Primers - One better than Another?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I guess everyone has their favorites. Mine has always been CCI. I've had fewer issues with them than any other. When I was competing I used Federal Match, mostly because thats what the winners were using. But score and group wise my CCI hung right in there with them.
 
CCI were 2.99 at bps and remmington were 4.59. Federal was almost as high as remmington. For 50% less cci has always got my money.
 
I use CCI mostly. They are 145.00 per 5000 at my LGS. I did grab 5000 Federal small rifle and 5000 Federal large pistol. When the shortage started. They were 159.00 per 5000. I think my CCI stock will last through the shortage. Last time i got powder. They asked if i needed primers. So stuff in starting to come in apparently.
 
The best primers are the primer you have on hand!

mark_mark for the WIN!

I have been using CCI primers along with Remington and Winchester for a long, long time and have never had a problem with any of them. Most of the primers on my shelf right now are CCI. Right now if I ran across any brand at a reasonable price I would stock up as I have couple of people in the family that have become interested in reloading.
 
I have been using CCI primers along with Remington and Winchester for a long, long time and have never had a problem with any of them. Most of the primers on my shelf right now are CCI. Right now if I ran across any brand at a reasonable price I would stock up as I have couple of people in the family that have become interested in reloading.
if Costco started selling Kirkland brand Primers I would stock up!
 
I too, am sad about the removal of Tula primers from our USA stores.
They were inexpensive compared to CCI Fed, Rem & Win.
I also wanted to try Fiocchi primers, but have never found any.
Tula left me with about a 1% failure rate.
I think over the years I had 1 CCI fail and ZERO fails with other USA made primers.
This is 1,200+ reloads per year.

BUT I would re-test with a change of primer.
I would strongly recommend all reloaders start low & work up if you change primers.
Especially if your load is getting near max charge.
 
I tend to use CCI or Winchester depending what I find.

I have some of CCI large rifle primers designed for semi-auto rifles (I forget the number off hand) but I find Winchester large rifle primers work just fine in my Garand ammunition.

I like Remington 7-1/2 primers for my 204 Ruger prairie dog ammunition and my 223 Remington Service Rifle ammunition. CCI or Winchester small rifle primers do fine in my 223 Remington plinking ammunition.

I do not care for Federal packaging but will buy them if others are not available. The primers perform satisfactory.

Except for Remington 7-1/2 primers, I have not used many Remington primers. This is mostly due to not finding them for sale.

I bought a 1000 ot 2000 Tula primers back in the day. No real bad experiences but I’d rather use domestic primers.

Shot shell primers, I buy what I find. I’ve had good service from Winchester, CCI, and Remington.
 
From every thing I have read and personal experience (M1A AR-10 Garand) it has more to do with seating depth of the primer than primer sensitivity or thickness.

Once the primer composition is fixed, primer sensitivity is set by the gap between the anvil and the primer cake under the cup, and the cup thickness. Manufacturer's don't like changing primer composition, but Federal is proud to say they use a slightly different lead styphnate, which is a little more sensitive.

I have read the nonsense about "seating the primer deeper" on one M14 forum. This is an example of the wierd ideas that come from people interpreting the world through lies they are too incompetent to understand.

Garands were extremely hard to acquire, at best you could get a NM Garand if you went to Camp Perry. If they were selling them to civilians. When civilians finally got their hands on the things, they started having in battery and out of battery slamfires. The civilian community did not know about primer sensitivity, a primer was a primer was a primer. There was no concept of primer sensitivity in the popular press of the period, and no understanding that semi automatic mechanisms would and did ignite primers due to the inertial impact of a firing pin on a primer. The only primers available on the market were the sensitive commercial primers, which were used primarily in bolt guns.And, civilians copied bolt gun reloading practices, such as neck sizing, for ammunition used in their Garands. A case that is too long, too fat, and has a sensitive primer, is creating the perfect conditions for an out of battery slamfire. But no one was warning the public at the time. The only accepted causes of slamfires were shooter negligence, that is high primers and your worn out receiver bridge. And that came directly from the National Rifle Association and the retired Army Ordnance civilians working there as technical writers.

The Army, through its minions in the NRA, put out disinformation about the reasons for slamfires in Garands. The story was, slamfires were only due to shooter negligence, that is "high primers" and "your worn out receiver bridge". It turns out high primers are the most common cause of misfires. If the anvil is not set on something firm, then the primer will misfire. You will read all sorts of threads where the reloader is having trouble with misfires on the first hammer strike. And then the round goes off on the second hammer strike. The first hammer strike is seating the primer.

