shotgun primers in rifle cases

[indian joe]

Most Shotgun Loads top out at about 12,000 to 13,000 PSI. I would think that one would want to keep Shot Gun Primer Primed rifles cases at less then 33,000 PSI Loads or less.

easy ! blackpowder only for this project

[indian joe]

There are still a number of shotgun reloaders in SW Michigan/NW Ohio. Three buddies just bought a case each of 209's for ~$300 a case. A bunch more skeet shooters I know would snatch up your primers in a heart beat.

Check at the local skeet clubs. Either guys loading sub-gauge or specialty reduced 12 gauge for skeet.

I've got a!most 60 boxes of 12's on the bench that I reloaded over the last couple of days.

Almost time to move on to the 20's, 28's and 410's.

I'm in the market for a nice 16 gauge, when that follows me home, the 16 gauge MEC 650 will come off the shelf.

Have you priced 16 gauge lately? Last I saw was $20+ for the TWO boxes on the shelf. Same kind of price for 28 and .410.

I've got large rifle that would swap nicely for 209's, safer for you and your rifle. I suspect there are skeet guys local to you that would think the same way.

I did a deal for 16 gauge a while back - LGS had some - got about 2/3 of a case for 10% less per box than their cheapest 12gauge (its eastern Euro stuff but shoots ok) got a nice little Hollis sxs that I inherited. Dont shoot shotgun much, that lot will keep me going for ages.

[Winger Ed.]

209 primers loaded to much higher pressures in several rifles. If headspace is good a 209 primer is good for at least 25 K pressures.

They get on with it.
I'm not sure how they compare to large rifle or pistol primers though.

In the Service, as part of their survival gear, air crew are given 'pen flares'.
The launcher looks like a big ink pen, and they fire a red flare about the size of your thumb.
It goes up about 2-300 feet or so.

They are powered with nothing but a 209 primer.

[Baltimoreed]

Down under huh…In that case forget what I said, fire up the lathe and start building 209 primed cases. I’ll tell you what a Canadian self taught gunsmith named Dale Friesen did that i met in the summer of ‘73 on a 13,000 mile cross US and Canada trip. He had a nice Sharps carbine in maybe .50-70. In order to shoot it he turned the case heads out of bar stock brass and soldered shim brass on them to make a case. Loaded them with black powder. He said he could get 3-4 reloads before he had to rebuild them. We went prairie dog hunting one day, gave me a 50 caliber muzzle loader. He killed a few, I came close. Had a blast. One of the best days I’ve ever spent shooting.

[hiram]

I was told that shotgun primers are regular primers that are pressed into the sleeve that fits the shotgun shell. Can you make a device to hold the primer and use a flat punch to push the primer out of the sleeve?

[nicholst55]

Many, many years ago in Handloader magazine, they ran an article where the author modified some .45-70 brass to use shotgun primers. I don't recall many details, but as I recall they were trying to get more complete ignition of whatever powder(s) they were using. After modifying a small lot of brass and testing them with various loads, they determined that the results didn't justify the effort involved. I don't recall if they were using black powder or smokeless. I can't recall about when this was, so I don't know if a back issue could be found or not.

[SOFMatchstaff]

I am in the process of making some Berdan 303 Brit cases accept the 209 primer. With the price of brass, I thought it might give me some casings to use with the lower pressure loads in the 1914 Enfield. They fit nice and tight and the range session tomorrow will tell the tale. Cast lead and some Trail Boss to start.

Its an easy trip thru the lathe to get the primer pocket cut and I pushed the 209 in with the tailstock. Once I test the loads and see what the case/primer looks like I'll refine the process, or drop it...

[rbuck351]

I have used 209s in 7.62x54 for cast loads and also made 410 cases from Berdan 303s modified to accept 209s. I haven't tried full smokeless loads in a converted case but I'm fairly sure they would work fine with black powder loads. When the weather gets a bit better I will be trying some jacketed loads in the 7.62x54. The 209 going through the web of the case shouldn't be flattened out by pressure as the pressure inside the primer should be the same as on the front of the primer. Also the 209s have a fairly thick cup.

