Wolf Primers

[WookieRookie]

See people ask about them often, so I thought I'd share my experience. Bought 1000 small pistol primers, and have loaded/fired around 300 rounds of 9mm. 6 failures to bang so far. Have a feeling I'll have more. Not worth the $10 I saved.

[Lunicy]

I've never had an issue. I've shot +-2500 sm and lg pistol

[WookieRookie]

Is a bad batch a possibility?

[k4swb]

All primers should be seated until they bottom out and then stressed slightly.
A lot of times loaders especially new ones are not actually seating the primers correctly and this causes people to think there is a primer problem when it is really operator error.

I'm not saying that this is the case here but it does happen a lot.
Usually when a second primer strike ignites things this is the culprit.

[WookieRookie]

Good point. I did try them all a second time, with one ofthe six firing on the second strike. I seat them the same way/pressure as Winchester, which have been flawless for about 3,000 rounds. Maybe wolf are slightly larger?

[Navy joe]

Tough cups, seat them firmly.

[Technosavant]

I wonder if they're somewhat harder than the usual primers; eastern bloc ammo has a rep for having harder primers than western commercial ammunition.

[zxcvbob]

The old Wolf SP with the yellow brass cups were perfect. There were reports that one batch of the "new improved" Wolf primers with the nickel cups were too hard and Wolf was actually refunding ppl's money for them. I bought some Tula SP primer recently and I'm having problems with them requiring 2 strikes to fire, and I'm seating them *hard*. I think they will be OK for loading for semiautos but just not revolvers. The Tula LP primers have been OK.

I also bought 5000 Wolf SR primers recently and I haven't opened those yet. The old Wolf SR's were a weird copper color and work great.

[MrWesson]

you have to seat them pretty hard.

Somewhere between a flinch and a boom while priming .

[Uncle Buck]

I save the boxes my primers come in and I have two empty small pistol and one empty large pistol boxes on my shelves. (I like the look of them. )

So I have used at least 3,000 Wolf Primers and have not had a problem yet.

The only FTF I had was with a box of Winchester factory loads, .357 Mag.

When I need more primers I will look at the Wolf product line again.

[m&p45acp10+1]

I have used tousands of them. Never had a problem with any of them.

[PawPaw]

During the great component shortage, I bought 3K Wolf large pistol primers. I've still got about half of them. I haven't noticed any problem with going bang.

[orionengnr]

During the great component shortage, I bought 1000 Wolf large pistol primers.

Had a number (probably ten-fifteen out of the total) fail to ignite, first try, sixth try, no-go-bang-no-how.

Never had any troubles with Winchester, CCI or Federal, or even the 1000 MagTech primers I tried when that was all that was available. I thought someone recently said they had found Wolf for $14.50 per thousand. At that price (which is about half off), I'd probably try them again, but I'd make dang sure they were range rounds only (note: I do not carry my handloads, but I do use them in competition).

[WESHOOT2]

Wolf primers are larger.

I do not use them; I use CCI and Winchester and Federal and Remington primers.

[torquewrench]

I got good deal on wolf and tula primers. I got 20000 small pistol tulas and 5000 wolf large pistol. Use a single stage press to seat them. Make soure the shell is tight in the shell holder before you engage the ram. They work great. Pregressive presses have issues with them. They dont seat well on those machines.

[warningshot]

A) 20 plus years of reloading with Win & Fed primers...Zero, Zero primmer issues.
B) First and every batch of Wolf primmers...problems...mostly FTF.

RESULT: Blame my reloading skills, the press, the box, the primer manufactor date, whatever you like. I'll stick with Win or Fed primers and 100% reliabilty thank you.

[floydster]

I have gone thru 20,000 Wolf/Tula pistol primers in the last four years, not one failure to fire, seat them with authority and you won't have any problems.
I do not use my Hornady LNL to do primer seating with these primers, it just does not work without frustration.
I do all my priming by hand or on my Lee cast single stage.

[tmas]

So would a Lee auto-prime hand primer seat these ok? I've been thinking about buying a case of tula primers for my plinking .38 rounds...just want to make sure they'll bang.

[WookieRookie]

I use the lee priming tool, and ive have had 6 FTF. Not even close to done with the 1,000 I bought.

[scsov509]

I love Wolf primers, especially the magnum small rifle primers for my AR-15. I've had problems with many brands of primers, but fully acknowledge it as a product of my priming habits.

[Mad Martigan]

I just started using them. The CCIs pretty much seated like butter. I have noticed significant differences in seating these wolf primers. They often don't seat as smoothly and sometimes catch on the lip of the primer pocket and have to really be mashed into place, causing the primer to appear flattened. However, of the 300 rounds I've loaded so far, they all fired perfectly.

[ir3e971]

WookieRookie,

There was some batches (lot #s) of Wolf SP that produced that problem. I had a carton of them, as did several other folks on the forums. Some folks got refunds, and some did not.

Don't know if your lot# is one of the suspect batches, but I understand your frustration. I eventually got that lot # all shot, but was less than thrilled.

You can seat them very firmly to minimize the problem, but the failure to would still occur with some pistols.

Later batches, and the earlier batches (gold colored) of primers did not seem to have that issue.

Never had the issue occur with the Wolf LP primers, and am still shooting a bunch of those up.

[Unclenick]

You can also run your brass through a swaging tool. Even though it's not crimped, that makes seating easier. The profiling reamer for the Wilson trimmer does the same thing, but is more work for any but small numbers of rifle rounds.

The K&M Markel hand priming tool with gauge is the way to seat these. It has an alignment sleeve to start the primers in dead straight and lets you feel them touch down very clearly, then lets you measure the extra .003" deeper that's needed to set the bridge (thickness of primer mix between the cup and anvil).

[WookieRookie]

2 more FTF yesterday. Good thing it's just plinking rounds!

[jb683]

I bought 7000 Wolf primers for my 223 back when you could not find any. Only had 3 failures and they were my fault.