Question About the Need for Magnum Primers in Leverguns

[Jeff82]

I shoot a Marlin 1894C carbine with 357 magnum cartridges. Does anyone use regular primers for their levergun cartridges? It seems to me that since a carbine has a much longer barrel than a pistol, a magnum primer is not needed.

Comments?

[runfiverun]

if it ain't needed in a revolver it ain't needed in a lever gun.

in other words the primer is used to tune the load itself.

[Char-Gar]

Once decades ago I used some magnum small pistol primers to load some hot 357 Mags with 296. I bought just one box and never bought any more.

I have however loaded many, many thousands 357 Magnum loads with 2400 and Unique for handgun and rifle and never use a magnum primer. Don't plan to neither.

[Salmoneye]

Magnum primers and a firm crimp are needed for some powders, especially in cold weather...

If your recipe does not call for mag primers, do not use them...

It has nothing to do with the cartridge name including the word 'magnum'...

[GoodOlBoy]

there are loads for mag primers, and loads for non-mag primers. Whether or not you need it is up to you. I don't own a single mag primer, but I just need my loads to be accurate and do the job on the other end. i can do that without the mag primer, so there we go.

GoodOlBoy

[osteodoc08]

I've only used mag primers when igniting 296.

[Duckiller]

Mag or Std primers has nothing to do with barrel length. The question is what powder are you using? If you use H110/Win296 and shoot/ hunt in winter you probably need Mag primers to light off the powder.

[Jeff82]

What got me thinking about this was that I was routinely using regular small pistol primers in my 357 loads using Universal or SR-7625 powder and cast 158-grain bullets. When the supply of primers dried up, I had to switch to Federal Magnum primers. Everything went along smoothly. Now that primers are more available I was going to switch back to Remington small pistol primers, but was surprised to see a warning on the box that their small pistol primers should not be used in magnum cartridges. My loading manuals don't specify which type of small pistol primer should be used. So, I'm a bit confused.

[runfiverun]

okay I see where you could be confused.
they are talking about brisance level.
magnum primers have a hotter flame or a longer duration than their non magnum counter parts.
and there is a difference in how much spark different brands of primers put out.
mostly because they use different base stocks to make their primers. [lead or aluminum]

I have found some primers just seem to work better with some powder types.
cci 300's with flake type powders in pistol/revolver cases, federal 210's/rem-91/2's with short fat stick type rifle powders, Winchesters with ball powders, etc...

the Remington primers are saying to not use them with magnum type cases because they have a fairly weak spark to them and do their best work in the shorter cases and easy to ignite small powder amounts.
they are probably super accurate in the 38 special under 3 grs of bulls-eye.
but would have difficulty igniting 12grs of H-110 in the 357 case reliably because of their brisance level.
this can cause hang fires and would be the situation they are talking about.

[Jeff82]

Thanks! That helps.