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Hot Topic (More than 10 Replies) Storing primers (Read 628 times)
notlwonk
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Re: Storing primers
Reply #15 - Aug 30th, 2026 at 9:48am
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Primers don't build up pressure, the detonate. A closed container would not allow for some primers to be blown away from the initial explosion source. Not sure how all this applies to modern primer packaging where each primer sits in a pocket.
In the past decade or so I've purchased many primers from the 1940's and 50's and probably earlier. I doubt they were stored in sealed containers. As long as the packaging looked good they've all fired.
  
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calledflyer
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Re: Storing primers
Reply #16 - Aug 30th, 2026 at 2:56pm
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I, too, have some old primers from the early fifties that I used because I had no other of the small rifle size when I first got some small primer .30 American cases to try out after resizing to .32-40. Had been in the Nevada heat and cold for all that time and they still performed as well as the spanking new ones I purchased when they ran out. I have powder from that same source that is still fine as well. lt all came to me with a group of letters to the owner from Elmer Kieth. Cool stuff to be gifted, huh?
  
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westerner
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Re: Storing primers
Reply #17 - Aug 30th, 2026 at 4:51pm
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notlwonk wrote on Aug 30th, 2026 at 9:48am:
[highlight][highlight]Primers don't build up pressure, the detonate[/highlight][/highlight]. A closed container would not allow for some primers to be blown away from the initial explosion source. Not sure how all this applies to modern primer packaging where each primer sits in a pocket.
In the past decade or so I've purchased many primers from the 1940's and 50's and probably earlier. I doubt they were stored in sealed containers. As long as the packaging looked good they've all fired.


When a primer detonates it creates pressure. Breech seat a bullet and forget to put powder in the case, then open the action. Often the case shoots out of the chamber caused by pressure.
  
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Smoke
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Re: Storing primers
Reply #18 - Aug 30th, 2026 at 4:56pm
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In 1984 I took a break from reloading and most shooting except for 22 RF.  I stored all my stuff, including several thousand primers and many pounds of powder, in a loosly constructed wood cabinet, in my brother's uninsulated garage 6 blocks from the beach in the most Southwesterly City in the CONUS.

I didn't take up reloadding again until the year before I retired, in 2011.

Since then I've shot up most, but not all of those primers, and not a single one of them has failed to go off.
 
Over the past 15 years, I've helped dispose of the estates of more than a few friends, some of them in the 90s.  In those estates I've found and bought primers that are old enough to be in collectable, if ratty condition boxes  (When did Herters stop making primers?). 

I've shot up a lot of those as well.  Once again, no problems.

At one point, before I decided to use these, I thought that I should probably dispose of them because they would not be reliable.  In order to prepare them for disposal, I wanted to disable them so they would be safe.  I took a tray of CCI primers in a full box that was older than anything I had from the 1960s, and filled it with water.  I left it for a week, then put it out in the sun to dry.  Then I stuck a few into .38 Special cases so I could test to see if my efforts had worked.

That effort was a waste of time, so I loaded the rest in live ammo and none of them failed to fire either.

I don't think you could kill a primer if you tried, and storing them "properly" doesn't seem to call for a lot of effort.
  
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