Old Winchester White Box Primers

[Bill2905]

Does anyone know when Winchester stopped packaging primers in white boxes?

I ask because through a trade, I now own a brick of WSR primers that is packaged in the old white box with orange and black logo. When I initially offered to trade some ammo for them, I knew they were older but didn't really look into it. After the deal was set, I started having second thoughts and learned that they could be quite old. I'm true to my word and made the deal this morning. When I got home with them, I randomly sampled a half dozen from the brick and fired some primed empty cases into a towel. They all went bang and made a pretty good breeze at the muzzle.

I feel like I dodged a bullet. I will avoid using them for load development but they should be good for general target shooting and plinking and will keep me shooting for a year longer if this component shortage doesn't start to ease soon.

[GaCop]

They went bang and if there's no corrosion to be seen, they were most likely stored in good conditions. I wouldn't hesitate to use them in hunting loads.

[Nor Cal Mikie]

A shooting buddy died and I cleaned out and sold all his shooting and reloading gear.
Cardboard canisters of powder with the bottoms falling out and primers setting right next to them on the shelf in a non climate controlled garage/shop.
Powder made good fertilizer out in the yard and the primers? Probably from the 60s? EVERY one went bang in my M1A. They looked good and performed the same. Never know till you try.

[PhilC]

There was a sleeve of CCI200 primers sitting on a shelf of my dad's garage when I was in my late teens. He didn't reload and will never know why he had them. They sat there until after his death in '95 then ended up with me sometime later. They were at least 40yrs old...I used them for load development in my 6.5 & 22CM and they went "bang" just like new ones.

[Bill2905]

The only thing I noticed on these primers is that the visible part of the guts look a little grungy or inconsistent in color. I don't know what they looked like when new so that is subjective at best. The packaging is clean and crisp so I believe they were stored in reasonable conditions.

I'm gonna make up a batch of rounds with a favorite load using equal numbers of the old and new primers and shoot them over a chrono. That should be a good indicator of how they function.

[J.Baker]

This should help. If I read your description correctly it sounds like they'd be from the 1983-96 era.

https://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=178168

As others have noted, if stored properly (dry and not a lot of temperature fluctuations) primers should be fine.

[Bill2905]

This should help. If I read your description correctly it sounds like they'd be from the 1983-96 era.

https://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=178168

As others have noted, if stored properly (dry and not a lot of temperature fluctuations) primers should be fine.

Thanks for the info. These old primers were probably in somebody's hoard during the Clinton era primer shortage.