The other day I was doing a little bit of shooting practice with my .223, shooting some factory loaded winchester bulets. When I got home I looked at the emptys, and realized tha over half of them had high primmers after bing fired, Kinda scared me I sure am glad they are not bullets I made, that would piss me off.

matt

RC what are you calling "high primers"?
Were you getting a deep firing pin mark with evidence of the primer "flowing" around the pin strike? will the unfired ammo stand up flat on the primer...the fired hulls?
You may have some issues to discuss about your chamber, bolt face or head space dunno yet but I'd mention it to a competent 'smith and ask a bunch of questions. Be sure to keep the fired ammo in the same carton it came in so you have a record of the Lot # it came from. Contact the ammo mfg'er and ask questions about it as well to see if they have a recall or history they will reveal to you about any problmes they know about.
Ron

OBTW any similar issues with other brands of factory ammo? Are other brands ammo with the same weight and style bullet the same length or shorter/longer than the WW ammo with the random problem?
Any change in group sizes from fired WW ammo with high primers to those rounds with "normal" primers?

High primers typically are an indication of either high pressure loads, primer pockets too big, short chambers, headspace problems, brass shoulder placement wrong leaving too much setback available on the bolt face - same thing as a chamber problem, bullets touching the lands before firing when the bolt is closed and the gun is in the "battery" position and ready to fire resulting in high pressure and erratic group issues that could be from a mfg problem with SAMMI standards for OAL...yadda yadda. But in a short word...NOT a good thing! and needs to be looked at.
Ron

The primers themselves were backing out of the casings, the gun has never had the problem before with the same bullets, or with any other, factory or handload, I think it has to be something with the bullets, but I dont know, they are all gone now.

matt

Sounds to me sight unseen like you had a bad batch of ammo...but it would take some serious investigation to confirm that.
If you still have the fired hulls and the original cartosn it might be od some interest to contact the mfg and see what they have to say about it. A factory loaded round should never have a high primer or primer backing out if the gun meets SAMMI specifications.
Ron

I agree w/wiley. You either got some loads that were too hot, or there is a defct of some kind. Do you reload? If so you should be able to knock a few of the primers out. Measure the diameter of the pocket compared to rounds you are not having trouble with, see if there is any defference. If the loads are hot enough (which is way too hot) to push the primers out, the head of the case would be dimensionally different (larger) from normal fired rounds as well.

I did this w/some handloads trying to see how fast I could get my 222 to go. Mine would eject the shell, and then primer would fall out seperately. The gain is NOT worth the safety liabilities. With rounds this hot, assuming that is the case, any rise in ambient temps could result in a damaged rifle or worse. A Damaged shooter! I would shoot no more of these rounds either way. Go with something you know is safe.

Jay

Yes I do relaod. I didnt even think to check that out, the rounds looked ok, didnt show any signs of pressure issues on the brass, so I punched the primers and sized them, guess I will have to measure the primmer pocket on them, and if I find any problems with them, I guess I will just chunk the whole bunch, a few empties arnt worth the risk. Thanks for the advice.

matt

Underpowered loads or using a powder too slow for the application can back out primers also.

My wild a$$ guess without looking is a headspace problem.

Properly setup ARs which are fed over maximum loads tend to pop primers( not in every case but in my limited experience the majority of the time)


Covey16