Reloading help?

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armoredman

armoredman

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Got my first powder/primers tody, and screwed up. I got the Accurate #2 powder I wanted, but snagged CCI 500 Small Pistol primers instead of the Winchester ones in the reloading guide. Will this affect anything? Anyone have problems with CCI primers in new autoloaders? Loading Rainier 115 gr plated ball 9mm. Thanks.
 
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The CCI's will work well as a replacement for the same class of Winchester primers. CCI primers have a reputation for being a tad harder than Win or Federal primers, but they work fine in almost all applications they are intended for. Load away.
 
I started out with CCI primers, but switched to Winchester. The CCI's will work fine, the cups are a little harder than Winchester, Remington or Federal primers. The only real problem I had with CCI primers was that they seemed harder to seat and the seating depth did not seem to be as uniform as with Winchester primers.
 
For pistol, there's really no difference as far as the load data goes.

The CCI's don't feed well in my Dillon and the Federals are a bit soft for me.
 
Speaking of feeding, I have gone from decapping/resizing to repriming, under tutelage, of course. Once in a while, a primer seems to "sanp" in, rather than a nice smooth moove. Call me paranoid, but for safety's sake I discarded those cases that "snapped" primers in. Overly cautious?:confused:
 
Yes.

But, only you can decide what level of caution you are comfortable with. Paranoia can be your friend in the reloading game.

By 'discard', I trust you mean you set them aside to remove the primers later. No need to discard a good case until it is proven unusable.
 
I decap live primers frequently. Took me a while to get comfortable with it. Just do it slow and easy and you'll have nothing to worry about. Wear eye and ear protection and you'll REALLY have nothing to worry about.

It takes a pretty energetic strike to get the stuff to go off and a slow push from the decaping pin won't do it.

Now, if the primer is crimped in (if you happen to be pulling military brass) then you need more force to get it out and you'd probably be better off leaving it be.

This is just me, YMMV. Took me a while to get to this comfort level myself ;)
 
Why not just fire the primed brass in your gun to "deactivate" the primer prior to decapping?

Could be good semi-dryfiring practice...

Chris
 
deprime

I too have yet to become really comfortable depriming live primers although I have been known to cautiously test the water from time to time. Making them inert with a drop of gun oil and a little time to be sure works for me.I'm out of the city but even in my neighborhood some of the neighbors don't need to know anymore than necessary- that said, my Grandson and Granddaughter do enjoy popping "caps" in the backyard with Pops.
Using Federal primers on rifle and Winchester primers on handgun at present. However I started out with CCI and never had a problem.
What drove you to choose AA#2- just curious? AA#5 seems to be more versitile.
 
i've been playing a lot with primers lately, and thought i'd share some data.

loading setup is new winchester brass, 45 acp, in a dillon 1050b with a light load of 5.6g vv n320 and hornady xtp 200g HP. seat depth of 2.225". fired from wilson supergrade compact.

without varying any of those factors, i loaded a bunch of rounds with different primers and chrono'd them. The results (mean FPS):

794.20 FPS - Winchester LP (box says "Large or Magnum")
750.85 CCI LP
750.75 Federal 155 Magnum Pistol

stdev was 16.7, 19.4 and 26.1 FPS respectively

and also interestingly was that while none of the primers flattened anywhere near a dangerous level (obviously, as i'm shooting very light loads), the federal magnum primers showed more flattening than either cci or winchester. probably due to slightly softer material, but i have a theory that the magnum primer might be a bit hotter, resulting in steeper but shorter pressure curve that doesn't translate into higher velocity. dunno.

the reason i went through this exercise is that my winchester primers were giving me consistent rates of misfires around 30% (ack!) so I called wilson and they said they had the same problem and switched to federal. unfortunately, I could only find cci and fed magnum primers in nearby stores, so i decided to try them. I put about 150 rounds of the fed mag load through the pistol with zero misfires so far. I can't wait to chrono regular federal LP primers though.
 
Decapping a live one can be done,but just be slow and wear protection.I have read a LOT of posts on other boards that say i'ts almost impossible to 'deactivate' a primer,even over several days.Guess the only way to know would be to try and fire it.
some brass just has tighter primer pockets,and doubtul all primer are created equal,lol.
The 'important to watch out' step is next.If you use those loading blocks I sent ya be SURE to use a good light and check the powder levels in each case against each other.You do NOT want a double charge.In fact on the very first case I'd suggest double charging it just to know what it would look like,then dump it out right away!
Hope your enjoying the process.:)
Throckmorton aka/sass#23149
 
I have used only Winchester WLP and Federal 150 primers for my 45 ACP reloads. The documentation that came with my Dillon RL-550B recommended that Federal primers not be used because of their relative softness. I think that is because there may be a slightly higher risk of their igniting in the primer tube or feeder. Last year I installed Jerry Miculek springs in my S&W 625-3 revolver. The spring kit instructions recommended using Federal primers because they are sometimes more reliable with the lighter springs. So, what to do?

Well, I tried a thousand Federal primers and they worked fine with my Dillon primer feed system. And, of course, they worked fine in my revolver rounds. However, I did not like the Federal packaging as well as the Winchester trays. Cost was slightly higher, also. So, I ran some test loads using Winchester primers. They worked well with no misfires. I went back to them and after several thousand rounds with no misfires will just keep using them.

Dave Bennett
Georgia
 
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