Semi OT - Federal primers really irk me....

[shooter]

Why can't they be packaged like all the other primers? They make the box twice the size it needs to be, but what really gets me is that they put them in there sideways. I have had good luck with performance, but I can't get over the packaging. Is there an easy way to get them into a primer tray, or does everyone else have the same problem I do?

[765x53]

I get then out the same way as all others.
I slide the sleeve to expose as many as I need, cover them with the bottom of my flipper tray and turn them over.

[J Miller]

I have read that Federal primers are so much more sensitive than other brands that when they used to be packaged in the small boxes a shipment of them exploded in a UPS truck. Since then the carriers have added the hazmat fees and Federal has gone to the larger boxes to prevent a re-occurrence of the incident.

Someone said they cut the top off of a 2 litre bottle of soda and use that as a funnel to put the Federal primers in the flip trays.
I haven't tried that yet but it's an easy fix to the problem.

Joe

[TedH]

I get then out the same way as all others.
I slide the sleeve to expose as many as I need, cover them with the bottom of my flipper tray and turn them over.

+1

Never seen it as a problem, just seems like a waste of packaging material.

[Sarge]

I went through 300 in the new packaging and with the Lee Auto Prime they were a royal PITA. No more for me.

[Chas.]

Seems like some folks have a lot of time on their hands to worry about packaging. Personally, I'll take primers any way I can get them, and Federal are my first choice, CCI last. In fact, I won't even load for my BFR if all I have is CCI.

[shooter]

It's not so much the size of the packaging, it is just more of a pain, and more time consuming for me to mess with Federal primers. I do like them or I wouldn't even mess with them. It just seems like whenever I turn them over to dump them onto the primer tray, they don't all land with the right side up and I have to flip each one of them over on the right side individually. Whereas with Winchester primers all I have to do is flip them over, and they are already right side up on the tray. Just one of those things that annoys me.

The reason I was so perturbed when I posted this morning was that I was trying to get some shells loaded to go to the range before it started raining. I had to spend a lot of extra time messing with the primers.

[Chuck 100 yd]

I prime one at a time so the packaging don`t bother me a bit.
The quality of the primer is,IMHO, so much better than the others that they could individually wrap them and it would be ok with me.

I don`t rush my reloading just to have time for WORK !!!

[J Miller]

Handloading my ammo is something I do not rush. I don't own a progressive loader, all mine are single stages. I prime either on a ram prime unit mounted to the press or my Lee Auto Prime.

If it takes me minute or two extra to get the primers from the big Federal box to the smaller flip tray, that's OK.

I've found that if I let myself get irritated by the little things like primer boxes, I best not be loading ammo.

Joe

[Hobie]

CCI is my FIRST choice (and always has been) but I have a passle of Remington, Winchester and Federal primers for igniting mostly Unique and such. I can put ALL the CCI on one shelf but the darn Federals are spread out to the back 40 'cause the boxes are so darn big.

[Ben_Rumson]

Chuck 100 yd You actually TOUCH the primers!! OMG!! Man haven’t you heard primers can be contaminated by actually touching a humans’ hands? ...There’s no telling what kind of havoc could entail...Why, you could might even cause a rift in the time/space continuum & wind up in a parallel universe!!! The Horror!! ...It looks like you & I dare to go where few men have gone before and actully touch a primer...I just dump primers in my dry clean palm... then trickle them on the primer flipper of my Lee Auto Prime...Shake'em around until everything is plumb.. then cover & go...Now none of y’all go and say they still wouldn’t have touched human hands by suggesting I’m ALIEN...Seriously, I think the contamination thing has got pushed a little too far...

[shooter]

Normally I don't rush my reloading either, it is a form of stress relief and relaxation. I was planning on taking my sweet time reloading and getting to the range this morning, but it looked like big rain when I got up. The forecast called for rain in the p.m., so I wanted to get there with plenty of a.m. left.

