Dangers of Swapping primers?

[mrblue]

So with primers being low in places. I was wondering what exactly would be the mistakes that would happen if i used small pistol primers in place of small rifle primes. I got plenty of small pistol and no small rifle. Would it still go boom? Delays? What exactly is the deal. Or can I still use them?

[unique]

The biggest concern would be pierced primer and all that goes along with that.

[nagantguy]

don't, some say you can but don't. blown and pierced primers. and all that comes with them.

[freebullet]

Srp in a pistol works, start at the start. I would not use spp in a rifle though. I'm sure some do it but I wouldn't unless we were talking end of the line times. Improper ignition, pierced, or blown primer. Some folks only by small rifle cause it works fer both.

[btroj]

Depends. Many use small pistol with light cast bullet loads.
Keep pressures under 40 K and most small pistol primers will be fine.

[uscra112]

Not black and white. The problems come at the margins of the load spectrum. High pressure loads will pierce the thinner cup. Loads in the normal pistol range (say under 30k psi) won't. I've recently had an instance where a pistol primer simply would not light a reduced load of a medium-slow powder, (milsurp 844 - a bad choice for reduced loads, I know, but I've got so much of it that I had to try in this famine time). On the other hand, when using the "Ed Harris" type loads of Red Dot in my K31 and .30-06, pistol primers are actually preferred, because they do not drive the case ahead so hard that the shoulder gets set back. (This is no small matter. I paid the current inflated price for some, as I was down to my last couple hundred.) They light the fast shotgun and pistol powders just fine.

[rintinglen]

Light cast boolit loads will work fine and be safe with pistol primers in place of rifle primers. Rifle primers may not work well (or at all) in pistol cases. Small primers are dimentionally identical in both pistol and rifle. The rifle primers have thicker cups and are harder to set off, which can result in ignition problems in handguns. Large Rifle primers are longer and may not seat deep enough to allow a cylinder to rotate in a revolver, or could cause a slam fire incident in an auto.

It is problem best avoided. When this lunacy is done, buy an extra thousand primers a month for six months an set them aside as a rainy day reserve, so you won't get stuck the next time some bonehead politicos start grand-standing.

[Reg]

For lighter or reduced loads, have used pistol ( large and small ) primers in rifle casings for years. With some loads and powders they even work better. My understanding is with a light load of some powders you can get over ignition and with the lighter pistol primers , the ignition is more uniform and gentile, anyway , it works and there is a difference.
To prevent piercing with the higher power loads, one should stick with the rifle primers, the thicker or tougher metal will help prevent this.
In using rifle primers in pistol loads, I have only heard it usually doesn't work too good. They very well may fire but ignition can be erratic, one can get over ignition with its problems and in many cases because of the harder metal used in the cup, the lighter firing pin fall of a pistol may not set off the priming composition giving misfires.

[Ben]

Depends. Many use small pistol with light cast bullet loads.
Keep pressures under 40 K and most small pistol primers will be fine.

My exact thoughts also.

Ben

[Baja_Traveler]

I use pistol primers in all my black powder rifle cartridge loads - get a more consistent ignition and better accuracy. I wouldnt use them in cases where I was pushing velocity and pressures though...

[Boz330]

When I shot a 38 Super in IPSC competition the only thing that I used was small rifle primers because of the pressure. SP would pierce. The velocities were somewhat slower but never had any other problems in literally 100K+ rounds. The thicker cup might be a problem with handguns where the springs have been lightened but in a 1911 I never had any problems.

Bob

[Bwana]

When I shot a 38 Super in IPSC competition the only thing that I used was small rifle primers because of the pressure. SP would pierce. The velocities were somewhat slower but never had any other problems in literally 100K+ rounds. The thicker cup might be a problem with handguns where the springs have been lightened but in a 1911 I never had any problems.
Bob

Really? Higher pressure and lower velocity? That does not compute.

[TES]

are spm primers better than sp primers. I have read that they have thicker cups to handle the magnum loads. So wouldn't that mean that they are closer to srp?

[Bwana]

are spm primers better than sp primers. I have read that they have thicker cups to handle the magnum loads. So wouldn't that mean that they are closer to srp?

They are not thicker. They have more and or hotter flame. They are all I use in my small pistol primer cases. I have found I get more consistant ignition. The load, for a target/competition round, is about .3gr less with spm primer in 9mm. As far as defense loads I don't know as I have always used the mag primers in those.

[Boz330]

Really? Higher pressure and lower velocity? That does not compute.

Didn't make much sense to me either but I had to make power factor so spent a lot of time running stuff over a chrono.

Bob

[MT Gianni]

I remember reading some primer tests that showed not all magnum pistol primers had a hotter flame thn the same mfg's standard and that not all rifle were hotter than another brands pistol primers. I would keep spp loads in a rifle under 30 K but that is me. Testing wil bear it out.

[easymoney]

I personally wouldn't do it. It might work but if it doesn't you could have some major problems. But.. I'd bet money that if you asked around your area you could find someone with a bunch of small rifle primers but not enough small pistol that would be willing to trade. All primers are hard to find right now so I bet it wouldn't be too long before you found someone. I am overloaded with SRP, and can always use SPP but am way too far away from Michigan to swap.

[Green Frog]

I spent several years shooting a special case made out of 357 Mag cases necked down. Mostly I used them with Federal Small Rifle Match primers and was shooting the in a custom bench gun with a straight up-and-down falling block action, so if they stuck up, then would have sheared off metal somewhere. Just my experience, but there it is!

Froggie

[uscra112]

Remembered more rifle "cases" where small pistol works much better than small rifle - the Hornet for starters. A powerful primer displaces the bullet (j-wart) before the powder lights, causing abnormal velocity variance. This has been conventional wisdom for many years. And indeed I've always had best results with the Rem 1 1/2 primers, known to be the mildest common primer you can buy. I've carried this over to my Lovell 2R loads with positive results. (The Lovell is exactly the same case capacity as the .218 Bee.) I do not load my Hornets or Lovells like they did in the '40s. I stick to loads that run no more than 40k psi in Quickload. I do not shoot cast in either of these, but a boolit would be even more susceptible to being displaced unless crimped, so the mild primer is even more important. I'd be willing to speculate that this would even hold for .222 and .223/5.56 when shooting boolits as most people do, using moderate loads of the magnum shotgun and pistol powders.

Another one is my .25-21 Stevens, which to shoot plain base boolits has to be kept below 15k psi to work well at all. Using the Rem 1 1/2 primers and AA#9 I got this one down to std.dev. of 5 fps using fixed ammo.

Small rifle primers can't stick up in a pistol case - they're the same height as small pistol primers. It's only the large rifle primer that's taller than the corresponding pistol primer.

[mrblue]

Thanks for all the info, much to consider