Winchester Large Pistol Primers

I have a question for you veteran reloaders out there. I have been at it a while, but am no where near a grizzled veteran. I bought the contents of a deceased friend's reloading room. Among the goodies were 4500 Winchester Large Pistol Primers. They were all in the appropriate boxes. I don't know when he bought them, but the sticker was still on them. They were fourteen bucks a thousand, so it was a while ago. The box looks exactly like the ones that I last bought.

They are all silver in color. All of the same primers by the same company that I have used over the last few years have been a bronze color. These are definitely Large Pistol Primers, and owing to the number, and the condition of the boxes I can't imagine that they are anything but Winchester.

My question is - was there ever a time when Winchester Large Pistol Primers were silver?

Yes. I shot thousands of them before they switched to the brass colored cups. Load and shoot away!!

I have some old Winchester Western 210 gr lswc match ammunition with silver colored primers and nickel cases.
Jon

Nope they won’t go bang and since I like helping people out I will buy them all from you at pennies on the dollar of course! Lol

They are all good so enjoy reloading

racoonbeast wrote:My question is - was there ever a time when Winchester Large Pistol Primers were silver?

  Prior to the mid- to late 90s, large and small Winchester pistol and rifle primers were silver colored.  (Can not speak for the magnum primers, but assume the same applies there too.)  IIRC, the "silver" was/is nickel plating, and was discontinued in the late 90s as a cost cutting and improved primer sensitivity measure.  These primers went "bang" reliably, they were my choice for many years.  The brass colored ones are just as good.

  Stopped using the small rifle primers in the late 90s, due to burn-throughs in .223 Remington loads for Service Rifle, changed to Remington 7-1/2s, and never looked back.  Still have most of one carton (5,000) of brass colored large pistol primers (for .45 ACP), but have changed to CCI for small pistol, and Federal for large rifle, because they were what was available when I bought them a few years ago.  And the were on "sale" - free hazmat, and/or shipping.

  Do not believe there is much (if any) collector's value in the plated primers, burn 'em up and enjoy the recoil!

Winchester changed from silver to the brass color sometime in the 90s but I thought they also changed the packaging to the current blue boxes when they made the change.  That being said, I just opened a blue box of Large Rifle primers I have had lying around and sure enough, they are silver so I bet they had the packaging ready before they switched the color.  I just recently loaded up 50 or so of the old white box, silver primers and they function fine so I would bet yours will work well.

John

I sure hope that the silver ones are going to work. I came across 50, 000 large pistol and 20, 000 small pistol last fall at a good price and bought them all. So I'm all set for primers for a while.

Jon Eulette wrote:I have some old Winchester Western 210 gr lswc match ammunition with silver colored primers and nickel cases.
Jon

Lucky you.  That was some of the best ammo ever loaded.

Just finished the last of similar primers from another estate. All worked fine. Enjoy

I think estate sales are a great way to get components.

troystaten wrote:I think estate sales are a great way to get components.

Mine will be (-:

I hope to be just about out of ammo when I cease fire.

They were all nickel plated until 1999.  

The blue boxes started in 1997 before that they were packaged in white boxes with red and orange banner.  The white boxes with red and orange were in production from 1983 -1996.

From some time in the 1970's until 1982 they were packaged in a white box with a big red "W"

You can figure out the year and month of manufacture from the first two letters stamped in the package.  I can share the key if anyone is interested.

I'm interested, thanks

Ok here it is:

The First letter is the year code. it repeats every 20 years.

R =1960, 1980, 2000, 2020
S = 1961, 1981, 2001
T= 1962, 1982, 2002
U = 1963, 1983, 2003
V = 1964, 1984, 2004
W = 1965, 1985, 2005
X = 1966, 1986, 2006
Y = 1967, 1987, 2007
B = 1968, 1988, 2008
C = 1969, 1989, 2009
D = 1970, 1990, 2010
E = 1971, 1991, 2011
F = 1972, 1092, 2012
G = 1973, 1993, 2013
H = 1974, 1994, 2014
K = 1975, 1995, 2015
L = 1976, 1996, 2016
M = 1977, 1997, 2017
N = 1978, 1998, 2018
P = 1979, 1999, 2019

A, I, J, O, Q, Z are not used

The second letter is the Month code,
A= Jan
B= Feb
C= March
D= April
E= May
F= June
G= July
H= Aug
K= Sept
L= Oct
M= Nov
N= Dec

So, for example, let's say a box of primes is stamped ELL208.  It was manufactured October of 1991.

Enjoy!

The only real primer problems I've ever had were with Win. I purchased 5k WLP in early 2008 and didn't get to them until 2012-13. I loaded up a couple hundred 200gr LSWC over 4.0 gr Titegroup with WLP's, a load I had used a lot without issue before. Only change was using the newer WLP. These were the first of the non plated ones, all the previous loads were the older plated cups. So I'm out shooting a almost new SA RO and finish up the rounds loaded with older primers and start shooting the new ones. They go bang and work just like the old ones until I get home and clean the gun. The breech face is pitted! I go to the 5 gallon bucket I dumped the fired brass into and fish out several with sooted up primers, looking closer there are tiny holes in the edge of the primers. Deprime some and most are split down the side a ways from the pin hole. The worst offenders were RP cases, they have a larger radius on primer pocket opening. A few other head stamps were pin holed as well. This batch of mixed brass had only been loaded 2-3 times. I started searching around and found where others had the same problem with WLP and some even got Win to replace slides. Certain lot numbers were posted, mine wasn't named. My gun wasn't pitted bad enough to hurt anything and the slide frame fit is exceptional for a production gun so I didn't pursue Win about it. Shot several hundred of that same load except with CCI in that pistol with no more pitting. Still have the rest of that sleeve of primers, don't intend to use them unless the world is ending.
I'm not bashing Win primers, I loaded and shot many thousands of them shooting high power with good results.