Primers - In general

[Contenderizer]

I have had difficulty finding Remington sparkplugs lately which is my "go-to" brand. Not because I believe them to be any better than the others, but that's the brand I started with and simply stuck to for consistency sake.

Anyway, it looks as if I may have to change primers on one of my favorite loads and conventional wisdom is to reduce the charge by 10% and work back up - unless loading at or near the starting charge (by the way, the load in question is 22 hornet which has a small case capacity - if I were loading 45-70 I would be less concerned). All of this raises the question, however, of which brand is thought to be the hottest and which the mildest in terms of pressure. For the sake of this discussion lets not consider magnum primers.

I have heard that Winchester is considered to be the hottest, Remington the mildest, and all of the others in between (though I have never seen anything to back this up). What's your opinion?

It seems you can only vote for one of the options above, so choose the "hottest" in your opinion.

[gumpokc]

I've used of the above from tiem to time.

I prefer CCI, and winchester, probably because i started with CCI, and those tw seem to be the easiest for me to find.

I've had good results from all of them, but I agree, work up loads for each type of primer.

[denton]

I have tested both Federal and CCI regular and magnum primers in 30-06 and smaller cartridges, and have never been able to detect any difference in pressure or muzzle velocity.

At some point, a cartridge is big enough that I'm sure the primer will make a difference. But I haven't found that point yet.

I have a suspicion that the belief that some primers cause more pressure than others is nothing more than failure to properly account for the natural variation of the process, sloppiness in controlling the other variables, or failure to properly randomize the test.

If you shoot 20-30 shots, at about 1 minute intervals, you will see a pretty linear increase in MV, just from the increase in barrel temperature. If the first half your shots are Apex primers, and the last half are Blivet primers, you could easily conclude that Blivets are hotter, when, in fact, it might have been just barrel temperature.

The energy of a primer is too small to cause much difference in pressure. What it might affect is how rapidly the powder catches fire. As nearly as I can tell, the ideal is to shoot a column of fire up the centerline of the cartridge, so the powder burns from the center out, rather than the rear forward.

[skb2706]

As was posted I started with CCI and haven't ever found them to be anything but excellent. In fact when I started loading all we had around here was RCBS for equip, Speer for bullets, CCI for primers and IMR or WW for powder. That narrowed down choices to nil.

[Dom]

The smaller the cartridge you're reloading the more important the primers come, at least that's what I've observed, as well as any other changes to the recipe. When you're dropping 50 or more grains in a case a small difference is probably hard to measure. I'm mainly using CCI, WLR, & Remington, each for a different caliber or calibers. I've always found an acceptable load by changing powders or bullets before fiddling with trying various primers, Waidmannsheil, Dom.

[Catfish]

Acouple of months ago I did some testing. I used the same powder charge and same bullet in my .22-6mm for the test. I loaded several different brands of primers in both reg. and mag. Nuch to my supprise the total varation in velosity was less than 60 fps. The most consistant in that load were the Fed. mag. match, and they also grouped the best. I always have several different brands of primers on hand and in both LR and SR. I have found that some rifle prefer different primers with different loads, most of the time not worth worring about unless your shooting compation. The one thing that might be of benifit to to handgun shooters is that the Federal primers have a softer cup than any other brand which makes them the best primer for guns with a light hammer fall. Other than that, I will just add that CCI`s tend to be the worst primers for SD and accuracy in most loads. With most of my varmint ammo that uses SR primers I usually use Rem. 7 1/2 primers. Match primers, in my oppenion, are not worth the extra expence unless your gun in already shooting sub moa.

[BILLY D.]

One and only one place I noticed a difference was with Hornet capacity cases and that is dependent on which powder you use.

Those cases tend to like mild primers.

In 223 cases Rem 7 1/2 are my go to primers. I haven't found anything better yet.

Best wishes, Bill

[Catfish]

You are exacty right Bill. With hotter primers and the thin necks on hornet cases, bot primers tend to move the bullet befor the powder starts to burn causeing inconsistant burnning and presure. I also us mild primers in my .17 AH.

[Cossack]

FWIW, I load CCI for most everything.
But for my hornet I use SMALL PISTOL primers and Lil Gun. Makes it really accurate.

[petey]

I agree with Catfish on CCI. I've tried all makes and manors of primers. Seems like most of you have had good luck with them, but let me tell you that CCI is the ONLY primer I've ever had actually fail, (in two separate boxes out of two different guns in the same caliber) That is a missfire. A couple from the bench and one at game, and the fireing pin wasn't an issue. Those were benchrest primers also. I will never use them again. (talk about embarassement when your handloads don't fire!)

New cases, no internal lube/grease to cause issues and the primers left their manufactured packaging into a hand primer tool, and were primed with no touching.

I could see something like that happening if a fellow had grease/oil on his fingers and he was handling the primers, but I don't handle any primer in that fashion. I didn't even send the POS primers back to the manufacture, b/c I didn't want them to replace them w/ another POS primer. I just pitched them... Everyone can have a defect, but once I had multiple from two different boxes (probably same batch) I just gave up on that particular manufacture.

I guess once you get a soar taste in your mouth you tend to go another route. Hope the rest of you that use them don't experience the same issues.

[Jack]

Petey, I feel exactly that way about Remington primers.
I have had a few fail to fire, and have had some defective ones, years ago (Remington recalled em).
Never had any problem with a CCI anything, and that's what my local shop carries, so I use CCI.
Just shows to go ya that personal experience isn't a big enough sample to be a scientific test.

[petey]

Very true!!

Probably why I use Winchester or Federals Course someone will no doubtably chime in with a sob story about those manufactures too.

It's the old Ford/Chevy question....which is why I now drive a Jeep ha ha.

[gun_nut2]

I normally use CCI, mainly because I started reloading with them. I use them for all standard cartridges and Federal for all magnum cartridges.

[Rev]

Federal primers are my first choice. A few of my rifles are fairly accurate and Federals are what most benchresters use, I believe. The only primers I've ever actually had trouble with were CCI large pistol primers.

In my S&W 29, 8grs. of Unique with 250 gr. hard cast LSWC's, I was getting pierced primers. Checked the firing pin and everything else I could think of. This is just a .44 Special load in a magnum case (I doubt that its more than 15,000 psi).

Anyway when I switched to Federal large pistol primers, the problem disappeared. Probably just a soft batch of those CCI's, but it was enough to make me switch.

Rev

[PaulS]

I use Winchester large rifle primers because I don't have to buy standard and magnum primers. They are hot enough to light up the double base powders. In my pistols I use CCI, and I buy both magnum and standard primers.
I have had problems with the consistency of Federals. Both in size and accuracy. I have used Remington but I quit using them a long time ago. I would have to go back through my records to find out why.
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