Remington 97* Open Flash Hole Shotshell Primers Okay with Clays?

[Liberty1776]

Tucked away in my garage I found an ancient box containing about 800 Remington 97* 209-sized shotshell primers. That's about $44 sitting there. Had them since the early 1980's. They appear to be in good condition. No corrosion, bright metal.

But I wrote a note on the box that they have open flash holes and should not be used with fine-grain ball powders. (Sure enough, my Federal 209's have a paper cover over the flash hole so powder cannot migrate into the primer.)

I'm light-loading 12-ga 2-3/4" AA hulls for Cowboy Action in my Stoeger Coach Gun.

- Claybuster CB0178-12 wads
- 7/8 oz of 7-1/2 shot (MEC 30278 bar)
- 13.6 grains of Clays (MEC bushing #25)
- Federal 209 primers

So far, the above components reload and go bang just fine. Mild recoil and sufficient pattern and punch for the short-range targets in CAS.

Question:

Clays appears to be fairly coarse. I don't think it will migrate into the flash hole of the Remington 97* primers.

Do you see a problem combining Rem 97* primers and Clays?

What do you experts think? Thanks.

[Ginsing]

Last year I shot off 300 97* primers using using universal clays and 700x. All went bang no issues.
I believe it was common practice to load flake powder with those primers. I was told from the gentleman that gave them to me his pet trap load with the 97* was using red dot. He shot thousands of them.
He did tell me to avoid ball powder when using them.

[Liberty1776]

Last year I shot off 300 97* primers using using universal clays and 700x. All went bang no issues.
I believe it was common practice to load flake powder with those primers. I was told from the gentleman that gave them to me his pet trap load with the 97* was using red dot. He shot thousands of them.
He did tell me to avoid ball powder when using them.

Good to hear. Just looking at Clays it appears too large to fit into the flash hole, but I wanted to hear from someone who tried it.

Shame to waste 800 primers.

[Rball]

Don't waste them, do this. Use non lotion facial tissue. Cut 5/8" squares, separate the layers, prime your shells, place one piece in each shell, using a pencil, cover the primer with the tissue. Dump in your powder and continue loading. I did this with 57* in paper shells with IMR4227 and .610 RB. Absolutely no problems with ignition and the tissue burns up.