300blk, 454 casull and small pistol primers

[jptechnical]

I accidently bought a case of small pistol primers when I intended on small rifle primers. I am just about to start reloading 300blk and a recent post indicated some have used small pistol primers to one degree or another in small rifle brass. I am hoping to use these up, any thoughts on using for this 300blk or a .454 ruger Alaskan snubby, both as plinking rounds?

Sorry to if I hijacked or cross posted incorrectly. Good helpful reading as I wait for brass and die set to arrive. I have an rcbs .308 200gn rnfp that I use in my .06 that I will try loading in this 300blk soon to start.

Thanks!


yeah the lee t/l boolit, I'm still using up one of the test batches of 45/45/10 lube with wax and extra M/S.
I'm just searching that quiet/slow area for a cheap-o 50 yd shooter round that can be popped off all afternoon [cheaply] for some trigger time for the kids.

the vertical stringing in this case is being caused by the colder pistol primers I tried in this last batch, it doesn't do it with sr primers.
you'd think 3.5 grs of 700-x would be a pretty benign load, but it's just borderline enough to show up any inconsistency's.
I have some sp mag primers i'll give a go here soon, and see what they do.

[triggerhappy243]

​dont do it. They were designed​ for small rifle for a reason!

[dragon813gt]

You run the risk of piercing a primer if using them in a rifle. And I know H110 is a favorite powder of 300blk reloaders. That powder requires a magnum primer. Powder determines primer selection along w/ firearm type.

[petroid]

Dunno about the 454 but if you are loading the 300blk subsonic in a bolt or single shot I think you would be ok. Never use sp primers for full power loads or at any speed on an autoloader. Too much chance of a slam fire from a floating pin

[Tatume]

My experience is that small pistol primers are unreliable in the 454 Casull when it is loaded with H110, W296 or Accurate #9. They will push the bullet and powder out of the case and into the barrel without igniting the powder. When the bullet is then driven out, the powder is found to be fused into a clump with the coating burned off (Accurate #9 is yellow, did you know that?). Although I haven't tried it, I would expect the same results with IMR4227 and H4227.

Another fellow on this list has had good results using small pistol MAGNUM primers with the 454 Casull, but only rifle primers work well with full-power loads in my personal tests.

I have had good results loading 454 Casull ammunition with Unique and small pistol primers. Muzzle velocities are held to 1100 fps or less. Such ammunition makes good, pleasant practice ammo.

[jptechnical]

I must admit I am not a fan of h110 because of some cold weather performance issues up he in Alaska, but I can't dismiss possible contamination as the cause, so I understand h110 doesn't touch of as easily, and that would certainly affect what primer I use. Personally, I love Unique, it is the first thing I go for in plinking and some production loads. My favorite is a low recoil, dead nuts accurate 45-70 round of around 10-12 gns. Of course you can practically touch off unique with a piece of wet tissue paper as easy as it takes to fire regardless of case position.

Thanks for the practical whys and why nots. I have a feeling that a load light enough to get away with a small pistol primer will not be enough to cycle the action on my ar, so single shot it would be, which doesn't sound like as much fun. Primer puncture is a concern, but not super high, for what I load and fire in that is. I loath the extra mess that 45 colt makes in the 454, so I will move my 45 Colt loads to 454 cases and maybe burn up those small pistol primers in those cowboy loads.

My long term intention is caribou hunting with heavy subsonic 300blk at 150yd or less (my personally imposed Max yardage). Next season I am tempted to try for moose with it if I can talk my buddy into backing me up in case it turns out to be insufficient. I am not as spray and pray hunter, so we will just have to see what kind of performance I get from this cartridge and good handloads. But that won't be with small pistol primers!

Thanks again.

Thanks again!

[dragon813gt]

H110 specifically calls for a magnum primer due to ignition issues. A small pistol primer should never be used. Check w/ the powder manufacturer to determine which primers are required. The fine ball powders are hard to ignite.

[wlc]

JP, How many of those SP primers do you have? I might be willing to buy them, or a portion of them, from you and you can replace them with SRP. Lately I've been seeing more and more primers on the shelves around here so it might not be hard to replace them. Just a thought.

[jptechnical]

JP, How many of those SP primers do you have? I might be willing to buy them, or a portion of them, from you and you can replace them with SRP. Lately I've been seeing more and more primers on the shelves around here so it might not be hard to replace them. Just a thought.
Unless you were in Alaska, I can't ship them to you.

