RWS primers not firing

[turner.jc1]

I’ve been doing some load development with my Blaser R8 25-06. I bought 1000 RWS primers about a year or so ago, due to the limited/non supply of CCI. I’ve got down to 1000 CCI LR primers so thought I’d try the RWS.

7 out of 37 shots failed to fire, and a few had what I think were slight hang fires. I’ve been reloading for about 15 years and never had this issue. I’ve checked everything relevant re my cases etc, and there’s no issue. I’ve tried the same cases with CCI primers and they all fire as normal.

I’ve pulled the squib RWS primed rounds and it’s very clear that the primers have not fired. There is no light strike on these failed primers and they have not been stored poorly by me. My only conclusion is that these are a bad batch or have been stored poorly by the shop or someone in the supply chain. I’m very surprised that a company like RWS would have this level of failure, and I suspect factory failure is not the case. I imagine they’ve had moisture or some other form of corruption to make failure this frequent, nonetheless this doesn't help me and I’m loath to use them again.

Has anyone else had issues with these primers? And is there anyway to complain given the long chain of custody from the factory?

 

[webley701]

Not one of the many thousands of RWS LR primers I’ve used over 30+ years has failed to fire - that’s not to deny your different experience though.

I’m sceptical of the ‘bad batch’ hypothesis relating to primers as reliability to function is quite rigorously tested by any primer maker especially RWS. What happens after they leave the factory though may be a different story.

It’s worth anyone bearing in mind that primer cup hardness (and basic material) can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer & a rifle that’s worked reliably with a softer cup may not do so with a harder one. Earlier this year a gunsmith friend had such an experience where a customer went from SR Federal 205’s (which worked reliably), started having ‘misfires’ when using CCI 450’s which have a noticeably thicker & harder cup. The 450’s which failed to fire still had a good dent in them but presumably too much energy was used up deforming the cup which cased the eventual impact of the compound to be too light/slow. A strip & clean to the bolt & a new spring sorted it out.

I’ve no experience with Blaser rifles but I recall reading comments (correct or not) to the effect that they don’t have the most emphatic ignition - I’ve no ideal as to the validity of these comments.

 

[turner.jc1]

Not one of the many thousands of RWS LR primers I’ve used over 30+ years has failed to fire - that’s not to deny your different experience though.

I’m sceptical of the ‘bad batch’ hypothesis relating to primers as reliability to function is quite rigorously tested by any primer maker especially RWS. What happens after they leave the factory though may be a different story.

It’s worth anyone bearing in mind that primer cup hardness (and basic material) can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer & a rifle that’s worked reliably with a softer cup may not do so with a harder one. Earlier this year a gunsmith friend had such an experience where a customer went from SR Federal 205’s (which worked reliably), started having ‘misfires’ when using CCI 450’s which have a noticeably thicker & harder cup. The 450’s which failed to fire still had a good dent in them but presumably too much energy was used up deforming the cup which cased the eventual impact of the compound to be too light/slow. A strip & clean to the bolt & a new spring sorted it out.

I’ve no experience with Blaser rifles but I recall reading comments (correct or not) to the effect that they don’t have the most emphatic ignition - I’ve no ideal as to the validity of these comments.

I reiterate the primers failed to fire…. Good to know they worked for you. It’s a primer fault though, not a light strike issue as I already stated.

 

[deeangeo]

My experience with RWS primers is good as per webley701. You may be right, poor storage through supply chain but one can never know.
I somehow doubt RWS QC isn't up to scratch.
In the many 1000's of rounds I've fired, the only failures I had and they were so very very few, were with Rem 9 1/2 primers. So I guess it can happen at times with any manufacturer.

 

[Jagged77]

No experience with RWS primers but I did recently have an issue with a high rate of failure to fire out of my Tikka T3. On inspection it looked like there was a good firing pin strike on the ‘dud’ primer but a closer look revealed they were light strikes (it wasn’t really that obvious). The issue turned out to be the firing pin spring. I bought a replacement firing pin assembly and the problem went away.

 

[8x57]

I've never had any issues with RWS primers in fact quite the opposite and they would be one of my first choices. I have however had problems with CCI primers in the far and distant past and that certainly was a widespread quality control issue. As a result of the failure of CCI or the importers to remedy that situation which affected an awful lot of us I have avoided using CCI them since then if there were any other alternatives available. I strongly suspect that this is a rifle issue rather than a primer issue and I would test that theory by using the RWS primers in another rifle.

 

[HonestJohn]

You can get almost full indentation with a non-igniting strike if you have a weak spring or weak strike.

Give a couple dozen to a friend with a different rifle and see how they go. Rule out a variable

 

[webley701]

I reiterate the primers failed to fire…. Good to know they worked for you. It’s a primer fault though, not a light strike issue as I already stated.

Did you read & this “The 450’s which failed to fire still had a good dent in them but presumably too much energy was used up deforming the cup which cased the eventual impact of the compound to be too light/slow.” ?

The 450’s which didn’t fire had a good (i.e. normal looking) dent in them but didn’t fire. In this case a change of firing pin spring etc resolved the issue. The ‘non-firing’ primers looked to have been struck as hard/deeply as those that did fire. Presumably the 450’s thicker/harder cup compared to the 205’s put the firing pin energy just on the threshold between having sufficient energy to dent the cup/detonate the primer compound compared to only enough energy to dent the cup with too little energy/impact velocity left to detonate the compound.

The point is, normal looking strikes on non-firing primers can’t always be inferred to mean faulty primers. Your batch may indeed be to blame but it’s not a ‘given’.