Winchester Primers

Moose’s post got me to thinking.

Has anyone ever had a Win primer perform better than a CCI, Fed or Remington? I ask because it seems like I continually test them but have never settled on a load where a Win primer out did those other 3. Seems like generally speaking I always end up with a CCI or Fed...every once in a while a Rem but I can’t ever remember a Win out performing those.

Judd, as you know, I'm still a youngster in terms of reloading years under the belt, so my comments don't carry much weight.

For 308 Win and 300 Win Mag I use CCI primers but for 223 Rem I use Winchester. I'll never know first-hand if there is a performance difference between brands - I simply know what I read and know what is available and at what price. 223 Rem reload accuracy and precision is not important since it's for pigs and paper. The Winchester SR primers are generally cheaper and more available so that's what I use. Based on my short reloading history, I have a *big* supply of LR and LR Magnum CCI (also have 1k Winchester LR Magnum that were given to me) primers for the other two cartridges though I hope to ramp up usage of the recently braked 300.

This will hopefully be an interesting thread which teaches me something.

I tried CCI LR Mag and Winchester WLRM in my.264, and the Winchester worked a little better lighting off my charge of IMR7828.

I should add that I never did try Remington or Federal primers for that rifle. Maybe I will next time I load for it.

Seems I've not had as tight of shooting with Winchester primers. And, as Chad showed us, the Win LR is the smallest diameter of them all. Which contributes to loose primers in my Federal .308 brass I run in the LR-308 gas gun. I've shot more CCI than anything, and Federal becoming the new second place replacing Winchester now.

I had great luck with win primers in 7mm-08ai. Gave 75-100fps in velocity over cci or federal but after the 4th firing they would fall out of the case. Throw a federal or cci in and load another 4-5 times just with less speed across the board.

I have Winchester & federal & Remington need to get rid of.

I have two. I'm looking at my notes as I write this. Here is what they say:

The first is a 7-08 load I shoot out of a 20" model 7. What it likes it shoots well but It is a very finicky rifle. Worked up a load with federal 210 primers, 42 grains of Varget, and a 140 Sierra Gameking, seated at 2.788 in Hornady brass. That is .010 off the lands in the model 7. It put five into .472" at 100yds. To verify it I loaded and shot 5 more and it put them into .511" with an ES of 26fps. Loaded 5 more with with WLR primers. All else was unchanged. The group for those five was .351" @ 100 yards. I picked up 24 fps and ES shrank to 9 fps. I felt
like I could probably bring the ES down a little more by giving the bullet a little more jump but i was satisfied with the load and called it good.

Second one is a .223 load I shoot out of a 9 twist bolt action for varmints. I worked the load up with IMR 8208 XBR, a CCI BR-4 primer, and 55gr Nosler ballistic tips in Nosler brass. Settled on 25.3 grains of powder. I shot two five shot groups that were both in the high .3's and averaged .386" at 100 yds. ES was 12 fps for five. Next I loaded five with with WSR primers. All five stacked into a 0.188" group. I loaded five more and once again the Bullets stacked on top of each other. Group was 0.138". ES shrank to four fps. I picked up 14 fps with the WSR primers.

All groups are center to center. Measured outside to outside at the widest, minus one bullet diameter. It is an assumption on my part, but I think the Winchester primers may be a little hotter than CCI or Federal. I use mostly CCI primers and usually they are what I try first. Federal is usually my second choice.

I have always just used cci...not really sure that you hey are better or worse just use them for some reason

I pretty much stick with Federal and have always reached a point of satisfaction (but there were no Federal LRMs to be found when I acquired my .264 Mag). The reason I chose to use Federal is that their factory ammo was always at or near the top in accuracy in the vast majority of articles I read involving factory ammo. I dunno if that's still the trend since I burned out on gun rags about 20 years ago.

When I got my last 308 I bought Palma brass with SR primers and tried all I could find. The S&B primers gave me lowest ES and SD but could not see big difference in group size. Winchester primers did fine but I stayed with the Sellier&Bellot

I recently loaded up 10 rounds each in my 22" 6.5 Creedmoor AR-10 with H4350, running just over 2700fps
Primers tested: (i didn't have any federals on hand or i would have tested them also)
CCI 200
CCI BR2
WIN LR

Unexpectedly, both CCI 200 5 round groups were the tightest (1.4-1.5 inches at 300) and each had an SD of 5
the BR2 were good(1.7-1.8 inches at 300) but not great with SD's of 10 & 12
the WIN primers where very wide open 3 incheas at 300 yards and had sd's of 15 and 20

Looks like i no longer need to pay for benchrest primers for this gun.

what are gun specs on your .223?