[murf205]

[QUOTE=Tatume;2964221]My experience is that small pistol primers are unreliable in the 454 Casull when it is loaded with H110, W296 or Accurate #9. They will push the bullet and powder out of the case and into the barrel without igniting the powder. When the bullet is then driven out, the powder is found to be fused into a clump with the coating burned off.....


That's exactly what happened to me last week in a bone stock Super Redhawk 454 with MAGNUM RIFLE primers and H-110. The load was under a 300 gr cast Lee boolit(with a stiff crimp) and it pushed the powder out of the cylinder into the forcing cone and made a hulluva mess---2 times--- before I scraped that range session and pulled the ammo down and poured the H-110 back in the can, and traded it to a friend on mine for a set of dies. I will not have another grain of this junk on my bench. Too drastic you say--well this is the 3rd time this has happened to me and all 3 times it has been with a magnum primer in 3 different revolvers--all stock with no hammer spring issues or any other problems with any other powder. For everybody who loves it(and it does produce some spectacular velocities) I am glad you are having success with it, but as for me---I'm done with it. Just my 2 cents worth.

[jptechnical]

I suspect there might be some temperature instabilities with h110, I have heard that story from some other friends up here. I kept the h110 riunds in my pocket and never had another failure. But I realized that keeping my revolver ammo in my pocket was terribly impractical and switched to 4227 in the 454, so far so good.

[dragon813gt]

Why would you put powder that gave you problems back in the jar. And then give it to a friend :eek:

Throw the powder away as something is wrong. It's not worth any potential problems over a few bucks. I've heard of cold weather ignition issues when it comes to H110/W296. I haven't experienced it. But it the coldest temp I've shot it in was in the low twenties. I know this is nothing for you northern guys.

[Pinsnscrews]

This very nice bit was posted in Special Projects regarding Primers. Might be worth reading.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?256081-Primers-and-brisance-discussion&highlight=Primer+brisance

as for your .454 Casull, I was unaware of it calling for small pistol primers. There is a cup size difference between small pistol .175 and large pistol .210. In my thinking, that is enough slack to allow the primer to move in the pocket under recoil or even under pressure.

[bobthenailer]

I use federal small pistol primers in the 454 Casull when loading Tightgroup powder , 8.0 gr @1,000 to 9.0 gr @1,100 fps with cast lead boolets weighing 260 , 270 & 300 gr with excellent accuracy from my FA revolver's.

I have gone as high as 11.0 grs of TG powder with excellent accuracy but used small rifle primers in loads over 9.0 grs.

[Tatume]

My experience is that small pistol primers are unreliable in the 454 Casull when it is loaded with H110, W296 or Accurate #9. They will push the bullet and powder out of the case and into the barrel without igniting the powder. When the bullet is then driven out, the powder is found to be fused into a clump with the coating burned off.....


That's exactly what happened to me last week in a bone stock Super Redhawk 454 with MAGNUM RIFLE primers and H-110.

Your problem is not with primers, but with charge volume. This problem occurs with any primer. H110, W296 and Accurate #9 should be loaded with close to 100% of the case volume filled. These powders are deliberately hard to ignite, and if there is significant air space in the case, the powder will be pushed to the base of the bullet by recoil of previously fired shots. The primer flame must then travel across the air gap to reach the powder, and is unable to ignite the powder at that distance. Easier to ignite powders, such as 2400 or Unique, do not suffer from this problem.

To successfully use H110 in the 454 Casull cartridge, use data from http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/ without reductions.

[murf205]

Why would you put powder that gave you problems back in the jar. And then give it to a friend :eek:

Throw the powder away as something is wrong. It's not worth any potential problems over a few bucks. I've heard of cold weather ignition issues when it comes to H110/W296. I haven't experienced it. But it the coldest temp I've shot it in was in the low twenties. I know this is nothing for you northern guys.

Because he asked for it AND he and I have had a long discussion about this problem(that he hasn't had yet). If you haven't had this problem, I'm glad for you. Like I said previously, just my 2 cents worth.
Murf

[wlc]

JP, How many of those SP primers do you have? I might be willing to buy them, or a portion of them, from you and you can replace them with SRP. Lately I've been seeing more and more primers on the shelves around here so it might not be hard to replace them. Just a thought.


Unless you were in Alaska, I can't ship them to you.

I am. Just depends on how close we are to each other. I'm in the valley. How bout you?

[jptechnical]

Anchorage. I am sorry, my father inlaw snagged them.