This is has been twisted to a weird cult belief that if high primers are bad, then deep primers are good. So on the M14 forum, ignorant ideologues promote this idea that the deeper the bunny hole, the safer the bunny. But they really don't know what the heck they are talking about. If the firing pin can rebound off the primer, then there is the potential for primer ignition. If the firing pin cannot rebound off the primer, then the firing pin also can't touch the primer when the hammer strikers the firing pin. The end result, no primer ignition when the trigger is pulled!

There is a way to create a dangerous condition with high primers, and that is put something under the primer, such as Wayne Faatz did in the American Rifleman article "The Mysterious Slamfire". Wayne could not get his high primers to fire, when he dropped a Garand bolt on them, until he started sticking spacers under the primer. Then he had the condition of a firmly seated anvil, and a strong impact on the primer.

I do think it is a good safety operation to ream primer pockets to depth, to ensure the primer is at, or below the case head. Primer pockets do collapse the more the case is fired, and reaming to depth is a good idea on high mileage cases. A depth no greater than 0.003" is fine. Reaming the pocket too deep, to bury the bunny deeper in the bunny hole, will result in shallow impacts, and misfires.
 
For small pistol I prefer Remington, S&B, or Winchester. As others have also mentioned, I occasionally get light primer strikes with CCI primers in a couple of small revolvers.
 
Because I have a lot of "race" guns I try to stick with Federal. That way anything I load will go off in whatever gun I use it in. But for guns which will bust whatever caps they find, CCI is every bit as good as anything else.
 
I’d take Daffy Duck primers at this point. I’m thinking of using some snap n’ pops on my next loads.
Nice! Iike your style. once this is over I’m going to have so much primer! Mountain and Mountain. Make a primer bed from cases of primers
 
I don't mind CCI primers at all until I have to deprime my cases. They stick on my punch pin and pull themselves back into the primer pocket when de-priming. Very irritating!
I tried rounding off the punch pin more, but I still get some that stick. Maybe I didn't do it right, but for me, it's the primer anvil design that is causing it.
I don't get any that stick with Winchester or Fiocchi primers so I stay with them.
My Federal primers punch right out too. They all go bang so that isn't an issue.
I would rather buy a different brand but if that is what is on the shelf at the time, then I will still buy them.
 
I'll bet right now if someone needed primers and CCI's were available, everyone would buy them whether they liked them or not. They're good primers, they just have some irritating qualities for some of us.
 
Shot thousands of CCI SPP through my 9mm with 100% reliability. When I got a little 380, I was getting light strikes 30-40% of the time. Traded a sleeve to a friend for some Winchester WSP and got 100% reliable ignition with the Winchesters. Then bought some Remington SPP and 100% ignition with Winchester. I haven't tried Federal in the 380 yet.

The CCI primers are a little harder to strike. If your gun fires them, they are great.
 
I'm very partial to CCI SPP when loading a large batch of handgun ammo is they seem to feed better in my priming tools. I use CCI primers in all my semiauto handguns because they were easy to get, previously less expensive, and take very little space for storage. I can store 10k CCI SPP in less space than 1K Federal SPP.

For my tuned revolvers I use Federal primers exclusively. They take less force to set off and have been very consistent in competition
 
I have Russian Muroms, Sellier-Bellot and RWS 5341 for my long guns no problem
magtec is the catatroph
excuse me for the google translation
 
Well, thanks for all the replies. I guess this thread confirms that for the typical home reloader primer types are largely a matter of what's available, and who you listen to. One of the forum members apparently works for a primer manufacturer, so thanks for those instructive lectures on primer paste and proper Garand ammunition. I was interested to see if anyone claimed that brandX primers caused multiple failures to fire, but nobody made that claim. There are many complaints in multiple forums of "intermittent light primer strikes". It is good to remember that if some of your rounds show light primer strikes, ALL of your rounds are getting light primer strikes. But only SOME of the rounds are firing. Not an ammo problem.
Wireman
 
Well, thanks for all the replies. I guess this thread confirms that for the typical home reloader primer types are largely a matter of what's available, and who you listen to. One of the forum members apparently works for a primer manufacturer, so thanks for those instructive lectures on primer paste and proper Garand ammunition. I was interested to see if anyone claimed that brandX primers caused multiple failures to fire, but nobody made that claim. There are many complaints in multiple forums of "intermittent light primer strikes". It is good to remember that if some of your rounds show light primer strikes, ALL of your rounds are getting light primer strikes. But only SOME of the rounds are firing. Not an ammo problem.
Wireman
The CCI light strikes are due to the primer cup being a little harder material. There is nothing inherently wrong with it, it's just that some guns do not strike the CCI with enough force to set off the primer.
It may not technically be an 'ammo problem', but if you have such a gun then it is a problem if you can't reliably fire your own ammo.
It is a good idea to try a particular brand of primers to ensure they work in your firearms before stocking up on any one particular brand. I currently have three different brands of primers on the shelf. I have one gun that does not like CCI SPP, so I load a different brand primer for it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top