Old primers, what to do?

[jonp]

Unless you are going to save them for sale to a collector take a few from each box, put them in a piece of brass and shoot them without a bullet or powder. If they go bang and I'm sure they will load them up.

[Rusty Goose]

Anyone near the Sacramento area?

[grayscale]

I'm in Citrus Heights, what do you need?

[Rusty Goose]

The question is what do you need? How about some vintage primers surplus to my needs?

[grayscale]

PM Me.

[GONRA]

If stored in a cool, DRY house GONRA bets they're OK.

[atfsux]

I love picking up old primers for a discount. Whenever I find anybody who still has these, I always BS them about how they may not be reliable anymore due to their age, and offer to buy them anyway but for pennies on the dollar because "I'm taking a risk on them". But guys who fall for that are suckers. I have NEVER had any old primers like these not be 100%.

Now if the primers are older than the mid-50s,...yes,...THEN I might have reason to pause, because the formulations were different then. But from the 60s onward, I have never had a problem. I just a few years ago bought these early 70s-era primers you see in this picture, and am still using them with 100% reliability. And I got them for HALF the price of current production primers at an estate sale.

1975 era primers reduced.jpg

[dale2242]

Unless they have been wet or contaminated, they will be fine.
I would use them in plinking/fun loads.
Be confident that they will fire 100% before you load them into hunting loads.
I have been using primers older than that.
I have 100% confidence in them.

[Eddie Southgate]

So now I have 1,500+ large rifle primers. Neat old stuff, now what do I do with them? Would you trust them?

Attachment 345401Attachment 345402

I got probably 20,000 in those boxes and about that many in the ones that had blue instead of the green . Never had any bad ones , use them . The only primers I ever had an issue with were in one box of CCI LR from the late 90's early 2000's . I loaded half of a flat in some 6.5x55 and had minimum 50% failure to fire. Tried a second flat from the same box and they were no better . The third and all of the rest of the flats in that box shot fine so I used them in plinkers . I ran up on both of those batches of diamond box CCI in the 90's and bought them for $4 per box , couldn't pass that up and have never regretted it. I'll buy them any time I see them.

[45DUDE]

I mostly load for pistol. Maybe I work up a load for these in 45 colt?

Probably too hard for a wheel gun. Pull 10 out and hit with a hammer 0n a piece of steel. If no misfires they should load ok. Use glasses and muffs.

[jednorris]

With the current cost of primers, I would try some. If they detonate, someone can load them to fireform brass. I also save some of my slightly imperfect bullets for the same purpose to give to friends.

[WinchesterM1]

Sell them to me!!! I’ll dispose of them one at a time!

[Rusty Goose]

They got traded off at a gun show for other component bits. I seem to find myself falling ass-backwards into primers lately. All are large rifle, I don't load many cartridges requiring them.

[Marcduper]

Good day,
I had a bunch of those. The cups seemed hard and pierced while firing. This was with 9mm and they eroded the breech face. I loaded a few 148 wadcutters for the 38 and had no problems. Seems like they did not like the high pressure. The ran great with the wadcutters. Good luck, just my two cents.

[jednorris]

I am Shure you will find somebody that could use them for fireforming brass.

[Inkman]

I just picked up 13k primers from the 1960s. Loaded 100 of the SR in pistol rds. All went bang just fine, no primers piercing, nothing crazy. Did notice the diameter is a hair smaller than modern SPPs.