What 9mm ammo brands have hard primers?

125JHP

125JHP

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I am having an issue with light strikes. This is a known issue with some guns but mine is a newer manufacture well past when all those problems were supposedly fixed. In 400 rounds, I have had 7 light strike failures... 4 of them in the last 40 rounds.

Now, granted, it has happened only with one obscure brand of ammo but I have fired 500 rounds of that same ammo without any problems whatsoever... The gun has fired all other brands that I have tried so far without problems.

I want to compare with a couple brands of commonly available ammo that are known to have hard primers.

I don't know 'fer sure' but I would guess that NATO surplus and maybe products that use CCI primers might be candidates to try. What about S&B, Fiocchi or Privi Partizan? Any others to try?

What are your recommendations and what basis do you have arriving at that conclusion?

all answers appreciated
 
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I found that the russian bulk Wolf ammo has a few hard primers....my S&W guns suffer an "odd" hard primer here and there but my Baby Eagle REALLY doesnt like them....lotsa misfires....american ammo = no problems...
 
124 gr. ball ammo from China made in the early 90s. Usually packed
in red, blue or grey 50 rd. boxes marked " Made in China ". Also in
plain boxes marked " Singapore ". Head stamped in small letters L Y
or J E 93 or 94. Good ammo but the primers must be hard as firing pin
indentations are very small. They must be sensitive enough though
as i've had no FTF in several hundred rounds.
 
thanks... I've picked up some of that head stamp at the range recently so someone is shooting it - I'll look around locally but isn't Chinese ammunition still banned from import? If so then this is probably someones old stash being shot up and I doubt it is readily available - BTW its Norinco from what I looked up on the cartridge collectors forum.
 
Went to the LGS and got the last box of S&B and a box of Fiocchie. From what I've been reading the European brands have given more people light strikes over the years so I'll try these two. Yikes ! the price of store bot ammo these days... $18 plus homage per box is insane. Guy said its going up next month again. Went to 3 stores and from the looks of the shelves people are stocking up already.
 
125JHP said:
thanks... I've picked up some of that head stamp at the range recently so someone is shooting it - I'll look around locally but isn't Chinese ammunition still banned from import? If so then this is probably someones old stash being shot up and I doubt it is readily available - BTW its Norinco from what I looked up on the cartridge collectors forum.
Click to expand...

I think Chinese ammo is still banned from importation. Earlier
9mm ball ammo from China was headstamped Norinco or 9mm
Para and sometimes came in boxes marked Chinasports. The
primers were not as hard, bullets were more pointed and velocity was a bit less than ammo produced in the 90s. Ammo
produced in 93-94 seemed to more closely resemble US 9mm
ball and ran about 1200 fps in typical barrel lengths. And
yeah, some of us decided it was good ammo at very good
prices and laid in a goodly stash.
 
crankyoldlady said:
MagTech seems to have hard primers. Just my experience.
Click to expand...


Me, too... As well as Fiocchi and S&B. Euro primers seem to need a good whack before they light, and I've seen this with some of their surplus rifle ammo in 7.62x51.
 
I recently loaded up several test loads using magtech primers and shot them and didn't have any misfires at all.
 
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I load most all of the revolver rounds I fire but I shoot factory shells
in some calibers. In the .380 and 12 ga factory rounds I fire, Remington
ammo shows smaller primer indentations than other brands.
 
Went out to the desert with several brands ammo including S&B, Fiocchi, Amer,Eagle, Blazer Brass and Federal.

All of it fired without any problems. For the moment, I will assume the light strike issues I was having with it was with the Olympic brand ammo, and not the gun.

For those interested, the chrono results showed that 115gr S&B and Fiocchi are no hotter than run of the mill US brands such as Federal Champion and Blazer Brass, with American Eagle consistently 30-40fps faster than all of them.
 
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speer usualy has fairly hard primers for reloading so I would assume their loaded ammo uses the same primers. Federal is known for having soft primers if that helps.
 
Well... since i didn't have any problems with the S&B and Fiocchi I loaded up some test rounds using Small Rifle primers. I loaded 10 each of a mid-range load using Wolf SR, Winchester SR, Remington 6 1/2 SR and CCI 400 SR. I figured this would show me for sure if there are any problems with hard primers. I also figured I could chrono them and see if they are any hotter than with regular SP primers.

I tested them today and all except 2 went bang. One Winchester and One Remington have a very light dimple. Surprisingly all of the CCI fired. I know this probably isn't a large enough sample set but it seems to indicate the gun may have intermittent issues.

Also of interest... if any of you read my 'pimply primers' thread, almost every one of them (except the Wolf copper cups) exhibited the same look as I was asking about in that post, so I think they may be related. Looks like this gun will be going back for the 5th time.
 
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I use about four different types of primers. Of those that I have used here is the order of hardness.

CCI 34 and 41 (mil type primers) are the hardest
CCI standard primers like 500 are next hardest
Winchester (LP, SP, LR, and SR) are next softest
Federal Primers are the softest that I have used.

Actually, I have never had any real performance issues with any of these as far as light strike failures. The only ones that I am really picky about are the CCI hard military primers. I always use those in MIlitary semi-auto rifles to avoid slamfire issues. I have actually had slam fires using Wincheser LR and SR in several semi-autos.

I do notice that the Federals are the easiest to seat in tight primer pockets. I have some trouble seating CCI in some pistol brass.

During the days when primers were hard to find I tried alot of different brands but I try to not do much of that once I have developed load combinations that I like.

I don't own any Glocks but some of the guys that load for them seem to prefer the soft Federal primers for reliability.
 
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