209s have a berdan style primer cup with an anvil that fits in the steel outer part of the 209 before the berdan style primer cup is inserted.
I can't see how you could use them in a case with a boxer primer pocket.

[15meter]

I'm downunder - it looks like money dynamics in the ammo game are different here - we get imports from eastern Europe and asia. I have a couple good contacts in the trap game and we cant find anybody interested. One or two guys reloading within a hundred miles of me and they would take them for free but dont want to pay. Still plenty ammo on the shelves here. Prices going up of course and that might get blokes back into reloading but we have a local manufacturer doing trap loads, I imagine will keep the lid on it.

Was at one of the clubs I belong this morning, you could have sold them there in a heartbeat. Between Covid, Remington's bankruptcy, and the riots in 2020 that brought us multiple million new shooters the US shelves were stripped bare.

Remington by itself was, by several accounts that I read, selling almost 40% of the ammunition in this country pre-bankruptcy. Take 40% off the shelf of ANY item and things are going to get squirrelly. The stupidity in this country exploded during the worst of it.

Watched one guy snatching two boxes(the daily limit) of ammo off the shelf this time last year for a caliber he didn't even own while he was bellowing he was getting it because Biden was going to outlaw all ammunition sales and that was the last that we were ever going to see.

Prices went nuts, a $10 box of 22 ammo was $180 at the gun show. One guy came into the gun club with 50 year old 22 ammo wanting $100 for the, in 1970's price, $6 worth of ammo. And he bragged he wasn't ripping people off like those criminals at the gun show. Of course, his nickname is Mr. Haney,(and has been for years) after a 1960's vintage television con man.

We are starting to recover, stuff is showing back up on the shelves, 50-100% higher than before the silliness, but it is coming back and the prices are already starting to come down.

[Outpost75]

My friend in Italy modifies Berdan-primed cases for various 11mm black powder rifle rounds to use common shotshell primers loading cast bullets and either black powder or light smokeless loads. Works fine also for 10.4mm Bodeo revolver.

[indian joe]

Thanks to all who responded here - some good info has come forth - enough to make me feel comfortable about this project.

[ascast]

I would like to see someone who has done this give a step by step " how to" as I have buckets of Berdan primed brass and recently made a huge score on some shotgun primers. I'm not going to go nutz on this, just want to know in case of all out zombie issues.

tx in advance.

[dverna]

I have been holding on to Berdan .308 cases and this should make an interesting project. I have a lathe and that should make it feasible. I have 10's of thousands of 209's from when I shot a lot of trap. Will be a good way to use them up and save my LRP's

[missionary5155]

Greetings
To answer your question about BP loads. I have shot out 12 gauge Fox B 30 inch barrels with 135 grains 3f Goex in Winchester plastic and paper hulls pushing a .685 WW round ball in a plastic shotcup. Velocity was 1550 FPS.
No visible evidence that the Winchester shotgun primers suffered any "over pressure" issue. Removal of fired priers seemed normal and replacement also.
Same hulls were fired over 5x each. The plastic hulls were discarded after 7x due to BP deterioration.

[indian joe]

Greetings
To answer your question about BP loads. I have shot out 12 gauge Fox B 30 inch barrels with 135 grains 3f Goex in Winchester plastic and paper hulls pushing a .685 WW round ball in a plastic shotcup. Velocity was 1550 FPS.
No visible evidence that the Winchester shotgun primers suffered any "over pressure" issue. Removal of fired priers seemed normal and replacement also.
Same hulls were fired over 5x each. The plastic hulls were discarded after 7x due to BP deterioration.

I do like the way you do stuff!

[missionary5155]

This was a 12 gauge project of 30 years ago. Wanted a "double big stick". So our 12 gauge Fox B was elected. Started with the idea to get to 1550
FPS as this was going to be all I would need for any 48 state critter that lived. Range was set at 50 yards. The .685 RB seemed to shoot respectively out of the standard Winchester red wad without having to do any special work
Latter the Goex 3F idea popped up. 3F was the choice as I knew from previous 2F BP loads in that Fox B there was not enough room in the hull.
But 3F Goex burned very clean and chewed up plastic cases less.
But never had any primer hole issues.

