Who Makes The Best Pistol Primers?

[BluesBear]

Are there actually people in here that carry a handgun that MIGHT NOT be capable of setting off EVERY primer commonly available?

I seem to see a trend of people shying away from CCI because their gun might not make them go BANG!?!?! Yet I see a lot of people on THR that swear by Gold Dot ammo. What primers do you think CCI/Speer use?

I guess I have been lucky. Back when I had my company active I personally loaded over 3,000,000 rounds (you read it right 3 million) and NEVER had anyone report a dud. What primers did I use? I used CCI exclusively. In fact, in over 25 years of loading, I have never seated a primer that wasn't a CCI.

Are there some that are so obsessed with a light trigger pull that they are willing to chance reliability? Is an extra ounce or two worth it?

 

[P95Carry]

Bear - I'll admit that my original pref' for Fed's was based on reliability in a partly ''tuned'' 686 which I used for compo's .... and that gun certainly could fail me with CCI's. It was never a defence weapon.

Nowadays tho .. I guess it matters little as I have no gun set so light that primer ignition should ever be a problem.

Old habits die hard tho and so I know that I have the confidence in the Fed's.. and continue to use them. Anyone who has an SD weapon so tricked out that it wouldn't handle a CCI is risking it all IMO. As you said ...

Are there some that are so obsessed with a light trigger pull that they are willing to chance reliability? Is an extra ounce or two worth it?

 

[Poodleshooter]

I seem to see a trend of people shying away from CCI because their gun might not make them go BANG!?!?! Yet I see a lot of people on THR that swear by Gold Dot ammo. What primers do you think CCI/Speer use?

CCI and Federal are both owned by the same parent company now, so it's very possible that CCI ammo uses Federal primers.

 

[BluesBear]

CCI and Federal are both owned by the same parent company now, so it's very possible that CCI ammo uses Federal primers.

To quote my inside sourse at ATK, "Nope".
There is some R&D information sharing but,
"Federal & Speer/CCI are still operated independantly."

 

[craig101]

when i worked at Federal Cartridge, I was told Federal made the CCI primers at their Anoka, MN plant. the same place they made the federal primers. this was when Blount owned federal. I didn't work there when ATk owned them. i remember driving by the primer division daily.

it was a COOL summer job. still have friends who work there.

 

[45auto]

I use Winchester because they "go" off and they are packaged sitting flat, not on their side. . Easy to flip and load.

Being an "old" shotshell reloader, what's the purpose of brands like Federal packaging their pistol primers on their side? I never understood that...but I may be missing something.

 

[mtnbkr]

Are there actually people in here that carry a handgun that MIGHT NOT be capable of setting off EVERY primer commonly available?

Yes. My GP100, with lighter springs, won't reliably ignite CCI component primers, but will pop Federal and Winchester 100% of the time (or so far in about 5k rounds). The same gun hasn't had a lick of trouble with any factory ammo I've fired either (including Speer GoldDot). It's just CCI component primers. Therefore, I won't use them. My other guns, even the 36 with lighter springs, don't have this problem, but I still stay away from CCI component primers since I've noticed no benefit from using them over Fed or Win.

Chris