Primer interchangeability question

[The Plainsman]

This seems like kind of a goofy question, but I've never found anything that addressed this issue - are primers interchangeable at all?

I'm not talking Winchester WLR and Remington 7 1/2 SR. I'm talking about CCI 400 and Remington 6 1/2 SR and other primers which are the same size as another brand.

I found a table on the http://www.loadyourown.com/primermatrix.htm web site which seems to suggest some interchangeability, but is more probably simply a matter of size.

Anybody know???

 

[ClarkEMyers]

Interchangeable no, share applications yes

When I started there were flat top and domed top which required different seating punches. Many of the writings from this period emphasize matching case and primer brand without going into much detail as to why this mattered.

Shortly CCI was much more widely distributed than the OEM primers and almost everybody developed loads with CCI - and domed top primers with their punches went away. There are still OEM primers - Federal 216 say - you can't buy.

Notice that shotgun loads are almost always primer specific. Changing primers changes the outcome. Follow the recipes exactly or acknowledge that you are responsible for your own actions and don't blame the manual.

People often put rifle loads together with whatever is handy with no more or no less effect than changing powder lots without dropping back and working up. Sometimes the load is on the edge and the primer matters a great deal.

I've had lots of loads I considered to be primer irrelevant - whatever is cheapest, in stock locally or otherwise comes to hand first. Many traditionally famous loads such as the .45 ACP Saeco 130 with 3.5 Bullseye (or a .38 wadcutter with 2.7) have been loaded in vast quantities with all possible primers. Although mostly all safe they mostly all had somebody or some gun that showed a preference so they weren't all the same.

Some primers are said to be harder than others; or if you prefer some primers are softer - this matters for extrusion into the firing pin bore as well as pressure changes in the load. Primers also matter when it comes to misfires - especially with modified trigger actions. Many loading machines will work better with one primer over another; most machine manufactuerers say something about this - even the magazine fed handtools.

I use small rifle primers for 9x23 loads in Winchester brass and I very much would drop back and work up again on superface level loads if I changed primers.

Primers are not exactly interchangeable, but I sure would keep shooting if I lost any choice of primers.

 

[Grump]

Small primers, Rifle and Pistol, are the same size.

Large primers are not. Rifles are something like 2% taller, and my Dillon large primer pick-up tube holds only 98 of them. This confirms a fairly recent American Rifleman article about primers, which claimed that the minimum sensitivity of primers was almost identical for all makers.

As far as applications, CCIs reportedly give maybe 20-40 fps lower velocities than Winchester. I forgot where the others fell in the lineup. Pistols in rifle calibers is considered bad because the primer cups are reportedly softer, and the 1980s experiences with .38 Stupidface using rifle primers tended to confirm that theory. If used in pistol calibers, rifle primers are reputed to give higher pressures and velocities while being harder to ignite in handguns with marginal primer strikes.

I recommend against swapping rifle & pistol primers unless you are still searching for the accuracy fairy after no real success, and you take appropriate pressure precautions with pistols in rifle calibers--keep them to loads of less than 40,000 PSI. Also, don't bother using large rifle in pistol calibers--it takes and out-of-spec primer pocket to avoid dangerous high primers.

 

[The Plainsman]

Grump...

I hear you and I understand. What I'm wondering about is the interchangeability of "standard" small rifle primers or "standard" small pistol primers or "magnum" large rifle primers, etc. In other words, could I use CCI 400 primers instead of Win WSR primers or Rem. 6 1/2 SR primers, or vice versa?

 

[Bullet]

I believe primers that are the same other than being different brands are interchangeable. Small pistol primers interchange with all other small pistol primers, Small pistol Mag primers interchange with all small pistol Mag primers, Large pistol primers interchange with all other large pistol primers etc. The only caution is loading manuels list which primers their using for a certain load. If you change primers to a different brand make sure you work up your load again from a NON MAX charge. If I'm wrong about this someone please correct me.

 

[Paul "Fitz" Jones]

Primers

In my decades of selling Progressive Reloaders, Bullet Molds and pistol Grips to top competitors I formed the opinion that Federal Primers were the most reliable and best for the 25 yard Bullseye range and Winchester being a little hotter were best for the 50 yard range.

I also formed the opinion that the CCI company used worn out tools from other primer companies and their primers were rejects from some company because of their weakness and severely variable dimensions. They have had too high and cocked anvils, rough edged cups with burrs and out of round cups that hang up in primer magazines and their use has forced current Reloader companies to make their primer feeding systems with larger dimensions so CCI's won't hang up and explode in the press.

Back when CCI invented Magnum primers, CCI magnum primers were the same strength as standard Federal and Winchester primers so standard CCI primers were the weakest primers on the market.

I advised my thousands of customers to avoid the use of CCI primers if they wished to win their matches.

 

[cracked butt]

Paul:
Are CCI-34 (milspec) primers any better than the standard large rifle CCI primers? To me they look the same in appearance. I have about 700-800 of them left that I use for my M1 reloads when I'm low on Winchester WLRs.

 

[Gatofeo]

Not all Large Pistol primers are created equal, in my experience.
In my .44-40 rifle, when I use Winchester brass, only Winchester Large Pistol primers fit well in that brass.
If I switch to CCI Large Pistol primers, it takes considerable force to seat a primer flush, always ending in the primer being flattened. This affects ignition.
Just another one of those little lessons in reloading.

 

[The Plainsman]

I think you all are giving me the answer, but....

Just to make sure I'm making myself clear, let me add this -

What I would like to know (just for metallic cartridges) is this - when a recipe calls for a CCI 400 primer, can I use a Win WSR instead, without any bad results? Or - if a recipe calls for a WLR, can I use a Rem 9 1/2? Or if a recipe calls for a WSPM, can I use a Fed 200 or a CCI 550 without blowing myself up?