I am with y'all, in that if the quality is good, I can overlook the packaging. I am not too worried about the contamination thing myself, but I do know that I had a really bad batch of reloads once with bad primers. The only thing I could think of is that all of the primers spilled on the floor, and my cousin picked all of them up by hand. He is notorious for sweaty hands, and that's what I pinned the problem on.

[AJMD429]

Personally, I'll take primers any way I can get them, and Federal are my first choice, CCI last. In fact, I won't even load for my BFR if all I have is CCI.

What was bad about CCI's for you? I've not had any bad experience with any primers (yet), but now that they're available more easily, I'd like to steer clear of ones others have had problems with.

I am not too worried about the contamination thing myself, but I do know that I had a really bad batch of reloads once with bad primers. The only thing I could think of is that all of the primers spilled on the floor, and my cousin picked all of them up by hand. He is notorious for sweaty hands, and that's what I pinned the problem on.

I've read where people used WD-40 to try to 'neutralize' primers, only to find that after the volatile carrier evaporated, the primers were still 'live'. I've used 35-year-old primers stored outside in a shed with solvents and oils through unheated winters and unventilated summers, and they STILL went 'bang'.

Primers must be like radio waves - you can make a big fancy precision antenna, and it will work ok, then you can string some electric-fence-wire and a couple of T-posts together, and get better results. VOODOO, if you ask me...

[Chuck 100 yd]

Ben , Sure do!! I touched a couple hundred just this morning.

I have never had a failure I could blame on fingering the primers in 45 + years of reloading.

[pdentrem]

I currently have 2000 SR, 2000 LR, and 2000 LP Federal Primers and yes the packaging is over kill. The CCIs take 10% of the space for the same number of primers.

I use the square RCBS primer tray and never had any issues on transfer to the tray. I use a Dillon 550B for loading, I therefore have to load the primer tubes from the tray after flipping them to the right position.

I also CCI BR SR primers for my 6PPC and 22BR loads. They are the best that I have found to date for those cartridges. There maybe other primers instead of the CCIs but I have settled on the loads that the guns like.

[Noah Zark]

Personally, I'll take primers any way I can get them, and Federal are my first choice, CCI last. In fact, I won't even load for my BFR if all I have is CCI.

What was bad about CCI's for you? I've not had any bad experience with any primers (yet), but now that they're available more easily, I'd like to steer clear of ones others have had problems with.

CCI is the primer of last resort for me ever since the 1980s. Up to then I had used CCI exclusively since 1968, but in the 80s I had trouble "jamming" CCI small pistol and small rifle primers into primer pockets. Keep in mind this was using brass that had been reloaded numerous times with CCI primers with no issue. The 80s CCI primers tended to require significantly more force to insert fully, and they tended to stick "proud" a bit, requiring extra force to seat, then they looked somewhat "mashed flat." Never failed to ignite, though. I contacted the factory, they said "send 100 back to us" and I did that. About two months later I got a letter saying that there was nothing wrong with the primers I sent back. I decided there was everything wrong with CCI.

I bought some Winchester and Remington primers and tried them in the same lot of reloaded cases and they popped right it and seated just under the plane of the case head. Just a l-i-t-t-l-e resistance, and "pop!" -- right in, just like a primer should.

Out came the mike, and I discovered that the CCI primers were 0.0005" to 0.0007" larger in diameter and betw. 0.003" and 0.005" higher than the average of the Remington and Winchester primers. I still have 1600 of those too-big CCI 1980s primers, although I don't know why I keep them. I switched to Federal primers because that's the only brand the local shops carried other than CCI (I bought the Rem and Win primers at a show about two hrs from home). Then after that one UPS truck incident with Federal primers I couldn't find them anymore as much as I once could. So I stocked up on Winchester primers and haven't looked back.

Other reloaders I've crossed paths with over the years reported similar experiences with 80s CCI primers.

