primers ranked by brand as to dependability in my experience

grumpyvette

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Staff member
its been my experience that the FEDERAL AND WINCHESTER
primers, on average are slightly more consistent than the CCI and ALCAN primers but all four of those those brands are well ahead of the REMINGTONS, now what I mean by that is that IVE generally gotten better groups and less deviation in velocities, with those brands in that order, but they all work, and age, care in reloading and the strength of the striker or firing pin and temperatures plus the powders used do effect the results
FOR PISTOLS
the primer used depends on the powder, with medium burn rates like anything from herco- blue dot
I have never seen any difference in the primers, slower powders like H110 -296 usually get better accuracy with mag primers
CCI, and WINCHESTER MAG PISTOL PRIMERS PREFERRED
I use a good deal of herco-&- blue dot in most pistol loads even some hunting loads but I generally don,t load to max pressures even with the slower H110 but I don,t see where using mag primers on everything would hurt, they generally don,t cost much more


FOR RIFLES I only use WINCHESTER OR FEDERAL MAG RIFLE PRIMERS

more info

Ranked in order of power

Large Rifle = LR, Large Rifle Magnum = LRM, Large pistol =LP,

Brand/type Power Average Range Std. Dev

1 Fed Match GM215M 6.12 5.23-6.8 .351

2 Federal 215 LRM 5.69 5.2-6.5 .4437

3 CCI 250 LRM 5.66 4.5-7.4 .4832

4 Winchester WLRM 5.45 5.1-6.0 .2046

5 Remington 9 1/2 LRM 5.09 3.5-6.75 .6641

6 Winchester WLR 4.8 4.1-6.0 .4300

7 Remington 9 1/2 LR 4.75 3.7-6.25 .5679

8 Fed Match GM210M 4.64 4.0-5.6 .3296

9 Federal 210 LR 4.62 3.7-5.5 .3997

10 CCI BR2 4.37 4.0-5.0 .2460

11 CCI 200 LR 4.28 3.8-4.8 .3218

12 KVB 7 LR Russian 4.27 3.8-4.8 .2213

13 Rem 91/2 (30 yrs old) 4.16 3.8-4.8 .3427
http://www.leverguns.com/articles/johnk/primertest.htm

http://www.castingstuff.com/primer_test ... erence.htm
 
I looked through my stashed primer inventory after reading this thread again and one of my friends asked if I still had any remington primers, (I really did not know)
so we walked out to my shop, and I rummaged through the cabinets a bit and found 800 un-opened rem large rifle mag primers, packs in 100 count primer tray packs
, you might have thought he won the lotto when I handed him those primers and said,
"GOOD LUCK, I won't use these, but if you want them, here you go!"
hey at least they won't go to waste, I know he will use them in his marlin 45/70, and hes welcome to them.
the last time I used them, about one in every 50 cartridges had a hang- fire, and trust me if you pull the trigger on a 340 mag and there was a 1/2 second delay before the gun fires you damn well notice, and yeah I checked there was not stiff grease or oil slowing the fire pin fall, nor were the primers not fully seated,
they just were not 100% functional in below zero temps that year, and no,
I don,t know if it was just a freak bad batch,
but I never had issues with federal 215 or winchester mag large rifle primes so I stick to federals if available and winchester as a second option
they were easy to identify a rem primers are gold tint color, in the loaded ammo, while the others are silver
btw some powders like RL19, H4831 and ACURATE 8700, IMR 5010, RETUMBO, ARE hard to light

Primer sizes can be broken down as follows:
  1. Small rifle primerswhich are about .175 inches in diameter and .120 inches tall.
  2. Small pistol primers which are about the same size as small rifle primers but designed specifically for handguns.
  3. Large rifle primers – which measure about .128 inches in height and .212 inches in width.
  4. Large pistol primers – which are an average of .120 inches tall and.212 inches wide.
 
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