pro's & con"s of .308 with small primers

[Willoughby]

what are the pro's & con"s of using .308 brass with small primers ?
longer brass life ?
less ignition ?
is one powder or primer -better than another for small primer- .308?

 

[amlevin]

There's a school of thought that the smaller primer yields a more controlled and uniform ignition rate, thus better accuracy.

I see it used mostly by Palma shooters so it may well be a function of he powders used, barrel lengths, and bullets, associated mostly with that class.

 

[ShootDots]

In addition to the above comment, there is another reason that is many times overlooked, primer pocket longevity! Large rifle primers have less web strength because of less material. Conversely, small primer pockets, by virtue of their size yield MORE material, ergo more "strength" as it were. Therefore, it is almost impossible to destroy them unless you run pressures so far beyond SAAMI Specs that it is flirting with disaster.. I have never been able to ruin my 6mmBR, 6.5 x 47, 6-6.5 x 47 nor my friends who use the .308 Palma brass in either .308 or necked down to 7-08 or .260. It is TOUGH brass. I have NO DOUBT you can ruin them>>>BUT not when you are even close to specs..

 

[jlow]

One primer for both 223 and 308 precision reloading....

 

[stubbicatt]

I don't have my notes here, but I obtained smaller ES and SD figures using CCI BR4, RL15, and 175 SMK in my 308.

 

[Steve Blair]

All of the above.

 

[fredhorace77]

One Disadvantage...Small rifle primers are harder to find these days...imo

 

[Outrider27]

Another thing, often overlooked now, is that one of the biggest uses of small primer .308 Win brass was originally the forming of all the Remington BR family of cartridges - when my 7BR XP-100 came out, it was a factory chambered firearm for a wildcat cartridge - you bought Rem. 308Win BR small primer brass and rolled your own. It was the only way to feed any firearm chambered for the BR family back then; the look of the case when it came out of the first forming die was hilarious. It was half case body and half neck. I did always wish that the 7BR had been based on the .308 x 1 3/4" wildcat rather than the .308 x 1 1/2" wildcat, but that's probably just me.

And of course I was too dumb to buy 7BR brass when it came out, so we're back where we started, rolling our own, since 7BR never caught on enough for the brass to stay in production. 8) You 6BR guys don't have that problem, lol; I haven't tried necking up 6BR brass for the 7BR, but it should work.

 

[amlevin]

One Disadvantage...Small rifle primers are harder to find these days...imo

I was shocked yesterday. Walked into my local Cabela's and the shelf had at least 20K of Small rifle Primers.

I was a gentleman and only bought 2K. My wallet was almost empty or I might have been less "gentlemanly" 8) 8)

It appears that the CCI primers are making it to the shelves everywhere in quantities not seen since the first of the year. I paid about $5/box more than the first of the year but WTH, I pay a buck more per gallon on gas too.