I realize that all primers have at least slightly different characteristics and I'll need to start at the low end on powder and work back up.

I also know that I can't mix "Standard" and "magnum" primers, but "standard" for "standard" and "magnum" for "magnum", size for size, are they interchangeable?

I think what I'm hearing from all of you is "Yes".

I hope this helps clarify my question.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Mal H]

What I would like to know (just for metallic cartridges) is this - when a recipe calls for a CCI 400 primer, can I use a Win WSR instead, without any bad results? Or - if a recipe calls for a WLR, can I use a Rem 9 1/2? Or if a recipe calls for a WSPM, can I use a Fed 200 or a CCI 550 without blowing myself up?

Yes.

 

[Paul "Fitz" Jones]

Opinions of My Customers

The opinions of thousands of my customers with progressive reloaders I contacted is if you wish trouble free and reliable ignition use anything BUT CCI primers.

Standard strength
#1 Federal
#2 Winchester hotter
#3 Remington

Fitz

 

[The Plainsman]

10-4, my good buddies...

You have put my mind at ease.

Fitz - the info you provided I shall consider a fringe benefit. Although it was not precisely what I was looking for, it certainly is useful information for my future reloading. I surely appreciate your sharing it with me - and anyone else who looks at this thread.

Anyway, thanks to you all once again. I'll be sure to wear my safety glasses and go right in and try out what I've learned here.

Kindest regards,

The Plainsman

 

[BluesBear]

The answer, in a nutshell is...

Yes a small pistol primer is a small pistol primer and a large pistol primer is a large pistol primer.

HOWEVER ANY time you change a component you should drop back on your powder chagre and work back up to where you were.

The differences from one brand of primer to the next is small. Small but measurable. Now if you were loading a light load such as 2.8gr of Bullseye underneath a 148gr wadcutter changing primers won't create a dangerous situation.


As for CCI primers, while I have the utmost respect for Paul Jones, when I was loading commercially from 1979 to 1987 I used nothing but CCI primers in handgun ammunition. I ordered each size in lots of 25,000.

My warranty was that if you had ANY round of my ammunition that failed to fire I would replace EACH defective round with a BOX of ammunition.

In over 3 MILLION rounds of ammunition sold, in 20 different calibers, I replaced ZERO. No one ever reported a squib.
In the thousands of rounds that I personally used I never had a failure.


The only time I even thought there might be a problem was New Year's Eve 1982 when a good friend of mine on the County Police decided to fire his 2½" Model 19 into the ground at midnight. Four out of six wouldn't fire. In single action only one more would fire.
As it turned out someone had backed out the mainsprimg screw 1½ turns!
It wouldn't fire a full cylinder of ANYTHING. After turning the screw ½ turn the remaining 3 fired just fine as did the next 48.

For those millions of CCI primers I cannot recall any feeding problems with them in priming tubes or with a Lee Auto-Prime.

 

[HankB]

Fitz - When I started reloading circa 1970, my Dad and I tried CCI primers. We had a couple of duds in the first 1000 rounds.

The next 1000, we used Winchester - no duds, so we figured that whatever we'd been doing wrong, we weren't any more.

The next 1000, back to CCI . . . not only did we have duds again, but we were getting little "rings" on the primers - it turned out that the primer cups had been punched out so poorly, a fair number had a wire-thin ring of extra metal on the edge of the cup that had a tendency to come off during the loading process and get on the priming punch. When you seated the primer, you got a lasting impression of this metal "wire" pressed into it.

I've since used I don't know how many tens of thousands of Winchester primers, and at least a couple of thousand Remingtons . . . no more problems. (Though I DID hear of a bad batch of Winchester primers that was produced a couple of years ago.)

 

[ClarkEMyers]

CCI exists to meet a need

There have been times and places when for whatever reason the OEM primers were not readily available. If all I could buy was CCI - and there have been times that was true - I'd be reasonably happy.

At the moment I have a fair number of Federal and Winchester and fewer CCI - I expect to enjoy popping every last one of them.

On the other hand I do defer to the suggestions by tool makers that some primers work better in their tools than other primers - just as I would make any brand work if I had no choice. I doubt very much the tool makers make the suggestions because they really want another way to kill sales of their machines to folks who want to use other primers

No idea what the actual priming compound(s) are today. IIRC there has been a time when Federal used a mild variation (basic? something in the process?) of the lead styphenate everybody was using.

The single most annoying thing to me is that I have never found a use for the neat little plastic trays once empty and I think I should.

 

[Ross]

All the above is useful information, but I would like to reiterate Mattern, Naramore and Gatofeo; sometimes there is a slight difference in the pockets that can cause problems of fit. Winchester pockets often have a radius at the juncture of the bottom and the side that prevents many primers from fully seating easily, though Winchester primers slide right in. This has been an issue with the Winchester - S&B contract ammo.
CCI seems to have cleaned up its act in the last couple of decades and has been accepted by most shooters. Sometimes I'll choose their "milspec" stuff for its hard cups.
Cheers from Darkest California,
Ross

 

[Clark]

SAAMI specifications on primers and primer pockets per "Sinclair International's Precision Reloading & Shooting Handbook" 10th edition 1999

......................Depth min max diameter min max
small rifle primer pocket .117 .123 .1730 .1745
small pistol primer pocket .117 .123 .1730 .1745
Large rifle primer pocket .125 .132 .2085 .2100
Large pistol primer pocket .117 .123 .2085 .2100

.......................Height min max Diameter min max
Small rifle primers .115 .125 .1745 .1765
small pistol primers .115 .125 .1745 .1765
large rifle primers .123 .133 .2105 .2130
large pistol primers .115 .125 .2100 .2120"