Small rifle mag primers in rifle

[Wolfdog91]

So was looking though a old reloading manual I got the other day and on of the little articles mention one of the best loads for 30-06 used a mag pistol Primer. Now I probably sound stupid asking but in what cases could using a mag pistol Primer in a rifle case be beneficial? And more importantly why ?
Now this was a cast load only going like 1500 I think ( I'll post a pic of the article if someone woul like) but idk something about specifically using a mag pistol Primer peaked my interest. Not to Mention since all I'm able to find now days is small pistol,small rifle or large pistol mag primers im actually kinda curious is they could be any good for my little piddly needs.
Excited to hear what y'all got or have experimented with.

 

[ebb]

Never heard of that before. Hoping we all learn something, good question.

 

[Wolfdog91]

Never heard of that before. Hoping we all learn something, good question.

The manual was the Lyman cast handbook #1 , finally got one after hunting for a bit. I'll try an post it when I get home

 

[wildcatter]

this is referring to very anemic pressure levels. the problem I would have with it, is this would create an issue with primer seating. Pressure would not be an issue with such light loads. But Rifle brass has deeper primer pockets cut to accommodate the longer length of rifle primers.

Pistol primers are shorter, hence requiring a shallower depth primer pocket for for proper seating and correct firing pin protrusion. I ran into this in my 475 Linebaugh, using Linebaugh brass. I got inconsistent ignition, using light 14.0 grn loads of HS-6 with 385 grn bullets, My primers were seating to deep when bottomed out for the brass. Changing to rifle primers cured the problem as the brass was meant to use them in the full power 475 loads.

small rifle, pistol primers are the same length, but make no mistake when running 55,000 psi plus, the difference is many primers use thicker cups to accommodate high pleasures. This is why 454 Casull 60,000+ loads require the rifle primer. Same with the 475 max loads which run at center fire rifle load pressures.

 

[robert8904]

I use large pistol magnum primers in reduced rifle loads up to what should be around 30k pressure. Started trying them when large rifle primers became scarce. They work well. I have a Henry single shot 30-30 that will pierce when the loads go over 25k-ish pressures. Accuracy has been fine. There may be an upper limit on case volume though. I had poor accuracy in a 338 Win mag that improved a lot with rifle primers. 30-06 and smaller cases seem to light off just fine.

I did some testing comparing the same loads with pistol vs rifle primers. There was usually not much accuracy difference. The deep seating of large pistol primers in rifle cases caused no problems with ignition.

 

[ebb]

I couldn't find a Number1, but the current edition Number 4 will be here tomorrow. Maybe now my cast blobs will start to look like bullets. Bought a Lyman lube sizer a few months back from a member here, hope it has some good tips on using the lube sizer. I get the old wheel weights from a custom truck shop that is close by, and my shooting mentors son hooked me up as he used to run it. I casted some ingots last week but got more selective this time, I separated all the clip on wheel weights from the rest as they are reported to be harder than the stick on weights. In the past they were all just cast together. My friend gave me metal stamps to stamp them as COWW. Old dog new tricks kind of a thing, your really good looking bullets are having a positive effect on me.

 

[markm87]

this is referring to very anemic pressure levels. the problem I would have with it, is this would create an issue with primer seating. Pressure would not be an issue with such light loads. But Rifle brass has deeper primer pockets cut to accommodate the longer length of rifle primers.

This for sure. They're not the same height.

 

[wildcatter]

I couldn't find a Number1, but the current edition Number 4 will be here tomorrow. Maybe now my cast blobs will start to look like bullets. Bought a Lyman lube sizer a few months back from a member here, hope it has some good tips on using the lube sizer. I get the old wheel weights from a custom truck shop that is close by, and my shooting mentors son hooked me up as he used to run it. I casted some ingots last week but got more selective this time, I separated all the clip on wheel weights from the rest as they are reported to be harder than the stick on weights. In the past they were all just cast together. My friend gave me metal stamps to stamp them as COWW. Old dog new tricks kind of a thing, your really good looking bullets are having a positive effect on me.

Clip on wieghts are longer all the same, they must be sorted as well! If you mix them you will get some lead antimony arsenic blend, ans some that have zinc in them, zinc will kill your alloy worse than a few pure lead like stick on weights.

I've been casting for over 30 different molds, the worse thing you can do is get zinc contamination in your alloy, no fixing that, and separating it is a intensive task!! Been there, done that.

Learn to sort your clip on, the hard ones are JUNK! The softer clip on are true ww alloy, what you want! My handguns use a slightly softer than ww alloy up to 1600 fps, revolvers don't like harder alloy, just the opposite.

For my rifle loads, I add a bit of Lynotype to my ww alloy, but both handgun and rifle get pure tin bulion added to them, I used to use 50/50 bar solder for tin, but 99.9% pure tin bulion is actually a cheaper way to get it.

Good luck, casting is very satisfying once you get the basics correct. I sent you a pm.

 

[ebb]

I have learned the hard way back a few years ago how to ruin a pot of lead. Now that I have made lead oatmeal, I sort as I empty the buckets from the truck shop. First, every piece that exits the bucket has a magnet touched to it, anything that attracts goes with scrap steel. As that happens SOWW and COWW are separated, every COWW gets the side cutters. and the zinc is removed. Many of the SOWW are familiar to me and the go to the lead bucket any I have doubts about get the side cutters also. Yes COWW come in zinc, steel, and lead. I started with some very wrinkled bullets then decided 100% soft lead was not going to cast very well, my last 2 batches were 19 parts lead and 1 part pewter. I need a source for pewter and some other metals that will get me harder bullets. I will want to cast for rifles soon and harder is required.

 

[LCazador]

I'm going to echo "Wildcatter" post. Large pistol primer's are shorter than large rifle primers. This can create ignition problems as well as a host of other problems. My experience mirrors what "Wildcatter's"
post says.