What primers

[grovey]

What Small rifle primers are you having the best results with in your 223 on Paper and chrony? I've been using cci 400 with good results on paper, but I've heard 450's are a harder/better option even though I've read where more than one guy had FTF's with them. From fireball loads up to hot 55gr 223 loads the 400 seemed to produce better results on paper regularly than the br4 or the Rem 7 1/2 for me.

Now...
This yr I'll be shooting 75 gr and up in two rifles, and after just prepping and priming a lot of brass for one of the rifles with 400's it got me thinking maybe these little 400's aren't up to the job of pushing the heavy bullets? From what little development I got with one of the rifles, the one with a short bbl... it looks like I'll be loading hot to get where I need to be with Varget.

 

[Prose]

Rem 7 1/2

 

[Dusty Stevens]

my service rifle prefers remington 7 1/2

 

[1shot]

When I shot service rifle the CCI #41 milspec primer was my go to primer. They have a hard cup to guard against AD's when dropping the bolt.
Thanks,

Lloyd

 

[grovey]

If it matters, I'm talking about bolt guns in my case. I almost bought some of those #41's back in the component drought but was told they're for AR's only as if they weren't going to sell them to me for a bolt gun.

 

[urbanrifleman]

CCi 450s are the perfect primer. Plenty hard for service rifle or auto guns, not too hard to produce ignition problems in bolt guns, produce the smallest groups, and take pressure great. They are all I use.

 

[DogBuster]

Rem 7.5's

 

[K22]

I use Federal 205M in all my 223's (eight now). However Rem 7 1/2 also work very well. I use H4895 and Varget powders in my 223's.\,

 

[LHSmith]

After much testing -Fed 205M for matches and 7-1/2's for varminting

 

[TheOtherZilla]

Feds have the thickest cup, but I use Rem 7-1/2 most of the time

 

[grovey]

I grabbed some 450's in my travels today ,and I have a few leftover 7 1/2's and 205M's here. The 450's will be up first, but I'll give the others a fair shake too before I settle. The Remington's are the most common one out of the three mentioned to find locally, so that's a plus.

 

[eric n]

I use 450's with 69-90g with varget, R15, and 8208 xbr through a dozen barrels or more.
Shoots small and has good ES with all of them.

 

[jepp2]

I always find this summary helpful in selecting primers:
http://www.sksboards.com/smf/?topic=56422.0

 

[pacificman]

Most of my rifles like the rem.71/2 but there are a few that like the cci400 and one cci450. When I work up a load
I usually try a few different primers. ....then settle on the one the rifle likes.

 

[grovey]

I always find this summary helpful in selecting primers:
http://www.sksboards.com/smf/?topic=56422.0

That's a good read. Thanks.

 

[Tireguy]

CCI BR4s and Varget play extremely well together. Always printed much better groups with BR4s. 450s shot good but when you compare groups with the BR4, you'll see the difference.

Jon

 

[searcher]

Federal Small rifle match, Tula .223, Tula small rifle magnum. Wolff or Br4s can all be really good. You will always hear about various brands and failure to fire, but most notably with those with the thicker cups - like the Tula and Wolff Russian primers, Rem. 7 1/2 and the CCI 41, etc.. it is not because of the primer in most cases, but rather the primer pocket depth. I learned this after getting FTF's in ammo where I had leveled the primer pockets - using two different pocket leveling tools. I got 50% FTF's using Russian primers - switched to Rem 7 1/2 no problem. Then I used the same Russian primers in other brass where I had done nothing to the pockets - and perfect function. that led me to do tests on SD's, etc. on pockets that had been leveled with thick cups and non-thick cups. Higher SD's with the thick cups that would all fire as they should have. My take on all that was to never deepen a primer pocket if using a thick cup primer if I want the best uniform velocity. With the thin-cup primers, leveling the cups brought a very slight benefit to SDs as opposed to doing nothing to the pockets. That was over probably a few thousand rounds of recording what was going on. Not much of a test but the change that came about with the thick cups was absolute in my experience.