White River primers

[Wapiti]

Hi fellas,
Was wondering if anyone has switched to these and how the change affected their loads, if at all?

Went into town last week and went to get some Winchester LR, was told their distributor hasn't any left and allocation for regional areas was unknown for the future. I have been using WLR and WLRM primers since the Covid world-changing-experiment as I couldn't get CCI or Federal at all, and haven't had any issues.
Gotten used to the cheap un-plated little primers.

Now without any idea of when if ever I can get more, I had a choice between the Indian-made ones, and these White River chrome-plated jobs from the USA.
Anyone found any differences and have any cautions?

[hawks667]

Have loaded & fired over 300 of them in the 243. No issues at all. All went bang and accuracy fine.

About 150 used in the 308 & also fine..

[JDM9691]

I chose to begin reloading a couple years back when primers were unavailable. When the LGS got some in White River LR were the only ones available, and the 800 i've used have all been fine. Only had 1 go pop, but I suspect I skipped putting powder in that one. Ooops!
Did scrounge some Win LR primers and results didn't seem different, but It was early days and I was trying a couple powders as well.
They all went bang, and that's all I was looking for back then.

[mchughcb]

Got a heap during covid. Haven't run out of cci yet to test. Id only heard anecdote that they are a little tighter and linger than cci but havent loaded to say if its true.

[Fester]

They all seem pretty reliable, and all those weird brands were less consistent with the seating pressure needed.
The White River LR were the tightest of them all, and would have destroyed my RCBS Universal hand primer, plus the risk of being so tight that a slight chance of going off. A bloke on another forum knows about near de-gloving his fingers, and has a hole in the ceiling where bits of the hand primer went through.

I set up a Lee benchtop unit for more leverage and safety; the primer going in is separated so the rest shouldn't go off.

The next worst were the Ruag SR, RWS, but they could be forced to seat without the ring mark like the White Rivers had on every seated primer, no matter what I did to avoid it.
I saved the last few packs for if I end up with a big enough batch of Federal cases with loose pockets that are not showing any splits.
I never bought a second box.

The Indian #34s were inconsistent to seat, but not as tight as the White Rivers, and I did buy a second box.
They were hotter, but assured they were modern, and not corrosive like old military stuff could be.
Other blokes liked them when they couldn't buy RL Magnum primers.

The shops are all discounting those new import brands as even CCI are back now.
I never actually run out; I just bought them for Justin.

I have a warmed-up 2213SC hunting load that benefited from those hotter Indian primers so it will save my CCI stocks a bit.

[Wapiti]

Thanks guys, for all your info.
Hopefully I can get a few of these into some brass tomorrow evening and see how they go.
I'll compare them on a target with a load I know, always use and know the velocity of. That'll be a good experiment as to what a primer change does to a load.

[Damo300]

No problems here.
Using them at the moment in 243 and 30/30.
I actually loaded up some 300wm when the magnum primers were non existent.
Worked very well.

EDIT...
Have been running CCI, and RWS in the past.
Loads didn't change much for this hunters eyes.
Speeds are roughly the same.

I also use them in an empty case in the 30.30 to scare off the corellas when they get unbareable.
Happening a lot lately. Not sure on the drought conditions out west but these birds tend to flock to our area when the food supply runs low. I thought they got rain out there recently.
The retirement village residents next door think I'm throwing fire crackers at them, so they ask me to rid these birds all the time because they eat their arcatraves, fly screens, plants, even the dogs bed must have has some kind of yummies because they destroyed that too.
Just a bigger locust.

[deye243]

I loaded some in a 708 for a mate and noticed they are very soft so I would not load on the warm side if I was you

[Fester]

It seems that you have to be unlucky if a primer change effects your load, but it can happen.
They all shot much the same for me except that 1 load with the Indian primers.
It was like they gave me 60-70fps extra, and shot about an inch higher at 100m.

Tested in the 6.5 Gaymoor on the 500m plates showed little difference to the normal CCI BR primers in regard to POI.
Same as using the SR mag primers.
There could be a couple of clicks to hit center plate, but nothing more.

[Wapiti]

So I tried these White River LR primers in some new PPU and Remington .243 cases just now, and bugger me they're tight.
So tight in fact, that I'm NOT using them in either of my RCBS self-feeding priming tools. If one of those f**kers go off, it's going to be a bad day because those feeding trays hold 100 of the buggers.
Probably one chance in a million, but I'm not doing it.
I have a 30 year old RCBS hand priming tool that takes single primers (the old type that takes the same shellholders as standard presses), and it has much nicer feel and more camming power than the more modern ones with the self-adjusting shellholder types.
Then if one goes bang, it'll only be one.

I did try these primers in a batch of Winchester once-fired 308 cases, which I find have consistently sloppy oversize primer pockets. Win, CCI, Fed primers just fall in and do not seal properly. Just crap, Winchester, do better.
Anyway these White River primers seat in them very nicely and as firm as you'd normally expect, so they are oversize alright.
I'll use them in the Winchester cases in the paddock loads and let the piston gun throw them out into the grass, problem solved.

