Old Primers

H

hammer58

New member
I bought these primers at a local gun show and only paid $20 for them. But I have not seen any CCI primers in a box like this. The guy at the GS said that it is just an older version of the packaging.

When I got home with them I got to wondering if there might be a problem with their age. Is it possible that I may have problems with ignition failure from old primers?

The guy had several more bricks of them and I may go back tomorrow and get more
 

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I cant recall when they changed the sttling of the box but those arent terribly old. Ten years maybe? Ive use thousands of primets older than that with zero issue
 
Not only am I still using Herter's primers I'm also use unfired FA 49 primed 30-06 case's. I was worried about the primer's so I fired off a few MTY's and they all fired!
 
Primers, if not frozen, baked, soaked, etc., don't have a shelf life. I have some CCI large rifle primers I bought in the '90s and they still work in my 30-06 and 308....
 
They do have shelf life: it is indefinite. That seems to be true from everything I've read. If stored in normal home conditions they never go bad, like powder can eventually. You can kill them by making them very hot for a long enough time. I was told by LEO's in Arizona that a summer spent in the trunk of a dark colored outdoor car there can cause failures to ignite, but then you are looking at 170°F or so. If cold affects them, it is at a temperature lower than the -65°F temperatures the military requires them to withstand. Humidity exposure does not seem to be a significant factor in their performance.

That packaging is post the 1989 revamp of the CCI primer line to eliminate cup burrs and get their magnum priming mix tweaked for ball powder ignition, etc. The ones I have from before then have white backgrounds with only the logo and some lettering in colors. Those still fire just fine.
 
I have 300 large rifle primers in CCI packaging that is green and white with black letters, labeled as manufactured by Omark Industries, given to me by the wife of a deceased best friend. They have to be from the 1960's or 70's and they fire.

I also have 2000 small rifle primers in boxes just like yours. They fire without a problem; I don't have the year of purchase but they sold for $12/1000 at that time.

Why not prime some empty cases and fire them off to test if they work?
 
Back about 1986-87 the Army started switching to the Beretta so they stopped buying 45 ACP ammo. Then they noticed that the slides were cracking on the Beretta.

I was running the AK NG Marksmanship and had a pistol team to support. We still used the M1911a, Match and Service Grade. Since the Army didn't have any 45 for out teams I used State Funds to buy Primers and Powder. We cast bullets and loaded 45 ammo on an old Dillion RL 1000. We were able to keep shooting 45s where other states went to 22 pistols.

Then the Army, having grounded the Beretta program until fixed, realized they needed pistol ammo and bought 45 Ammo from Israel.

Shortly our 45 ammo request were filled leaving me setting on thousands of Primers and a lot of powder.

In 1992 I retired and the person who relieved me had a heart attack when he did an inventory of the property book before signing for it. Seeing the supply of primers and powder started telling me it was illegal to reload military ammo. I tried to explain that there were rules against using Federal funds, but none against using state funds.

Didnt matter, he wanted the components gone. They were expendable items, not property book items so I decided to dispose of them.

I'm still doing that, The powder has been shot up but I still have several thousand CCI Large Pistol Primers from the mid 80s. They still shoot. A few years ago I loaded a batch of 45s using the old mid 1980 primers and new primers and ran them through a chronograph. I could not tell the difference.

What is does mean, since I have lots of brass, the old primers, and I cast bullets I only have to buy powder. I'm getting 45 powder for about $28 per lb. meaning it cost me $0.016 per round to shoot 45s. If I can shoot 45s for $0.80 cents a box of 50, I'm gonna use my old primers.
 
This was the packaging for the late 80's and early 90's. I still have of those that come from the early 80's which has a beige color on containers. I still use them and they go bang every time.
 
hammer58 wrote:
The guy at the GS said that it is just an older version of the packaging.
Click to expand...

He is correct.

As Reloader270 noted, it dates back into the late 1980's. Prior to that, the packaging was beige for small pistol primers. I just used up the last of those beige box ones that would have been bought between 1978 and 1983 and they have so far all performed perfectly.

The ingredients in modern primers, lead syphnate, is not very reactive, so other than some solvents, there's nothing much in the environment that will "deactivate" it. Just because the other components in a primer are subject to deterioration, I personally adopt rule of thumb that I won't use primers I know to be older than me - and that's verging on 2/3 of a century.
 
I still have literally tens of thpousands of CCI primers in that packaging. They are all early to mid 1990s manufacture and they still work just fine. In perspective I was selling boxes of 5,000 for $75 or about $15 a thousand primers. Anyway I would have no reservation with loading and shooting them. :)

Ron
 
Those are not as old as you may think.

It's possible that those were bought up by the millions and hoarded during the eighties and just now put into circlation
 
I just finished up a box like that. I got them new at the time of the Clinton primer scare in the 90's. Primers are good for many years if stored properly...

Tony
 
I believe that it may have been during the primer scare as well. people who had connections were walking into places, being notified,and walking out with cases. some people back stocked cases. A butt load of these things are working their way back into the system, hoarders dying and widows selling. A year ago I found a pile of them from the seventies at a store.
 
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