Is it safe to use large rifle magnum primers in rifle that uses large rifle? I talked to my gunsmith and he said that it would be fine only with these types of primers. And that it only adds a grain to the load. So I'd like to get several opinions before I try it.

What caliber? I'm not sure what your smith was talking about concerning brand.CCI + Win. are comperable (I'll NEVER use another Federal!,another story.)Since we never start at max. but work up I see no problem but I guess the real question is why?Do you just have an overabundance of mag. primers?If not then just follow the directions + use what the ballisticians recommend.Don't try to reinvent the wheel.

My sorta Rule-of-Thumb is that if the load requires over +/- 60 grains of powder I use Magnum Large Rifle primers, cartridge dependant.

Having said that, I also have used CCI-450M (Magnum, not Match) primers for many top accuracy loads in .222 & .223 Remington, too.

Now, I wouldn't run out and stuff a Magnum primer on top (actually underneath) of an already established load that did not previously use a Magnum primer - I'd drop back to the 20 and punt; starting from scratch.

quote:

Originally posted by Bob da Builder:
Is it safe to use large rifle magnum primers in rifle that uses large rifle? I talked to my gunsmith and he said that it would be fine only with these types of primers. And that it only adds a grain to the load. So I'd like to get several opinions before I try it.

I frequently try large rifle magnum primers in cases the size of 357 Herrett, 243 Winchester on up in my quest for better accuracy. In those sizes of cases, never once have I had a pressure problem in doing so.

I have also tried large rifle magnum primers in a 44 Remington Magnum. It turned out with that cartridge, I had to decrease the load by 1 to 1.5 grains.

I have always used magnum primers with certain slow burning and generally hard to ignite propellants.

I won't load RL22 without a Federal 215

I still have several thousand Fed215's I bought just before the great Clinton primer panic.

I always wanted to try 50 BMG primers in a standard rifle round.