Re: Screwed up - used WSP instead of WSR in .223
Yep been there, done that and got the T shirt and pierced primers to prove it.
I pulled out primers and the carton they were in marked Small Rifle (MASTER CASE of 5000). Loaded them up and started shooting (not hot load) and had primers cratering to hell and gone with a couple that pierced. Got to looking and found the individual 100 primer boxes were marked Small Magnum Pistol but Sleeves were/are marked Small Rifle.
I called vendor and told them the lot number (old lot about 20 years old) and they had not had any reports and wanted to replace them. I told them no need as I had taken a big magic marker and relabled the Sleeves as small mag pistol.
Moral of this story is read the writing on the smallest box and look at the color code on primer mix.
I did not have any real problems and pulled the ammo, downloaded the charge and reloaded at the 80% level with lighter bullets and shot them up and did not sustain any stiker nose damage. I was lucky there.
There are two kinds of Small Rifle Primers, standard and milspec and for 223 you want MILSPEC which made by CCI as they have heavy cups. The Remington BR primer also has heavy cups but don't know if they are milspec or not but work OK. Winchester loads MILSPEC in their white box 223 but they don't sell them to us. The Wolf primers are apparently heavy cup as I have heard no problems with their being used in ARs.
NOTE: You can show cratered primers in 223 if you don't have enough striker energy to hold the indent in the primer through the pressure curve. If you are running reasonable loads and are getting primers wanting to go into the striker opening replace the hammer spring or striker spring depending on what you are shooting and the problem should go away or subside until the spring gets tired. Springs are not supposed to get tired (take a set) but many do as the only way to test them is to use them. On a bolt gun if you have a new rifle and no problem you can take down the bolt and remove the striker spring, measure the free length and record it somewhere. Then if you start to get reverse flow take bolt down and measure the striker spring again and if it has become shorter you know you need a new spring.
There is one other way and that is with a copper holder, coppers and bench gage. This is the way the industry does it. I have the holders, coppers and bench gage to test my own but I have yet to ever find another who has them. I have them for 5.56, 7.62 and 30.06. If enough folks are interested in learning about this I might do a thread and explain the process.
