Primer Substitution

[kimberguy2004]

Just curious. has anyone compared small rifle and small magnum pistol primers. I'm just curious since I'm sitting on a lot of SP primers and small rifle, which I really need, are in very short supply..

 

[jo191145]

Don't do it. Pistol primers are not designed to handle most rifle pressures.

Midway has Wolf small rifle magnum primers in stock. Bite the bullet (hazmat,shipping) and buy some now while they're still there. In my limited expierience with the Wolfs you'll need to adjust your loads. They're called magnums but that references the cup thickness. The brissance is very mild though. Should do well with Hodgen Extreme powders. Ball powders not so good. All depends on the amount of powder in your particular case.
They will handle any crazy pressure you throw at them though.

Met a young guy at the range working loads for an AR with Benchmark. He asked me his opinion on why he was blowing primers in his gun. First question load weight. Said he was at the mid point between starting and max and they were popping like crazy. Second question primer type.
Winchester. I was stumped. Thought maybe he misread the book data. Win primers are not the toughest but I've never seen them blank on book data.

A while later he told me these were Winchester pistol primers.
Well thats a different story. He learned his lesson with a fried up bolt face to remind him.

Thats my only expierience with pistol primers in a modern rifle cartridge. They do work with old low pressure rds like the 22 Hornet or 25-20 Winchester. Or so I've been told.

 

[olympian]

kimber,

You can do the substitution with really, really low pressure loads especially some cast bullets loads with light charges. It is not worth it.

I have tried magnum pistol primers in loads that were slightly less than book data for the 6.5x55 (which was for the M96 so it was already designed to be a low pressure load) and they pierced like a cannon ball through paper mache. Try to trade off the small pistol for small rifle.

 

[kells81]

I have done it on accident, was just 5 rounds since the reloading setup was just inside the building from the bench, I noticed it shortly after. Was Federal Small Pistol Mag primers, 223 Rem 24 Varget and a 69SMK.

You can get Fed 205M's from third Gen shooter supply, Graf's might have some also, they called and were able to fill my 15,000 backorder for F210M's yesterday.

 

[oneflyer]

15.000 primers ??????? Own a store?

 

[kells81]

15.000 primers ??????? Own a store?

No actually am in Iraq, seems everytime I have gone home I have had trouble finding primers so I could go shoot, It would have been a waste to order 1k and pay hazmat so I ordered 15k you split hazmat between that and 10# of RL-22 and 10# of RL-15 makes it so the hazmat fee isnt a big issue. I got the powder cause I took a raping on the RL-22 I picked up last trip home, was $38 for 1#, I needed it so I went ahead and got it but never again.