other makes too.
I have used 10,000 or so through two Marlin 1894`s which both have "tricked" triggers with no problem. Same in various full bore rifles.
I would say make sure your pockets are clean.
HTH
Tony

[woody1]

Gentlemen;

I have a primer question for the membership;

With the current & on-going primer shortage I went ahead and bought 5000 MagTech primers. These items are made in Brazil but had good recommendations.
................
My question is; Has anyone else used these primers? What results have you seen with them?

Good evening,
Forrest

I've used a goodly quantity of the Mag Tech LR primers, mostly for plinking loads. I've noted no differences in performance but certainly haven't done any scientific tests. They go bang and hit the target the same way the Winchester LR's did. Bought these primers just before the big shortage.

They do not seat nearly as easily as the WLR's but I use the press mounted priming system both RCBS and Lyman including the Tru-line Jr. I also finger check the seat depth of every case. Occasionally one needs a little more pressure to fully seat. I don't use a primer flipper. I've had NO failures to fire with any Mag Tech primer. I've not used any in any light hit handguns. They get WSP's only as long as they last. Regards, Woody

[FAsmus]

Gentlemen;

Very well, thanks for the additional feed-back since I last posted ~ its beginning to look more and more like I've run into perhaps a marginal Lot of the MagTechs.

However, there won't be a serious leap to conclusion either; my testing in other guns has begun and will continue. Who knows? The M70 might very well be "spoiled" or "picky" or the cases I use in it (loaded 80 times each) might be at fault.

This morning I had failure-free shooting MagTech in the SKS with more planned when the weather permits.

Good afternoon,
Forrest

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
Some fail to fire are the result of primers not being completely seated/bottomed out.
A 2nd hammer hit almost always gets these to fire in my guns.

[trickyasafox]

i use a lot of magtech primers. last time I stocked up they were cheapest. They are hard and slightly larger than what you find domestically- or at least my experience seems to mirror yours. I get light strikes only with my Hi-power AR-15 which has a set of lightened springs in it. other guns with factory stock springs dont have any issues. I use them in SR, LR, SP, and LP. aside from the few misfires (usually go bang on the second strike anyway) I have no complaints.

[FAsmus]

Gentlemen;

Update on the M/T primers is like this ~

Since I bought 15,000 of them I naturally kept on shooting the items.

By dis-assembly of a spent primer I determined that the cup is 0.005 thinker than a WLR cup. This is quite a bit and makes the rest of the story understandable.

It turned out that the M70 was my only rifle that had a "soft" firing pin fall and ran up the 10% miss-fire problem. All my other rifles eat them up with no problems at all. These are mainly singleshots and old resurrected military types.

Recently I have gotten my M336 Marlin out of moth-balls for long range shooting but I knew that it had a light hammer-fall long ago. Thus I never even tried it with the M/T primers but stuck with the regular WLR I use pretty much for everything.

A note here about the way these primers are made ~ They have a lower anvil than US made primers. This makes them reluctant to "flip" in the usual grooved primer tools. A fellow has to filp what will flip and then turn the ones that will not turn over by hand before the primer operation can be done. I find this additional operation a minor but crummy little problem. I'll live with it until they are used up but unless we run into another primer shortage I doubt very much if I'll buy another 15,000!

Good afternoon,
Forrest