Primer ID

[44man]

My primer selection is low and I want to know which brand and size a primer is, standard or magnum.
It is a LP and the compound is yellow. The cup is silver color.

[cajun shooter]

I have three brands of primers. I use thge Federal first and the others on a have to time. They are Federal, Winchester and CCI. The federal has a siver cap and a greenish mix. The Winchester have a brass colored cap and a red mix. The CCI have the silver and yellow mix and they are LP Magnum. Later David

[44man]

I have three brands of primers. I use thge Federal first and the others on a have to time. They are Federal, Winchester and CCI. The federal has a siver cap and a greenish mix. The Winchester have a brass colored cap and a red mix. The CCI have the silver and yellow mix and they are LP Magnum. Later David

Thank you very much. That is what I thought they were.

[mpmarty]

I'm not bright enough to keep track of primers by type1 mod0 eyeball. Therefore my only primers are Winchester and Wolf. Wolf are all brass color metal and the Winchesters are silver colored. I do mike them from time to time to separate the LR from the LP. Difference in how "tall" they are. Pistol primers are shorter.

[MtGun44]

Interesting.

All mine come in little boxes with the type and application printed on the outside.

Bill

[Reload3006]

Interesting.

All mine come in little boxes with the type and application printed on the outside.

Bill

and that is the best way to keep them. I have some old winchester Large rifle primes they were silver cup with blue mix. I have some I bought a year ago they have a Brass colored cup and Red mix. Think I would be very careful about using them especially in Max loads you may not like what you get.

[cbrick]

Interesting.

All mine come in little boxes with the type and application printed on the outside. Bill

Yeah, really. When I first read the OP I was confused enough I didn't post. All primers are stored and kept in the original box, it's hard to wrap my mind around not doing so.

There is only one primer box on my bench at any one time exactly like powder, there is one can of powder on my bench at any one time, the same powder that's in the measure and the primer box is the one that's in the brass I'm loading. When that batch of brass is completed the powder measure is emptied and the powder can put back into the locker. The primer box if empty is thrown away, if not empty it's put back in the primer cabinet.

So what is there to identify? Confused.

Rick

[prs]

I store all of mine in a half gallon mason jaw with tight lid way up high on a shelf I can barely reach. That way if I drop them I don't have to worry about picking them up.

prs

ps: You do know I am kidding, right?

[Tatume]

Color of the primer cup will not tell you anything. I've seen nickle and brass colored cups in the same box of primers many times.

[44man]

Interesting.

All mine come in little boxes with the type and application printed on the outside.

Bill

It is because I said some factory loads had LP mag primers and my friend said no. So I pulled one, .44 mag, found 18.5 gr of powder for a 320 gr boolit and a yellow primer compound.
I do not know the powder, looks like H110. Might be Accurate no 9???
The argument we have is I said the loads shoot like they have LP mag primers in them.
Every indication says I am correct and the primer is a CCI 350.
A CCI 300 is orange in color.

[rond]

Winchester uses the same LP primer for regular and magnum ammo.

[44man]

Winchester uses the same LP primer for regular and magnum ammo.

I have them but they are not yellow.
I have no other way to identify these. I have many different primers but no CCI LP mag primers to see but I have to assume that is what they are.

[Stove_Pipe]

I only have CCI primers, but the small and large rifle are yellow and the pistol ones are orange.

[Shuz]

If my memory can be depended on, I recall seeing different colors of the primer mix in the same size and type of primer (but in different lots of 1000) from the same manufacturer down thru the years. I would not try and identify any primer based on color of primer mix, or anvil and/or cup color.

[Mal Paso]

I have them but they are not yellow.
I have no other way to identify these. I have many different primers but no CCI LP mag primers to see but I have to assume that is what they are.

Shoot em and see if your groups open up.


The CCI LP Mag, Federal 150 (Std.) and 155M (Mag.) in my stock are all silver with yellow compound.

[Flinchrock]

I don't think he's working up a load,,
Just trying to identify components used to load a batch of ammo...

[cajun shooter]

Boy, I'll tell you this is something. When I first came to this board everyone was was ready to give a helping hand and now it seems that we have members that can't wait to start a disagreement.
I understood without asking what 44 man was needing. He either had a load that he was trying to see what components were used or like me had several primers that had spilled and trying to ID them.
I will at times either drop because of bad hand a box of primers and put them on my shelf. Then do it again with a different type of primer. When it comes time to put them in the correct boxes I need to figure which ones they are.
For you posters who claim to have different colored metal and mixes in the same box. I have been loading since 1969 and for three of those years worked in a gun store that had many types of primers, even some made in other countries and I have never once encountered that.
Don't show me no pictures as that is a easy set up. I even loaded ammunition for our 600 man force and I dare to say in my 15 years HAVE NEVER VIEWED DIFFERENT PRIMERS IN ONE BOX.
Stove Pipe if you take a look at the CCI large pistol magnum primer you will see the yellow mix. The orange is the standard primer. Later David

[mroliver77]

I somehow ended up with a couple hundred mixed loose primers a few years back. I thought about pitching them along with some small rifle that had definitely been very wet and stored in a falling down building. I was shooting some .22 pellets in the .223 powered by primer only. The wet primers had been in a dry drawer for a couple years so I tried them. All performed as new!

Willbird made me a swage die for double ended wadcutter. 224. We had a menagerie of .222, .223 and .224 odds and ends. I swagged then to .224 and loaded over 8gr Unique. From my upstairs computer room window to the garden was 30 - 40 yards. The wadcutters worked great for whacking garden munchers. It mattered little if a pistol or rifle primer was used with the 8 gr load. Magnum or standard hit to same point of aim. I used up all the odd primers this way. Lubed cast boolits were swagged to wadcutters also. They make a mess out of blackbirds and grackles!

Keith type pistol boolits in the 30-06 over a dose of Unique again cared little what primer and took bunnies and chucks down with great authority Loaded backwards they hit like a wadcutter!

[WILCO]

and now it seems that we have members that can't wait to start a disagreement

I didn't see it that way. Just seemed like some flying by the seat of your pants reloading techniques in the OP and other folks were scratching their heads, thinking "Huh?". There's reasons why all of my reloading manuals say to never mix gun powders in an effort to get that "magic" blend.

[Jim]

A friend once gave me a 500 count Tylenol bottle full of large primers. No clue what they were. I made a label for the bottle, "REC. LOADS" (recreational), and used 'em for bangin' ammo.