Didja ever..........

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cheygriz

cheygriz

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Let me start by saying this was done for my peronal curiosity and not by any stretch of the imagination is it a valid scientific study.

Over the years, I had noticed velocity variations by changing brands of primers, I always worked up the load all cover again.

I had on hand several boxes of Remington 148 grain HBWCs and a box of once fired .38 special brass.

I primed 10 cases with Rem SPP, 10 with S&B and ten with CCI. the cases were loaded with a new can of HP-38 at individually measured 3.5 grains.

Average velocity for the ten shot strings was 828, 835 and 841. I expected ten times more variation.

Again, this was not by any means scientific. I'm too old, too ornery and too impatient to load ten strings with each primer, weigh cases, watch ambient temperature, etc to do it right.

But if one of you youngsters has the patience to do this properly, it should prove fascinating.
 
There's already a thread here from a few weeks ago where someone already did that with 9mm I believe. I believe the conclusion was much the same as yours.
 
Just for fun & just cuz I have a chronograph, I've done some testing like this.

So far the results are just what's being reported here.
I've seen more disparity with different lots of powders than with different primer brands.

I've also seen tightening of data when using either mag or standard primers.
For instance, I was getting some pretty wild readings with Tula primers, 15.9 grs of 2400 & a 125 gr bullet (357 mag)
So I changed to CCI 550s (magnum primers).
What a difference! My Standard Deviation went from about 49 to 16.
Extreme Spread dropped from 111 to 38.

Certainly not a definitive test, but it's what my experience has been.
 
Hondo 60 said:
Just for fun & just cuz I have a chronograph, I've done some testing like this.

So far the results are just what's being reported here.
I've seen more disparity with different lots of powders than with different primer brands.

I've also seen tightening of data when using either mag or standard primers.
For instance, I was getting some pretty wild readings with Tula primers, 15.9 grs of 2400 & a 125 gr bullet (357 mag)
So I changed to CCI 550s (magnum primers).
What a difference! My Standard Deviation went from about 49 to 16.
Extreme Spread dropped from 111 to 38.

Certainly not a definitive test, but it's what my experience has been.
Click to expand...

I did the same thing with the 5.56mm in my AR... swapping just the primers in an H335/55grn cartridge. The standard primer gave better SD and more velocity. Go figure.
 
I like Federal primers because several of my revolvers are set up with light actions and I sometimes get a ftf with CCI. About a year ago, I couldn't find any small pistol except magnum, so I did some testing much like the op, but not real scientific. Long story short, I now load everything with Federal SP Magnum primers. Granted my magnum loads for hunting call for Magnum primers with H110, but my .38 loads that I shoot the most of consist of mostly Universal and on occasion, I'll use HS-6 or Power Pistol. I've seen very little difference going to the magnum primer. The hottest .38 I'm using is about 85% of max +p so I didn't think I was taking a huge risk, but based on the Chrony results, I see very little difference in velocity and/or accuracy . I still load the 148 hbwc rabbit fart loads with standard primers, but everything else gets the magnum since I have around 20k on hand.
 
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