Ammunition & Hand Loading > Cartridge and Shotshell reloading
Small rifle primers in 9mm reloads?
jonm:
--- Quote from: SS_N_NE on April 21, 2013, 09:18:01 PM ---Not an expert on this (at all). No practical use of rifle primers in pistol loads.
--- End quote ---
They are practical when you cant find small pistol primers or refuse to pay outrageous prices.
bkoenig:
--- Quote from: abbafandr on April 21, 2013, 08:10:28 PM ---By roughly how much? 10 or 20%?
--- End quote ---
I would think 10 or 15% would be sufficient. If you want to be really careful you could start at whatever your manual lists for starting loads.
Small rifle primers are usually, but not always, a little hotter than small pistol. The primary difference is that the cup is a little thicker to take the higher pressure of rifle loads. For this reason some pistols may not ignite them consistently. In fact, there is some speculation that certain companies just label standard small rifle primers as magnum small pistol, rather than making two different primers. I can't speak to whether that is true, but I have used small rifle primers in pistol loads with no problems.
Never go the other way- small pistol primers are not strong enough to withstand rifle loads even though they will fit in the pocket. You run the risk of rupturing the primer and blowing hot gas all over your face.
SS_N_NE:
I had a box of Remington 9mm 115gr JHP. Fired from a Berreta 92fs, some of the primers blew out the firing pin indentation. Did not notice any overpressure signs other than the hole in the primer. Did feel some particles blow into my face when the bad rounds occured. About 3 rounds in a box of 50.
Mic'd some of the primer remnants and found some very thin metal in the blown primers. It appeared the primer cups were binding during the press operation in manufacturer and stretched the metal thin (there were stretch marks accross the grain of the metal...I have some experience in destructive metal testing via a quality control job in semi-trailer manufacturer).
GreyGeek:
Thanks to the benevolence of gds I got a brick of CCI #550 small pistol magnum primers.
The recipe I started with used regular primers, 4.5 grains of HP-38 and an OAL of 1.125". Some people were reporting that 4.4 and 4.5 grains of HP-38 were working OK with magnum primers, but they weren't shooting a Beretta Nano with a 3" barrel.
I cut back about 10%. I made a batch of 50 each of 3.9 gr, 4.0 gr and 4.1 gr. It appeared to me that all the loads were too hot, especially the 4.1 gr, which gave significant recoil and noise. The 4.1 gr loads cratered the primers and flattened half of them. Even the 3.9 gr loads cratered the primers. I am using Berry's fully jacketed RN bullets and and set the OAL to 1.125".
I've dropped back to a batch of 3.7 grs of HP-38 but haven't fired them yet. HP-38 is hot and I was concerned about not filling the casing and possibly causing a detonation so I calculated the volume the 3.7 grs took and found that it left only 20% of the space empty.
SemperFiGuy:
Some time ago I went to Cabelas. Asked the clerk for a kilo of WSP primers. [They still had 'em.]
Gottem home. Looked at box. Winchester WSP MAGNUM primers. I shoot about two (2) .357Mag rounds/year.
'Course, no point in taking them back to Cabela's. No-exchange rule.
Kicked my own butt for a while, just as a reminder to look at the stuff people are handing to me. Got over that.
Checked out possible uses. Turns out, several of my savvy reloading associates have used WSP Magnums as substitute for ordinary WSPs in these days of component shortage. Their solution for .38Spcl loads w/148gr DEWCs was to use the WSP Magnum primers and 3.5gr [very low-end load] of Win231. Stated results: "'Bout the same as the usual 4.0gr Win231 and regular WSP primers."
So I made up 20 rounds. Haven't shot 'em yet. Chicken.
I'm planning to make a deal w/unfy. "I'll shoot 20 rounds of your be-yoo-tee-fulll red-coated stuff if you'll shoot these 20 rounds for me. Could you move a coupla lanes more to the left????"
'Course it will never work. unfy is wayyyyyyyyy too wise and innately cautious for that kinda caper.
sfg
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