Shotshell Primer sizes

[tmd16556]

Going through my shotshell hulls this afternoon I remembered a problem I’ve had in the past. I mostly load Winchester 209 primers due to availability. I’ve had problems with primers falling out of Federal hulls after as few as one loading. I always use loads from the Lyman manual, so nothing crazy going on here. My theories here are as follows:

1. The paper basewads are dried out and don’t hold as well as unibody or plastic basewads. This was the leading theory when most hulls were 20-30 year old hulls and I don’t have problems with Remington hulls.

2. Federal and Winchester primers are slightly different in size. Namely Winchester are small or Federal are large. I used to use CCI primers but haven’t in a while so I don’t know if that’s it.

Has anyone else had a similar problem, or measured primers/pockets. When I get my presses down, I’ll try to measure them.

 

[FROGO207]

Not sure about all that but the foreign hulls and primers (Fiocci/estate for one) are actually larger in diameter and the US made primers will fall out of those hulls.

 

[entropy]

FROGO207 has it right; The foreign primers (Fiocchi and Cheddite are the most popular) are larger. If you use them in your hulls, you must use them from then on in the hulls you used them in. I only reload Winchester AA's, (both HS and the older CF hulls) Remington STS, Remington Nitro 27 and Nitro Gold and some older Remington Blue Magic and Premier hulls that are structurally identical to the AA-CF hull.
I only use Winchester 209 primers.

 

[Rembrandt]

Foreign hulls and primers are metric.

 

[George P]

Not sure about all that but the foreign hulls and primers (Fiocci/estate for one) are actually larger in diameter and the US made primers will fall out of those hulls.

Kinda true. What the Euro hulls do use is a METRIC sized primer which is slightly larger. If you use them, they will stretch the primer pocket enough so when gpoing back to US -sized primers, they can be loose or fall out.

 

[tmd16556]

My thought is that maybe I’d need to keep using federal primers in those cases. My other data point is a note in my grandfather’s reloading notes that he was glad to be done with all the federal primers but with no details. I know he favored Winchester and Remington hulls as I still use them. My thought is the federal primers were a tight fit on those too, but I don’t have any clear detail in the logs and I’ve not used federal primers partly due to that note and partly because they’re harder to find in a retail setting.

 

[tmd16556]

Ok that chart helps. The A dimension is different enough. Though Remington primers might fit too.