Theoretical but serious Question.

[bullseye308]

I have seen references more than a few times to folks using -for example- small rifle primers in 38, 357, 9mm, etc with no ill happenings so long as the powder charge is dropped 5-10%. Also using magnum primers where standard is called for & dropping the powder charge some. Now, being the cheap butt I am, I was wondering since the primers cost the same, and you would use less powder, what would be the drawback to doing this?

It seems to me that for those of us that cast our own & use free range brass that this would cut our already low costs even lower, but there must be something I am missing. I'm frugal to a fault, but safety must come first. What is wrong with this practice that I am missing? Is there any reason not to do it?


My wimpy little disclaimer: I have enough powder & primers on hand for a while, so I'm not gonna jump into this and blow anything up.

TIA

 

[jcwit]

Been doing it for years, even sub small rifle for small pistol. Just be sure your striker spring is strong enough if using sm. rifle in a pistol.

In short, go for it.

Now large pistol & large rifle is a different story as the lengths are different. Not Interchangeable.

 

[Walkalong]

In general, I have had better accuracy in pistol calibers when using standard vs mag primers when mag primers were not needed. Not written in stone of course.

 

[Hondo 60]

In general rifle primers have a harder cup than pistol primers. Depending on your gun, it may or may not work with harder primers.

Plus as Walkalong said, accuracy may suffer, but YMMV

 

[jmorris]

It is very common with USPSA open pistol shooters to use rifle primers as the loads are at the upper end of allowable pressure. FWIW I have tested a few different loads with SP and SR primers and didn’t see any significant increase in velocity.

 

[RustyFN]

I have a friend that only buys SRP's for rifle and pistol just so he doesn't have to buy and store so many different types. The main problem I can think of is not setting them off with light strikes.

 

[Tilos]

I don't like 2nd hand info or like to post it, but in all the Wolf primer bashing I've read during the shortage, do recall a statement of:

"I called Wolf and the only difference between the SRP and SPP is the packaging cardboard sleeve."

I have 10,000 Wolf SPP and have my press at the crush setting for primers and have had no further problems...they all go bang.

 

[rcmodel]

I was wondering since the primers cost the same, and you would use less powder, what would be the drawback to doing this?

You are assuming you would drop the charge 10%, and that right there isn't right.

The only time you could possibly save enough powder to save any money would be if you started out with balls-to-the-wall MAX loads and then dropped 0.1 or 0.2 grains with the rifle primers.

At that rate, you would save a pound of powder every 70,000 to 140,000 reloads!

Seems prudent to just use the correct pistol primers and published load data for them.

rc

 

[bullseye308]

You are assuming you would drop the charge 10%, and that right there isn't right.

Sorry, that was a generalized statement. I personally load all my pistol rounds with bullseye, so I don't think 10% would be good in that case, maybe 5%. It would depend on the load and what the chrono tells me.

I load midrange loads anyway, so I didn't think there would be a whole lot of savings, but circumstances may at some point dictate that I stretch that last couple hundred rounds out of a jug of powder, just like i chase down most of the bullets I shoot to "recycle" them again.

The last few years I have averaged 16000 rounds per year and this year I might be lucky to shoot 4000. On the positive side, my local shop is loaded to the roof with components like I haven't seen before and the prices are about what they were before Obama started selling components. Primer availability isn't a problem here and all SP were the same price with many cases of each available.

It was more of a "what if I can only find rifle primers again" kinda thing.

 

[Sapper771]

I was using magnum pistol primers in my standard 45 acp loads. Back during the component drought, all I could find was magnum primers, so I had to adapt. Even when I found regular primers, the magnum primers were still cheaper for some reason.

 

[Remo-99]

Some of the 38super guys will run small rifle primers in place of small pistol primers basically cause most SRP's are thicker cups and stand up better to the pressures they're running in the they're guns.
Where as with mag pistol primers it's usually a different compound to give a stronger plus longer flame for ignition, the trade off is it's not as uniform as standard primer compound (or that's the theory anyhow).

 

[Tilos]

Again, during the "shortage" I used a lot of Remington Magnum SPP instead of SPP with no difference that I could see.
Only problem was one salesperson would not sell them to me when I told him the were not for "magnums"
I found another salesperson, problem solved.

 

[billybob44]

I have seen references more than a few times to folks using -for example- small rifle primers in 38, 357, 9mm, etc with no ill happenings so long as the powder charge is dropped 5-10%. Also using magnum primers where standard is called for & dropping the powder charge some. Now, being the cheap butt I am, I was wondering since the primers cost the same, and you would use less powder, what would be the drawback to doing this?

It seems to me that for those of us that cast our own & use free range brass that this would cut our already low costs even lower, but there must be something I am missing. I'm frugal to a fault, but safety must come first. What is wrong with this practice that I am missing? Is there any reason not to do it?


My wimpy little disclaimer: I have enough powder & primers on hand for a while, so I'm not gonna jump into this and blow anything up.

TIA

BE308, I am one of those posters that have stated that I use SRP in some handgun loads. I'm sure that you have seen a few of my post on that topic.
I too am a cheapskate!..I will NOT pay more than $30.00K for any primers. Last winter I had problems locating primers for that price. My local gun club had Rem. 61/2 SR in large stocks, at $27.00K, so I bought a couple of 5K bricks of them. Tried them in my small pistol primed loads and never looked back. I had ONE failure to fire, on the first strike, in my CZ-75B (9MM). Hit it again, and it went off as usual. This could have been caused by several reasons-me not seating properly on my Dillon 550, new (less than 500 rounds fired) CZ-75B, or just a hard primer cup??
To me-one failure, on a target load, is not reason to be alarmed, or avoid using Small Rifle Primers when Small Pistol primers are hard to get, or too high $ for me to buy. Bill...

 

[GP100man]

I`ve found that CCI 550& 400 are very close , I had some mid loads that I tried with CCI400s & it made no difference on the chrono & the 12# hammer spring made the same dent as far as a 5X magnifying glass could see!

 

[billybob44]

I`ve found that CCI 550& 400 are very close , I had some mid loads that I tried with CCI400s & it made no difference on the chrono & the 12# hammer spring made the same dent as far as a 5X magnifying glass could see!

I know you're right on that GP. I really don't recomend using SR in place of SP in handgun loads, but when in a pinch, I believe that they are OK to use.
My local gun club came through with a 5K of Rem. 1 1/2's at $27.00 per K, and finally Graf's came through with the 5K of CCI 500, and a 5K of CCI 550's, so I should be OK for awhile for my Small Pistol Primer use. The Graf's primers had been on order since 11/09 and finally came through about a month ago. They were $109.00 per 5K, so I held out for the back-order. Even with the Hazmat-they came out to about $25.00 per K, so they were still in my price range-You WILL NOT see me on the GB Auction site paying $45-50.00 per K!!!! HA HA......Bill...