CCI primers may be just fine now from a dimensional standpoint, but I ain't never going back.

Noah

[firefuzz]

In the '70s and early '80s I used CCI primers exclusively with no problems. Then in about '86 I had 6 misfires out of 50 rounds of loaded rifle ammo, the primers were new and had been properly stored and handled. One of the misfires cost me the biggest white-tail deer I've ever thrown a scope on. As you can imagine, that left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

Then Dillion came out with the Square Deal progressive pistol press and I had to have one. Plainly stated in the manual the use of CCI primers would void the lifetime warrenty of the press. That was enough for me. Although the problems with CCI primers and Dillion presses have been worked out I've never gone back to using them.

Rob

[Sixgun]

Seems like some folks have a lot of time on their hands to worry about packaging. Personally, I'll take primers any way I can get them, and Federal are my first choice, CCI last. In fact, I won't even load for my BFR if all I have is CCI.

Man! You and I think alike. A few years ago I got so disgusted with CCI primers not seating all the way, I took the rest of the 1,000 pack and threw 'em in the pond. I know I should have just given them away, but when I'm po'd, I'm po'd :

Federal is my #1 choice, followed by Remington-------------Sixgun

[Chas.]

Personally, I'll take primers any way I can get them, and Federal are my first choice, CCI last. In fact, I won't even load for my BFR if all I have is CCI.

What was bad about CCI's for you? I've not had any bad experience with any primers (yet), but now that they're available more easily, I'd like to steer clear of ones others have had problems with.

The problem I had was that I got about 10% FTF with them in my BFR 45-70. They work fine in my 3 45-70 rifles. I think they're too hard for the light primer strike of the BFR. They are known to be the hardest to dent of all the brands out there.

[20cows]

fingering the primers...

That makes it sound a little different.

[DennisB]

I use the Dillon primer tray that's large enough for the Federal package. If I'm going into a hand held priming tool I just dump half the Federal package at a time. All my priming is done with a Dillon press or a Lee or Hornady hand held tool.

It's Winchester, Federal and some Remington’s for me......no CCIs.

Dennis.

[Borregos]

Seems like some folks have a lot of time on their hands to worry about packaging. Personally, I'll take primers any way I can get them, and Federal are my first choice, CCI last. In fact, I won't even load for my BFR if all I have is CCI.

Man! You and I think alike. A few years ago I got so disgusted with CCI primers not seating all the way, I took the rest of the 1,000 pack and threw 'em in the pond. I know I should have just given them away, but when I'm po'd, I'm po'd :

Federal is my #1 choice, followed by Remington-------------Sixgun

I'm with sixgun on this one, the only primers that have ever given me misfires have been CCI!!
Federal primers, I love 'em

[jd45]

Why don't you call Federal, find out who the right person to talk to about the issue is, & express your concerns to him, or her. You just might get some positive results............stranger things have happened, ya know. Just my $.02, jd45

[765x53]

It's not so much the size of the packaging, it is just more of a pain, and more time consuming for me to mess with Federal primers. I do like them or I wouldn't even mess with them. It just seems like whenever I turn them over to dump them onto the primer tray, they don't all land with the right side up and I have to flip each one of them over on the right side individually. Whereas with Winchester primers all I have to do is flip them over, and they are already right side up on the tray. Just one of those things that annoys me.

The reason I was so perturbed when I posted this morning was that I was trying to get some shells loaded to go to the range before it started raining. I had to spend a lot of extra time messing with the primers.

It's called a "flipper tray" because a gentle shake flips them all right side up.

[J Miller]

I use the Dillon primer tray that's large enough for the Federal package. If I'm going into a hand held priming tool I just dump half the Federal package at a time. All my priming is done with a Dillon press or a Lee or Hornady hand held tool.

It's Winchester, Federal and some Remington’s for me......no CCIs.

Dennis.

I gotta get me one of those. I forgot Dillon made them.

Joe