CCI vs. Remington Small Pistol Primers

[Trent]

I recently switched (by necessity) from CCI to Remington small pistol primers on my 9x19 load.

Backed my load off and worked up again. When I got to 4.5Gr of bullseye, there's noticable cratering of the Remington primers.

I was able to push beyond max on the old CCI primers. But with Remington I'm seeing signs .3 under max.

Are Remington primer cups made of softer or thinner material or something? Not used to seeing any signs of overpressure on a 9mm that's loaded well under max....

 

[Trent]

There's no bulging on the fired cases, either. This is definitely NOT a hot load. But those primers just seem to melt in to the firing pin recess. Not jagged, sharp craters. But definitely noticeable.

 

[cja245]

Yeah Remingtons are one the softest primers and CCI are the hardest. Honestly, I wouldn't worry about over pressure if you're using the same load data. But that's just me.

If your getting primer flow issues that can cause light primer strikes, as sometimes this causes small bits of brass to get in the striker channel. I had that problem with Federal primers once (those are even softer than Remington)

 

[Trent]

Here's a pic.

 

[Trent]

Yeah Remingtons are the softest primers and CCI are the hardest. I wouldn't worry about over pressure if you're using the same load data

Gracias.

I'll load up a run. The cases aren't bulging, the recoil isn't heavy, and the primer crater isn't "sharp", so I'm viewing it as acceptable.

Just unexpected, is all.

I've run CCI primers with 115gr JHP up to 5.4gr before seeing signs of overpressure (and the first sign then, was bulging brass). NOTE: this is over max.

But I don't think these Remington primers are going to let me push anywhere close to that.

 

[returningfire]

You are in good shape, nothing I would be concerned about.

 

[rcmodel]

I might be concerned about why the hole in the slide is so much bigger then the firing pin tip.

But thats a gun issue, not a primer issue.

rc

 

[Trent]

That's a good thing, because I loaded up 631 of these last night.

I just grabbed 10 random ones this morning and fired them off the back deck and noticed the craters.

Oh, and this is weird. I woke up concerned about this load. After posting this I did something else.

I couldn't put my finger on it, just a vague feeling that something wasn't right. But I decided to test fire that random lot, and then I decided to inspect the headstamps of all of them.

SOMETHING was telling me that SOMETHING wasn't right.

I had to separate out the WCC military crimped brass from the rest, as I was going. I was just looking for a crimp, and not reading the headstamps.

But something must have sat buried in my subconscious because I was growing more concerned that something wasn't right....

Anyway I go through the loaded ammo I made last night, and I found one 9x18 and one 9x21 casing out of those 631.

Now, I can understand how I got a hold of a 9x18, plenty of people shoot them.

But a 9x21? I've never even SEEN one of those before. The headstamp was IMI, made by Israeli Military Industries. Evidently it's a caliber they invented to circumvent the B/S laws in countries which ban Military cartridges. Same as a 9x19, just 2mm longer so they aren't interchangeable.

I've never even SEEN that ammo, or a firearm chambered in it, at any time, ever.

I did buy a 5 gallon bucket of brass off this older Jewish fellow I knew back in 1998. (We were pretty close for several years, he taught me a TON about long range shooting, reloading, etc). So that's probably where it came from.

Anyway, neither of those are particularly unsafe (one probably wouldn't even fire, the other wouldn't chamber), but would have caused stoppages in my plinking ammo.

 

[Trent]

I might be concerned about why the hole in the slide is so much bigger then the firing pin tip.

But thats a gun issue, not a primer issue.

rc

It's not that the hole itself is bigger, it's just slightly recessed / beveled for some reason. These were fired from a Taurus PT92.

I've been keeping an eye on it, but it doesn't seem to be getting any deeper/wider.

 

[Trent]

Needs a good cleaning (shot a lot of dirty S&B this weekend), but you can see the bevel in the photo.

 

[rodregier]

The Beretta and Taurus firing pins have a weird collared firing pin, which produces a weird primer marking on the fired cases.

 

[AABEN]

I have used REM WIN CCI and never had any trouble with any of them for 30 + years!

 

[Trent]

Now I'm getting curious how the primers will look if fired out of my M&P 9 or Ruger P95.

If they aren't bulging on those I might step the next load up a notch. Now that I've burned through the last of my FMJ plinking components, I've got 500 115gr JHP and 300 147 gr JHP to load still. I would like to get the power on those up as much as possible for pin shoots.

 

[TonyT]

Trent,
Of the Aerican brands, Federal primers have the softest primer cups while CCI have the hardest. Winchester and Remington primers have harder primer cups than Federal but but softer than CCI.

 

[Trent]

When I bought my last batch of primers (20K) I bought all Federal. Those were all Large Pistol and Large Rifle though, which I believe all have the same cup thickness as all the other brands.

There's more variety in cup thickness in SP and SR primers.

I'm down to a couple thousand Small Pistol primers (maybe 3 months worth?), all Remington. Hopefully at some point I can find CCI again!!!

 

[7mmb]

Last year I ran into the same problem and had to substitute Remington primers for the CCIs I had all my loads worked up with. I worked them up again with the Rem primers and shot them over the chrono. The velocities were identical. This was with 9mm, mid-range 357, 45 Auto and 45 Colt. In my experience you can substitute Remington and CCI pistol primers without change. The Remington 1 1/2s do have a softer primer and are not recommended in 357 or 40 S&W but it is what Remington uses in their factory 9mm ammo. The 5 1/2s have a harder cup but are the same strength as the 1 1/2s. The Remington primers seat easier than the CCIs too so they could be backing out slightly. I wouldn't worry about the way your primers look, if you haven't changed any other components then you certainly aren't over pressure from your CCI loads. The last time I picked up primers my LGS was out of CCI500s but they had Rem 1 1/2s and 5 1/2s. I grabbed the 5 1/2s this time.

 

[Trent]

Yeah they're not flattening at all. Don't appear to be backed out, either.

I've ran 9mm hot enough to blow out CCI's before. And I've run it cold enough to lodge a bullet in the barrel. (Was trying to see how slow I could shoot a 9mm 147gr cast lead bullet.. don't ask why...).

I was just really surprised to see any signs at this powder charge. The CCI's didn't deform at this point. The crater isn't really a true crater, either, it's just formed to the odd rounded square shape recess Taurus put around the firing pin hole. (I can't quite figure the purpose of that out.. it's almost like they wanted to purposely add more machine marks on the spent casing for LEO identification...??)