[indian joe]

This was a 12 gauge project of 30 years ago. Wanted a "double big stick". So our 12 gauge Fox B was elected. Started with the idea to get to 1550
FPS as this was going to be all I would need for any 48 state critter that lived. Range was set at 50 yards. The .685 RB seemed to shoot respectively out of the standard Winchester red wad without having to do any special work
Latter the Goex 3F idea popped up. 3F was the choice as I knew from previous 2F BP loads in that Fox B there was not enough room in the hull.
But 3F Goex burned very clean and chewed up plastic cases less.
But never had any primer hole issues.

way back in the day there was a one legged gunsmith in our town - guys would go around after work and hang out telling stories well into the night - under his workbench was kinda crowded we found a model 92 action there one time and a wore out barrel from a 73 (I still have that old girl a 5 digit serial no - rebarreled and set up nice) anyway one trip we found a clapped out belgian sxs 12 g - the owner had stumbled ion the swamp pulled the trigger on a mud clogged barrel - how much Jim? --five quid - (ten bucks proly enough for what it was at the time too) anyway with the choke gone we figured might as well lop it to minimum legal (16" plus a quarter inch for cops with short tape measure) - I cut about an inch and a half off the butt to get some proportion in it and shortened the forend - didnt look too bad but was a bit rattly.
Mate went to a farm auction and came home with an ancient 16 gauge ball mold, we had read stuff about muzzle loaders and watched daniel boon on the tv, made some ball that I stuffed down a 12 gauge case inside the plastic wad - to take up the windage we used a 303 military cleaning patch and because we watched Daniel Boon we soaked the patch in axle grease - the load went together nice - fired the first one off a log with a string on the trigger. things progressed ok and we found a martini backsight that got screwed to the rib and fitted a new front sight to the lopped barrel
I was amazed at the outcome - seriously that thing with us idiots behind it would shoot each barrel into a group right around four inches at 50 yards and with a bit of fooling around with the load we got it to overlap the two barrels - one a tad higher than the other but a two barrel group six inches around. We killed a few pigs with it and none of em argued about it. We used the high velocity smokeless load for ounce and a quarter field loads - so that ball was proly scooting along pretty nice. Had a lot of fun with that old clunker but ditched it when registrations came in.

[missionary5155]

Young minds and free time have produced all sorts of firearm marvels. That is a fine example of putting an otherwise castoff old relic back into use.
It is that basic attitude of "giving it a try" that gets instilled while some are young that blossoms into a creative mind that moves the heart to keep on "giving it try".
I do enjoy being about those who can see there is a way even if it is not easy.

[toot]

they are called inline's!

[DaveM]

Obligatory disclaimer: We don’t guarantee that these will be safe in your rifle or with your components. Do this at your own risk.

My friend has recently delved into shooting his M-1891/59 Mosin-Nagant and No.4 Mk.I Lee-Enfield with mousefart loads. These are even less powerful than Ed Harris’s “The Load” of 13 grains of Red Dot under a 150 - 180 grain bullet. He is loading a 115 or 125 grain cast bullet on top of 5.0 grains of Bullseye. (His first try in 7.62R used 6 grains of Bullseye but accuracy was horrible. Backing off to 5 grains shrank the groups.)

He has a good stock of No.209 shotshell primers but not a lot of large rifle primers. He also has a lathe in his basement workshop, as you can see in the picture. It’s an older Jet unit with a 7” swing (not sure how long it is). Yesterday he took some Berdan primed .303 cases that he’d stashed away and drilled out the primer pockets so they will accept No.209 primers.

He used three drill bits to modify each case:

"Center drill to keep main drill from following the firing pin dent, letter C for the main body, 21/64 to countersink the flange on the battery cup. Be careful! My Fiocchi primers are .002" larger than my Cheddite, and I understand the Cheddites are larger than most Yankee brands."