As far as I know Winchester still makes their own primers as of 1997 when I was at the plant in Ill.They were not copper plating their shotgun primers then because of the hazmat costs of disposing of the solution that they plated in.That's what they told me. Maybe that's why LR primers aren't plated now? I don't know.Maybe a penny here,a penny there adds up when you're making billions of primers of all types. They got rid of a lot of employees in 1996. I was told that anyone that worked in a chair was gone. They threw away dumpsters full of chairs. They also quit their 100% visual inspection of shotshell ammo. I guess a $10.00 coupon when you get a bad shell to turn in is better.AND, they started selling King Buck dog food. Named after? I forget, a big man in the Winchester family or his dog? I dunno.Someone knows.
Federal had a bad batch of their 209 shotgun primer in the early 80's. The story goes that they contracted out that priming mix and it was bad. Then they started making their own again and it was different. Thus the 209A was born.The bad mix drove some of my buddies nuts trying to figure out what was causing their bloopers. We just couldn't believe it was the Federal primers. They were too good! I got some and I just had some light recoiling shells ,some had fizzers and some actually had wads stuck in their barrels. I swtiched to Winchesters and never looked back. I use CCI BR2's, 300's, 500's,Winchester 8 1/2-120's,Winchester lp's and Remington 9 1/2m's for other than shotshells.Nothing against Federals though.