White River Energetics Primers

by PHILLIP HAYES

D&M Holding Company, Inc., an ammunition and energetics engineering group based in the USA, was founded in 2018 by Dan Powers. Powers, a former president of the SIG SAUER Ammunition Division, started as an early innovator in frangible ammunition as the owner of Precision Ammunition before selling the company to RUAG, the then Swiss Government owned defense conglomerate. He stayed on as the President of RUAG USA, managing US operations and consulting on modernization at other RUAG-owned ammunition companies in Europe. After leaving RUAG, he developed the business plan for SIG SAUER’s ammunition division and built the division from scratch. One of his many achievements was the development of the SIG V-Crown defence bullet.

D&M’s White River Energetics, LLC, facility, currently manufactures standard and nickel plated primers in small pistol, small rifle, large pistol, large rifle and large rifle magnum, which comply with SAAMI Specification, NATO Standard and US MIL Standard.

At White River Energetics (WRE) around 800 million primers are produced every year and about 600 million of those go to OEM customers in the USA for use in the manufacture of small and large calibre pistol and rifle ammunition. Some of the primers are sold to dealers. Current estimates are that by the end of 2025 their production will increase to around 1.2 – 1.4 billion primers per year.

We recently received some of the first small and large rifle primers to reach our shores for testing. As I do not have the luxury of doing scientific testing, I stuck to my simple precision rifle reloading procedure. I decided to use CCI primers to compare with the WRE products as these primers are well-known locally. I then chose two rifles for the test, one in .308 Win and the other in 6.5×47 Lapua. CCI 200 large rifle primers were obtained for the .308 Win but I could not source CCI standard small rifle primers for the 6.5×47 Lapua, so settled on CCI BR4 primers that I had on hand. The BR4 (bench rest) primers are supposed to be more consistent than the standard primers.

For the 6.5×47 Lapua handloads I used 123gr Lapua Scenar bullets and 36gr Vihtavuori N540. This is a tried and tested load that consistently shoots ½MOA and better from my Sabatti custom rifle. I also handloaded 140gr Berger VLD Hunting bullets with WRE small rifle primers and 35gr Vihtavuori N540 as this is a very moderate load that has worked well in my rifle for long-range shooting. Lastly, a box of fifty 123gr Lapua factory rounds was obtained to compare with the handloads.

As I was unable to source new Lapua brass, I utilised some of my old twice-fired cases, which were thoroughly cleaned, including the primer pockets, then annealed, full length resized, trimmed and carefully loaded by hand, weighing each load individually on an electronic scale.

For the large rifle primer test I used new Lapua cases in my .308 Sabatti Tactical rifle. This 28-inch bull barrel rifle shoots ¼MOA groups with handloads consisting of 155gr Lapua Scenar L bullets, 39gr Alliant Reloder 10X powder and standard Sellier & Bellot large rifle primers.

I washed and resized the new brass, checked the lengths and loaded two batches, one with CCI 200 primers and the other with WRE large rifle primers. A few of my old handloads, assembled with S&B large rifle primers, were also added to the test.

Apart from the primers, all the handloads were done identically. I used a hand priming tool to seat all the primers and there was no discernible difference in pressure needed to seat the various batches. I have found that the hand priming tool allows me to easily determine whether the primer pockets are true to the original measurement, and I can apply the right and consistent amount of pressure for the final seating.

The test’s aim was not to compare group sizes but rather the influence the different primers would have on muzzle velocity. To record the velocities I used the new Labradar LX dopler radar chronograph to calculate extreme spread (ES) and standard deviation (SD).

To achieve better consistency I was at the shooting range at 05:30 while ambient temperatures were low, alternating five-shot strings between the two rifles, while using a barrel cooling device to speed up cooling on the rifle at rest. I ignored the first cold bore shots from every string.

I started with the 6.5×47 Lapua factory ammo. In my experience this is superb ammunition that I have used with success shooting out to 1 000m and which I have been replicating in my handloads for years. The average velocity for 10 shots was 2 761fps, the ES 24fps and the SD 9.9fps.

With the two batches of handloads with the WRE small rifle primers, the first 5 shots averaged 2 805fps (ES 33fps and SD 13.6fps), while the second five recorded an average velocity of 2 801fps and an SD of 10.2fps. This was close enough to the Lapua factory ammunition results to impress me.

I repeated the process with the BR4 primers, and the velocities for the two strings were 2 781 and 2 770fps, with SDs of 7.12 and 9.9fps respectively.

Interestingly, the velocity of the WRE small rifle primers was slightly higher than that produced with the CCI BR4 primers. And, as expected, the BR4 primers performed slightly better than the standard primers.

The handloads with the 140gr Berger bullets and WRE primers averaged 2 675fps for five shots (I forgot to arm the chronograph for the second string) with an ES of 32.9fps and an SD of 14.8fps.

In the .308 Sabatti Tactical average velocities for the two five-shot strings were 2 812 and 2 816fps, with SDs of 6.3fps and 7.2fps respectively with the WRE primers. The handloads with CCI 200 primers delivered velocities of 2 777 and 2 794fps and SDs of 7.6fps and 5.7fps. My old handloads with Sellier & Bellot primers: 2 872 and 2 855fps and SDs of 17.1 and 17.6fps.

Clearly the S&B primers were not as consistent as the WRE and CCI primers, yet still more than good enough for my applications. There was little to choose between the WRE and CCI 200 handloads, both were extremely consistent, but again as was the case with the 6.5×47, the CCI 200 primers in the .308 Win delivered slower velocities (28.5fps) than the ammo loaded with the WRE primers.

As I had very limited time for testing, I only fired a single 5-shot group with each of the different loads. The largest group measured .62MOA at 100m, but the rest were ½MOA or less, which is consistent with the potential of the rifles used and the tried and tested handload recipes.

I used a magnifying glass to inspect the primers in the fired cases and none showed any signs of pressure – in fact it was hard to tell which was which between the CCI and WRE primers.

The limited number of shots fired per string in the test definitely does not provide for any scientific conclusion but the test procedure allowed me to get an idea of how the different primers perform under field conditions. More importantly, given time and resource constraints, the test enabled me to determine how well the WRE primers would work in my next batch of competition handloads. And, yes, in my opinion they are of excellent quality and consistent enough to allow shooters to compete at the highest level.

I found the small rifle primers for sale online at R250 per 100 and the large rifle primers for R310 per 100. For stockists contact Normark Africa on 010-013-2398.

White River Energetics small rifle primer comparison.
Strings of 5 shots each.

Ammunition: Handloads unless stated as factory rounds

Muzzle velocity

Extreme spread

Standard Deviation

6.5×47 WRE primers	2805	33	13.6
6.5×47 WRE primers	2801	17.7	10.2

6.5×47 CCI BR4 primers	2781	19	7.12
6.5×47 CCI BR4 primers	2770	26.7	9.9
6.5×47 123gr Lapua factory ammo	2761	24	9.9

6.5×47 140gr Berger VLD Hunting handload WRE primers

2675

32.9

14.8

White River Energetics large rifle primer comparison.
Strings of 5 shots each.

.308 Win 155gr Lapua Scenar WRE primers	2812	13.2	6.3
.308 Win 155gr Lapua Scenar WRE primers	2816	16.1	7.2
.308Win 155gr Scenar CCI200 primers	2788	12.6	5.7
.308Win 155gr Scenar CCI200 primers	2777	17.8	7.6
.308Win 155gr Scenar Sellier & Bellot primers	2872	41.8	17.1

.308Win 155gr Scenar Sellier & Bellot primers

2855

42.8

17.6