Small rifle primers for use in pistol cartriges

[JOHN R FEYEREISN]

Is this safe?
I have a few thousand small rifle primers, and I no longer own anything that uses them. However I do own some 9mm handguns. If I can use them in 9mm loads I will keep them around, if not I'll find a new home for them.

 

[jepp2]

Is this safe?

What brand/type?

Read this, especially Note 1 if they are CCI 400.
http://www.sksboards.com/smf/index.php?topic=56422.0

 

[JMayo]

Where ya from.
I have thousands of pistol primers.
I'd trade ftf if yours are are cci 450's

 

[TAJ45]

Looks like over 700 miles, +/- . However, I did drive to St. LOUIS to pick up 95k of Wolfe arm. Only 5 hours........from suthurn IN.

 

[JMayo]

Well, I reckon that's a bit far for primers.
When I was shooting steel challenge some of the guys used small rifle primers and mag primers instead of regular primers in their pistols. But they were real pistol powder/bullet weight savy, much more than I.
They'd talk of reduced loads. I do know that. I'd get on a more pistol oriented site (you prolly have).

 

[PhilKeil]

I use the sm rifle primers in my 9mm win mag ar's. they work great. Also switched to them in my plain 9mm ar15 as well mostly for safety. I have a friend on here who accidentally grabbed wrong primers for his 9mm 1911 and had no issues.

 

[Uncle Ed]

Is this safe?
I have a few thousand small rifle primers, and I no longer own anything that uses them. However I do own some 9mm handguns. If I can use them in 9mm loads I will keep them around, if not I'll find a new home for them.

Small pistol primers have a cup thickness of .017 to .020. And small rifle primers have a cup thickness from .020 to .025.

So as long as you have a good firing pin spring in your semi-auto and have not lightened your hammer spring the primers should go bang.

That being said I would only use the small rifle primers in my handguns at the practice range and never use them if I wanted 100% reliability. Meaning if you were hunting a Tyrannosaurus Rex I would use heavier bullets and the correct primers.

 

[Drop Port]

Years ago loading for a custom .17 squirrel the builder gave load data using SP Primers and advised the cartridge operates at the lower pistol pressures. Unable to get adequate accuracy after extensive load testing and blanking a primer as loads increased and started to shrink. SR Primers were used without blanking and allowed the load to be run hotter where it came in. Don't know if things have changed but the SP Primers used showed softer cup.

 

[Oso]

Back during the post-Sandy Hook shortage we did some tests with different components. One of interest was using small pistol primers for reloading rifle loads (.223). Hands down the small pistol primers were hotter than the majority of small rifle primers that we typically use for reloading small rifle. Testing was out of AR15 using LC brass, Hornady 55gr FMJ, and 24.2gr H335. For instance the CCI #500 Small Pistol primer was on average 50fps faster than CCI #41 Military Mag primers, 70fps faster than CCI #400 Small Rifle primers, 90fps faster than Winchester WSR small rifle primers. Zapalky 4.4 SR small rifle (made by Sellier & Bellot) was the hottest small rifle primers with near identical fps results as CCI #500 small pistol primer.

You are working at this from the other side. Based on my results, I think that you will find your pistol reloads will be slightly slower using small rifle primers in place of small pistol primers. As always work up your load and do some independent testing before committing to large reload run.

 

[TAJ45]

Very interesting info Oso. Thanks for the post.

 

[steve123]

Load and test at least 50 rounds worth or you might end up like me - pulling bullets all winter because about 1 in 15 wouldn't go off ! BTW for whatever reason the 10 or so rounds I did test worked but was not enough to make absolutely sure.