[Wapiti]

Whilst having smoko I thought i'd try another priming tool with the Whire River primers.
It's a 30+ year old RCBS tool the old ones that have the interchangeable posts with the sprung loaded support cup and use the standard clip-in shellholders.
Bugger me dead, it seats these primers without much force where the other one on the table, with the fits-all shellholder, struggles bigtime.
Only drama is you have to single-feed the primers in, but the speed and ease of seating them compared to the newer one makes it actually no slower.
I have another older one at the other place with a primer feed plate, but it's 1-1/2hrs away and stuff that.

old rcbs priming tool.jpg (686.94 KiB) Viewed 2388 times

So just a heads-up to some who may be reading this and think these primers are difficult to seat, or use, but just check what tool you are using.
Some, with big long handles and grips are designed in the forcing-cam system to be actually p*ss-weak dispite the cost or all the fancy reviews.
The Lee one I have, for example, when trying to seat these primers it feels about to snap in half, where this old style "slow" RCBS tool is a breeze.
Try a few before you judge.

[tuknal]

yeah they are tight
ive loaded around 2000 in 223 and ive never had a bad 1 as in popping ,, but F some have been tight especially in once fired brass to the point of not quiet being flush with the bottom of the case ,i used the round still ,a bit tight on closing but it worked ,i asked the gunsmith/dealer i got them off about it and it seems a common thing ,
ive used a few different brands of primer (cci,br4,win,federal,and white river,and even used pistol primers ) and never found it to effect the accuracy of my loads to a point i noticed
and these are all loaded in a dillon 550 press

[JDM9691]

Interesting. I haven't noticed them being tight, but it sounds like that's probably because I'm using multiple fired ancient PMC brass, and single prime using the Lee press (have the hand primer but it's still in the box). Hadn't noticed them being any tighter than the Win primers though.
Good info to know, thanks.

[Fester]

Whilst having smoko I thought i'd try another priming tool with the Whire River primers.
It's a 30+ year old RCBS tool the old ones that have the interchangeable posts with the sprung loaded support cup and use the standard clip-in shellholders.
Bugger me dead, it seats these primers without much force where the other one on the table, with the fits-all shellholder, struggles bigtime.
Only drama is you have to single-feed the primers in, but the speed and ease of seating them compared to the newer one makes it actually no slower.
I have another older one at the other place with a primer feed plate, but it's 1-1/2hrs away and stuff that.

old rcbs priming tool.jpg

So just a heads-up to some who may be reading this and think these primers are difficult to seat, or use, but just check what tool you are using.
Some, with big long handles and grips are designed in the forcing-cam system to be actually p*ss-weak dispite the cost or all the fancy reviews.
The Lee one I have, for example, when trying to seat these primers it feels about to snap in half, where this old style "slow" RCBS tool is a breeze.
Try a few before you judge.

Do you also get the circular ring marks on the primers after seating them?
Every one had the ring mark for me, even trying to seat them lightly.
They were so tight that it has planted the thought in my head about a primer going off and setting the others off.
I now only load about 10-15 in the hand primer at a time and keep refilling, after reading how bad the results can be, even if it's a 1 in a million chance.

The Lee benchtop unit separates the seating primer from the rest and also has far greater leverage than most hand primers.
It's not 100% reliable, but generally just takes a firm dry cycle, and a primer feeds into position.
I get about 1 in 6-8 cycles when no primer feeds into its spot.
If CCI can fit so perfectly, and other brands that are made to SAMMY specs, why are these f_krs so tight?
Industry people talked them up, and no one seems to talk about how tight they are, unless it's a batch variety thing.

[madang55]

So I tried these White River LR primers in some new PPU and Remington .243 cases just now, and bugger me they're tight.
So tight in fact, that I'm NOT using them in either of my RCBS self-feeding priming tools. If one of those f**kers go off, it's going to be a bad day because those feeding trays hold 100 of the buggers.
Probably one chance in a million, but I'm not doing it.
I have a 30 year old RCBS hand priming tool that takes single primers (the old type that takes the same shellholders as standard presses), and it has much nicer feel and more camming power than the more modern ones with the self-adjusting shellholder types.
Then if one goes bang, it'll only be one.

I did try these primers in a batch of Winchester once-fired 308 cases, which I find have consistently sloppy oversize primer pockets. Win, CCI, Fed primers just fall in and do not seal properly. Just crap, Winchester, do better.
Anyway these White River primers seat in them very nicely and as firm as you'd normally expect, so they are oversize alright.
I'll use them in the Winchester cases in the paddock loads and let the piston gun throw them out into the grass, problem solved.

I have found exactly the same. Tight as. So I have put the remainder aside and thrown quite a few into my water drum.