[wlc]

No problem. Just thought I'd make the offer if you needed to get rid of them.

[44man]

[QUOTE=Tatume;2964221]My experience is that small pistol primers are unreliable in the 454 Casull when it is loaded with H110, W296 or Accurate #9. They will push the bullet and powder out of the case and into the barrel without igniting the powder. When the bullet is then driven out, the powder is found to be fused into a clump with the coating burned off.....


That's exactly what happened to me last week in a bone stock Super Redhawk 454 with MAGNUM RIFLE primers and H-110. The load was under a 300 gr cast Lee boolit(with a stiff crimp) and it pushed the powder out of the cylinder into the forcing cone and made a hulluva mess---2 times--- before I scraped that range session and pulled the ammo down and poured the H-110 back in the can, and traded it to a friend on mine for a set of dies. I will not have another grain of this junk on my bench. Too drastic you say--well this is the 3rd time this has happened to me and all 3 times it has been with a magnum primer in 3 different revolvers--all stock with no hammer spring issues or any other problems with any other powder. For everybody who loves it(and it does produce some spectacular velocities) I am glad you are having success with it, but as for me---I'm done with it. Just my 2 cents worth.

Tatume is correct, you used too low a charge. I have gone over our experiments with the .454 with failures to ignite using starting book loads of 296. I stand by my assessment that the SR primer is the wrong primer for the .454. We cut down .460 brass and went to the LP mag primer to cure all ignition problems with any book load but a max charge was still more accurate.
We even tried the Fed 150 and all charges ignited but the 155 is more accurate.
I have a feeling it is why there might be a problem in cold weather too.
I use a 150 in the .44 mag and had zero problems at -20* with 296.
There is nothing wrong with the H110, it is the primer.
The question was about the SP in the .454 and I would say yes, with certain powders but sure not with H110.
Same as a LP with high pressures, done it too many times in rifles and took the .454 to well over 55,000 # with a 150 without even getting them flat. I will keep away from saying a SP or LP can't take the pressures.
I use over power mainsprings in my revolvers with the Fed 150, of 26# and have used 28# so if anything will puncture a primer, why does it work? Why does accuracy increase with a stronger spring? No, it is not lock time either.
Talk crimp for a second in the .454, what do you expect it to do? We shot factory cast loads that had full profile crimps so hard that I asked "Why so much crimp?" Enough to ruin the boolit trying to get out and ruin brass. I was right, two shots locked the guns with boolit pull while my normal roll crimp never let a boolit move because of proper case tension.
Too many things are repeated over and over, H110 and 296 MUST use a mag primer and crimp will aid ignition, cold stops these powders from igniting, some of this stuff should go away.
I do not and will never own a .454, if I did I would cut .460 brass to allow the caliber to work. I would use a Fed 155 in it.
Many find a problem and find blame where it is NOT. Stop reading and DO.
To give away the best powder because of the wrong primer or loading technique baffles me.

[Cornbread]

I dislike H110 for a lot of reasons. I use compressed loads in it always but I won't shoot them in sub zero temps. I use 4227 for just about everything 454 related now.

Do you have any Unique powder? You can make 250gr plinker loads using those primers and Unique. I had a bunch of soft cast lead 250gr 45 acp bullets that I wanted to shoot up out of a 454. I posted for how to do it on here a long while back and somebody gave me a Unique based load to try. It worked great. It was like shooting a .22 and it is only good out to about 25 yards but it allowed me to plink up all those 45 acp bullets with no problem out of a 2" 454 snubby I have. My kids loved the loads and shot the heck out of them. They were pretty dirty loads because they don't really expand the case much at all but they would work with small pistol primers as well as small rifle. I know CCI small pistol and small rifle primers are exactly identical in size according to the manufacturer the difference is in how thick the back of them is and how much "juice" they have in them. But for mouse fart loads like I did for my kids I bet they would work fine.

[44man]

I have sectioned primers and measured thickness. The SR and SP primers are both .015" thick.
There is only one powder and that is H110/296 and is all I use in the .44, .45 Colt, .475, .500 JRH and .500 S&W. It should NOT be compressed, only small air space. The wrong primer will move a boolit and increase air space before ignition. Too much air space and not enough fire will fail.
The SR primer WILL ignite a full charge.
Remember Cassull was using duplex and triplex loads, starting with Bullseye next to the primer and thought the SR primer held pressure better. The primer stuck for some stupid reason.