Do Primers have an "expiration date".

"The first non-corrosive, non-mercuric primers did not show up until the late 1930's."

I don't think that's correct, Nick.

Mercury was removed from US military primers in the late 1890s, and soon after the commercial industry began to roll out potential replacements for mercuric primers. I THINK Remington-UMC offered its first non-mercuric primer compound around 1910, but I'm having trouble locating where I read that.

Winchester experimented with an early non-mercuric compound around 1911, according to this source: https://books.google.com/books?id=d...=onepage&q=primers mercury winchester&f=false

There were various issues with the early lots, and compounds came and went.

The first US commercial non-corrosive compounds still used mercuric compounds, but according to page 46 in the link above, non-corrosive, non-mercuric primers in commercial ammunition became the standard by 1931 in the US.
 
Look up Remington "Kleen-Bore" ammo. It may not have been the first, but its the earliest I can think of.

The Mercury went out of primers a LONG time ago. The potassium compound that replaced it was much better, but left salts in the barrel (and anywhere else exposed to the powder gas), which attracted and held moisture unless removed, which is why they were called "corrosive".

Modern non-corrosive primers use (I believe) a lead styphnate compound that does not leave corrosive salts in the bore.
 
Kleen-Bore, Staynless, and Rustfree were all non-corrosive priming compounds brought out in the late 1920s.

But they were NOT non-mecuric, at least not at first. Mercury residue had no effect on the bore.

Take a look at the link I provided.

Mercury stayed in commercial primers for the most part until the early 1930s.

The original Remington Kleenbore priming compound contained 44.5% Mercury fulminate.

The original Western compound contained nearly 41% mercury fulminate.

The original Staynless (Winchester) compound contained just over 41% mercury fulminate.

The original Peters Rustless compound contained nearly 39% mercury fulminate.
 
I have primers that I bought when Bill Clinton was in office, and we were buying anything we could get ahold of. They have $12.50 price tag on them.
They still work great.

A friend of mine bought a bunch of reloading stuff at an auction, there was a couple of trays of Winchester primers that had wood trays. He verified they were non-corrosive and loaded them up and they shot fine.
 
I finished up my Dad's supply of primers about 4 years ago. I am pretty sure that some of them dated back to the 70's. Last year I just finished a 8# can of Bullseye that was the square metal can. It was most likely from the 70's also.
 
Here's a different source that says the first lead styphnate primers were Sinoxid by RWS, invented in 1928, but that the first non-mercuric, non-corrosive primers weren't made here until 1935.

It also says the military banned mercury from its primers in 1898. Where mercuric primers worked OK for black powder cartridges, smokeless takes enough more energy to light that mercuric primed smokeless cartridges can start experiencing misfires in as little as a couple of years. So I don't think anybody liked the mercury and smokeless combination for a long time.
 
I don't know who Bev Fitchett is, nor do I see any citations.

"that the first non-mercuric, non-corrosive primers weren't made here until 1935."

I'm still looking for the citation, but Remington-UMC attempted to bring a non-mercuric, non-corrosive primer to market in the United States before World War I, and manufactured at least test lots.


"It also says the military banned mercury from its primers in 1898. Where mercuric primers worked OK for black powder cartridges, smokeless takes enough more energy to light that mercuric primed smokeless cartridges can start experiencing misfires in as little as a couple of years. So I don't think anybody liked the mercury and smokeless combination for a long time."

The US military removed mercury from its primers not because smokeless powder needed more energy to ignite, but because the military collected brass used in training and sent it back to be reloaded by the arsenal so that it could be used again for training (yes, budgets were THAT tight in the post Civil War, post Indian Wars period).

Upon adoption of the Krag, reloaded cases began failing at an alarming rate. It was quickly found that the mercury in the primers embrittled the brass. This hadn't been a problem in the black powder days because of the low pressures and huge amounts of fouling kept the mercury from damaging the brass.

The military ordered a crash course in R&D to find a priming compound that would have a stable shelf life but which wouldn't damage the brass when it was fired.

Hence the adoption of the corrosive potassium chlorate primer.
 
Wikipedia had references to the reloadability issue as well as the weakening of the mercuric priming mix, but I didn't realized it was the military itself getting the reloads. Learn something new every day.

I know nothing about pre-WWII experiments with non-mercuric, non-corrosive priming in the US. If Hatcher is to be believed, nobody here understood that primers were the cause of corrosion until the Bureau of Mines study in the earl 1920's. Before that it was thought to be due to the use of smokeless powder. Apparently that same black powder fouling that captured mercury also captured potassium chloride and limited the speed with which it caused corrosion, while the smokeless didn't, leading to the false impression the smokeless was responsible.

Maybe Remington UMC found and read the 1905 Swiss paper? I don't have a reference for that, either. Can't recall where I read it; only that the article included the brand of mercuric primer the Swiss produced as a result of it.
 
At one time it was standard practice for the reloaded cases to be marked with a knurled ring around the case body to indicate that they were for range use only.


Some early smokeless powders did have corrosive/hygroscopic properties depending on the various materials that were added to the formula.

"Apparently that same black powder fouling that captured mercury also captured potassium chloride and limited the speed with which it caused corrosion, while the smokeless didn't, leading to the false impression the smokeless was responsible."

Yeah.... no.

Think about it. What do black powder fouling and chlorate primer fouling have in common?

They're both HIGHLY hygroscopic.

It was well known in black powder days that you had to use a LOT of water to clean that crap out of your bore or it was going to rust very quickly.

The same water that dissolved the black powder fouling's corrosive elements also dissolved corrosive primer salts.

I also have always found it very hard to believe that no one realized that the primer residue contained hygroscopic salts. A simple chemical conversion analysis will tell any chemist who can fog a mirror what's going to be left behind when the primer goes off.
 
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