Possible Primer Problem?

[dleong]

Earlier this year, I purchased several bricks of Sellier & Bellot small pistol and small rifle primers from Cabela's when they were on sale for the very palatable price of $20 per brick.

I loaded up a small test batch of .454 Casull cartridges using my standard recipe that has served me exceptionally well through the years (a 250 gr. Nosler JHP atop 29.2 gr. of H110/W296 at an OAL of 1.695", good for around 1420 fps out of my 7.5" Ruger Super Redhawk), except with the S&B SR primer instead of the usual Winchester SR primer. This test batch was loaded on my single-stage Lee press at the same time I was loading a larger batch of my regular .454 Casull cartridges with the Winchester SR primers, so the same components (other than the primers) were used for both batches.

Last Friday at the club range, I started off with five rounds of the regular cartridges with the Winchester primers. As expected, all five lit off with no problems. Then I loaded five of the S&B-primed rounds. The first one "squibbed" and drove the projectile about two inches into the barrel with most of the unburned powder behind it. Hmmm, okay, that was interesting. I tapped the lodged projectile out with a dowel and brushed most of the powder off the frame. Reloaded, lined up for another shot, and pulled the trigger. Pfft! Another projectile lodged in the barrel with a bunch of unburned powder right behind it.

At this point, my thought was that the powder was bad, but after dislodging the projectile, I managed to shoot off the rest of the Winchester-primed rounds with no problems.

Since the dowel was doing a good job of dislodging the stuck projectiles, I was very tempted to shoot the rest of the S&B-primed cartridges in an attempt to isolate the problem. But rather than waste expensive powder and projectiles, I've decided to just disassemble the rounds and reload them with Winchester primers.

But I am stumped. Is it possible for a primer to detonate with enough force to drive a projectile into a barrel, yet not generate a flame hot enough to ignite the powder? I realize H110/W296 have a reputation for being difficult to ignite, but the Winchester SR primers seem to have not problem with that. Is this going to be an issue when I use the S&B SR primers for my .223 loads?

Any comments, insights and/or suggestions are welcome. And an obligatory image of the primer package with the two .454 Casull rounds that failed to ignite:

[870TC]

" Is it possible for a primer to detonate with enough force to drive a projectile into a barrel, yet not generate a flame hot enough to ignite the powder?"

Yes, I experienced this with RL-7 and CCI primers in a Marlin 45-70, switched to WLR and the problem went away. I was able to pull the brass out and carefully pour the powder out of the case onto a paper towel, upon doing so, you could see a "worm" of somewhat burned powder running through the middle of the powder charge all the way to the front of the case. The surrounding powder looked like it was fine and untouched, I burned it with a match and it acted normal.
Powder was from a new can, primers had been recently purchased.

[crbutler]

It's possible, as you found out.

I usually use magnum primers with that powder for that reason. Back when I did some playing around with pressure data, the 296 would often have some erratic performance without a mag primer...

[grimbeaver]

Most interesting and concerning. I have a friend who bought a box of LR this winter too when they were on sale. He was going to use them for 30-06 but hasn't loaded any yet.

[wrench]

I too was lured by the siren song of the cheap S&B primers at Cabela's last winter. I've loaded and shot almost 1k of large rifle in a variety of calibers, and almost 2k of small pistol in 9mm ammo.
Zero problems here, I'd buy more.

[dleong]

I usually use magnum primers with that powder for that reason. Back when I did some playing around with pressure data, the 296 would often have some erratic performance without a mag primer...

The load data in the Hodgdon manual call for a Winchester small rifle primer, which works fine in my regular .454 loads. The hotter flame from a SR magnum primer wouldn't hurt and might actually provide a more significant margin of safety in ensuring ignition with H110/W296. Thanks for the suggestion... I might have to experiment with this.

[selurcspi]

We used to see no end of problems with S&B ammo in Germany, it was so bad S&B was known locally as Schlecht und Billig or in English, Cheap and Nasty.
We saw tons of FTFs, Squibs, backward primers and my favourite, no flash hole.

[grimbeaver]

and my favourite, no flash hole.

I'm trying to figure out in my mind just WTF all would happen in that scenario...

[selurcspi]

and my favourite, no flash hole.

I'm trying to figure out in my mind just WTF all would happen in that scenario...

Not much, other than blowing the primer out of the pocket. Thereby showing the lack of a flash hole.

[dleong]

and my favourite, no flash hole.

I'm trying to figure out in my mind just WTF all would happen in that scenario...

Not much, other than blowing the primer out of the pocket. Thereby showing the lack of a flash hole.

I'd be concerned about the flame from the primer detonation being redirected back toward the breechface and possibly damaging it.

[hard h2o]

I do not think I will ever purchase any of those primers no matter the cost.

The chances of bad things happening are too high to risk it. Someone buying a bunch of them and in the very first batch of ammo loaded you have squibs?

How many squibs are you going to have in subsequent batches of loaded ammo?

If it was something you could inspect and cull the bad ones then maybe...

I will stick with my Winchester primers.

[Keith]

and my favourite, no flash hole.

I'm trying to figure out in my mind just WTF all would happen in that scenario...

Not much, other than blowing the primer out of the pocket. Thereby showing the lack of a flash hole.

Happened to me (with S&B 9mm ammo) damn near 20 years ago at a match. Ended that stage in a hurry. I was so new I couldn't comprehend what had happened till somebody pointed it out to me.

[dleong]

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that a test batch of .223 cartridges I assembled using the same S&B SR primers all lit off with no problems in my AR.

So it's back to using Winchester SR primers for my .454 loads for me.