Primmer holes....

[NSP64]

How big is too big???? I have some range pickup .45 acp brass that the hole looks drilled out. It is different headstamps and I compared it to my known good winchester (0.080 compared to 0.098).

[randyrat]

I have the same thing with some 45 acp brass.. I figured someone drilled them out but, from what others say they come that way from the factory. I sorted mine out of the herd and will play with them some other day.

[cajun shooter]

I think that I have seen somewhere that brass with large holes are used to fire the plastic Speer 45acp practice bullet and that the brass is dangerous to use for regular loading.

[MtGun44]

I think some lead free primers need larger flash holes, probably due to weak
flash from the non-lead priming material, but that is a guess.

Bill

[Bret4207]

The idea is that the larger the flash hole, the more pressure can return to the primer as the powder burns and be put against the primer and "it'll blow out". That's supposed to be the problem. When you think about it, that only makes a certain amount of sense, if any. The pressure in a cylinder rises more or less equally. The only thing a smaller flash hole does in that respect is retard the pressure rise, and I don't know enough about it to even guess if that's a real part of the issue. Larger flash holes let the primer burst exit faster into the case, sometimes that good (primer powered rounds), sometimes it's not (blows powder around, starts the bullet moving). The choice is up to you if you want to experiment and see what difference you find, if any.

If you do decide to try it, observe, record, pass the info on please. You might discover something interesting.

[NSP64]

They were found at an outdoor range ,so I don't think they were for practice rounds . There was quite a few from different manufacturers , that's why I started thinking that somebody had drilled them out. I will see if I can load some from the same manufacturers with small holes and large holes, to see if there is a velocity or pressure difference .( pressure meaning more flattened primer )

[94Doug]

I ran across some of these too. Only a few in a thousand, so I threw them away. At the time, I figured the plastic bullet idea, but now I guess it must have been the primers....

Doug

[Mavrick]

I've picked them up in .45ACP, too. Mostly, I just keep them separate. They may shoot to a different spot a little. It'll just open the group, but loaded together, they should be fine.
Since most of my .45 Auto stuff is loaded with CCI 300s, I compare them and find only an average of about 10fps between averages. I don't believe in +Ps in the .45, so I see no real difference.
Have fun,
Gene

[Bret4207]

I wonder if it was someones attempt at "uniforming" the flash holes?

[klutz347]

More than likely a NT round. NT primers need a larger flash hole to fire.

When NT first came out, I emailed Winchester asking about reloadability of the cases. They said that normal reloading recipies could be used using standard primers.

I've loaded several 1000 NT cases with out any problems.

[chris in va]

Reloaded a few myself, no issues.

[markinalpine]

Winchester has posted at their website that their (Winchester) cases with large flash holes may be safely reloaded. I have a lot of range pickup brass in .45 AP, and found that Speer cases also tend to have larger flash holes. I would separate my brass by brand, and then by flash hole size for the Win. cases, and use them segregated that way if I was going to worry about precision. For my usual plinking, I don't worry about it that much.
Mark

[Dan Cash]

Markinalpine is correct. As I am not a bulls eye shooter, I can not say if reloads useing these large flash hole cases will shoot to a different point of impact or not but they sure caused no problems with IPSC shooting. I would not bother segregating them and just enjoy the bounty.

[Good Cheer]

Have yall seen the Winchester rifle brass with heyholed primer holes?
Looks like the only way you could get consistency would be to drill them out BIG.
Beats me if even that would work but wondered if anyone had run upon this particular problem.