yes, it pays to read.

I found one advantage to using small primer 45. When I shot with several reloading friends that used mostly 45acp, they would help me pick up my brass. We had tarps in the ground to catch the brass. They all watched where my brass landed, and policed it all for me because they did NOT want it to get mixed in with their brass.

Toprudder said:

I found one advantage to using small primer 45. When I shot with several reloading friends that used mostly 45acp, they would help me pick up my brass. We had tarps in the ground to catch the brass. They all watched where my brass landed, and policed it all for me because they did NOT want it to get mixed in with their brass.

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I gave a batch of .45 Small to a friend. That way he could load .38s and .45s for his revolvers without having to change primer feed.

Jim Watson said:

I gave a batch of .45 Small to a friend. That way he could load .38s and .45s for his revolvers without having to change primer feed.

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That is another advantage. Also, if you are setup to load small primer brass and a large primer case found its way into the mix, it won’t cause anything to crash.

Toprudder said:

That is another advantage. Also, if you are setup to load small primer brass and a large primer case found its way into the mix, it won’t cause anything to crash.

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I haven’t loaded any SP 45 cases, but I have had a couple of them get into my LP brass. It doesn't cause a crash, but it does bring things to a stop long enough to clear the offending case when you feel the primer won’t seat. But, I would think it would be pretty much the same the other way around when the SP “clunks” into the bottom of the LP pocket instead of the normal feeling of seating a primer. Am I off base?

higgite said:

I haven’t loaded any SP 45 cases, but I have had a couple of them get into my LP brass. It doesn't cause a crash, but it does bring things to a stop long enough to clear the offending case when you feel the primer won’t seat. But, I would think it would be pretty much the same the other way around when the SP “clunks” into the bottom of the LP pocket instead of the normal feeling of seating a primer. Am I off base?

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Not really. With a progressive press, when you try to seat a large primer into a small pocket, it can jam things up enough that you have to completely stop to clear things. If you are loading small primers, and a large primer case is mixed in, you simply end up with a round with no primer, you don’t have to stop to clear anything.

If you're going to load a specific cartrdige - I forget what they are called, but for like less than 10 bucks, someone sells just the pages from major reloading manuals for individual cartrdiges, all together in a booklet. As a new reloader, what I both found frustrating and liked, cause I learned a lot - was the load data, to me - seemed to have anomolies that did not make sense. I just didn't know enough, even though I'd read a half dozen or so reloading manuals and books. Finally figuring out how some of the puzzle pieces actually work, those odd things in the load data make perfect sense. So does the advice to always work your load up and watch for signs of pressure. If you're not using the exact components in the load data, bullet shape varies, and so will the size of the space in the case where the powder goes. Any change in that space/volume, from the exact load data you're looking at, changes the behavior and the pressure. food for thought

Toprudder said:

Not really. With a progressive press, when you try to seat a large primer into a small pocket, it can jam things up enough that you have to completely stop to clear things. If you are loading small primers, and a large primer case is mixed in, you simply end up with a round with no primer, you don’t have to stop to clear anything.

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You're right, you don't have to stop and clear anything, but if you don't, you wind up with a round leaking powder out the flash hole. Like I said, all I had to do in the reverse situation was remove the small primer case when I felt the large primer not seat and then proceed as normal.

Jim Watson said:

Somebody was shooting Hornady Makarov here at one time. A Boxer primed Makarov case will run right through a 9mm Dillon with nothing to give it away until you see the loaded round with a lot of bullet sticking out. Shoots normally.

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You are correct; the 9mm Makarov will make it through the complete reloading cycle in my Dillon. And it will function completely in most pistols. However, most of the 9mm I reload gets fed to my M11/9 submachine gun. The relatively loose chambers in the various uppers I have for that range toy allow the 9mm Makarov to sit too deep in the chamber for the firing pin to detonate the primer. This causes a FTF and FTE dud and if it is in the middle of a full mag dump the joy ceases until the offending case is manually extracted and dealt with.

First world problem in the big scheme of things I guess, but irksome to me.