There was a small store near me that was getting out of reloading supplies. I had been looking for winchester LR mag primers for a while and hadn't found any until I went through this store's stuff and they had a brick there so I bought it. There is a chance it could have been sitting there for 3 years or so out on the shelf. My guess is they are just fine, but I wanted everyones opinion on it.

They`re fine.
I had a couple boxes of Win Staynless LP primers in the old yellow box my dad gave me that he found in his stuff when they moved a few years back. They came with a box of same era Speer 38 cal LSWC with a $2.79 price tag. I put both in some 357 brass with a couple grains of bullseye and had a ball bouncing empty 12 ga hulls.
Keep them cool and dry and they will out last you.

I'm shooting some now that I bought in the 1970s. No problem.

Properly stored, the "shelf life" of primers is a long, long time. I recently used some old Herters primers that I bought at garage sale. Had quite a few duds. They were cheap and had been "out in the garage" for a long time.

A few months ago I had 5000 Winchester large rifle magnum primers given to me by my brother-in-law. He's had them stored in an ammo can since the late 70's. Haven't had a misfire yet. Kinda glad he quit reloading, I've gotten all kinds of goodies off him.

Thanks for the replies. That's what i had assumed, but I thought I'd make sure. In the past I have had a couple CCI primers misfire on me and I didn't want that to happen again. Of course many poeple have told me since then to just get away from CCI primers and switch to winchester or Federal, though many have said federal 215 primers just aren't what they were 5 years ago and that lowest SD can be had with the WLRM primers. I don't know what a difference it will make, but the guys that say this are in long range competition with their 300WMs and they shoot LOTS of rounds a year. Won't argue with success. Can only try for myself.

I am still using some Federal Large Rifle and Small Rifle primers I bought in the early 1980's, and have been concerned about the possibility that their performance may have changed, but so far, it doesn't seem so. Velocities of ammo I have recently loaded with them seems the same as it was over 20 years ago, and there have been no failures to fire at all.

(I have fired G.I. .45 ACP hardball ammo that was loaded during WWI, in 1918, and it was still up to specs!!)

Pretty near all the primers I've used are CCIs. I got worried for a while that my primers had gone bad when I had some misfires a few years back. Then I quit seating primers with that attachment on my Lyman press and started using a Lee hand primer. No more misfires. The press ram is far too insensitve and leads to primer crushing.

Perhaps this might be an appropriate question here:

If you have some old primers that have perhaps gone bad from storage under damp conditions, could they be rejuvenated by drying them out under low heat conditions (say in a car interior in the sun or low heat in an oven)?

Yeah, that'd work as long as they hadn't been surrounded by liquid water, which would leach some of the ingredients of the priming mix out and change the composition. In the manufacture of primers the mixture is loaded into the primer cups as a wet slurry or paste, covered with a paper "foil," the anvil is pressed into place, and then they're dried in warm air.

Window sill yeah, stove no. Don't ask me how I know .
JCN

I am using RWS/Alcan LR primers I have had stored in the garage for 20 years. Summer temps get well over 100 and I still haven't had the first misfire. The same for those old CCI's that had the diamonds on the box. I have CCI's in 4 different box designs and none of them ever misfire.

In my "non-critical" loads where life or reputation is not at stake, I am still using Remington & Winchester primers manufactured in the late 1920's. I do get the occasional misfire, but very, very seldom, and otherwise they are just fine.



Incidentally modern Winchester primers have an interesting history. At one time they made both what might be called a "Standard" and what we might deem a "Magnum" in the Large Rifle size. Then as powder technology progressed, the "Standard" was no longer really popular and Winchester dropped it and just kept the "Magnum" (AKA the "8-1/2").



Years went by, the 8-1/2 became the 120 (IIRC) and others, notably CCI and Federal came on the market with ones they labeled "Magnums" on the boxes. The next thing you know, Winchester was beseiged with criticism for not having a Magnum, and with requests to bring one out.



Reportedly, they tried several answers....boxing the same primer under both standard and magnum labels, boxing some labeled "for standard or magnum" use, and then later, bringing out a modern "Magnum" as well as the current Standard (which, remember, had been their old stronger primer to begin with).



Ah, the twists of trying to please the public and still make a buck....



AC

I think it was the Herters primers I have some they have given me more misfires then most. I still have a thousand or so just keep them around for historical value.

Old man Herter sure did know how to BS is customers.

I just finished up a carton of Remington rifle primers that my dad bought in the 50's. Not one indication of anything out of the norm. They were not stored in any special way at all.

They actually came in wooden trays!.