I decided to finish up the squad an assemble the last 5 figures last night, today they had to be primed and that turned out to be quite a task. I usually prime a squad of 5 models at a time, I fix the models on top of a nail in a piece of wood. This makes the models easy to move around while spraying.
I was using my brand new Army Painter black primer spray, unfortunately I didn't think to try out the spray on an old model before spraying my 5 marines and the result was .... bad.
The paint seemed to bubble up and left all the models with a surfaces resembling the Citadel "Rough Coat", this was hardly the result I was going for with my marines. Something had to be done, and quick, if they were to be saved, after some google searches and forum scouring I found a guy who recommended spraying the models again, this time as very close (10-20 cm) range and with long burst - there was a high risk of overcoating the models and obscouring the details - but it was worth a try.
The second spraying helped a lot, but one model simply got too much and looked even more horrid than before, nothing short of a paint stripping will save him now. The rest of the lot are usable, but still with some rough points on the legplates and such. Whether its a bad can, another technique, cold weather or something else I cannot say, I will try spraying something worthless and figure it out later - however the Army Painter product seems vastly different to the G.W. ones I used before, for now it seems the G.W. ones are more forgiving about distance and usage.
Update: I just found this regarding the issue.