I've been told that the Federal 215 "Gold Medal" primers are more consitant than the standard Federal 215 primers.

Is there any truth to this, or is it just a sales gimmick?

quote:

Originally posted by ErikD:
I've been told that the Federal 215 "Gold Medal" primers are more consitant than the standard Federal 215 primers.

Is there any truth to this, or is it just a sales gimmick?

Erik, sometimes I think they are over the chronograph and other times I don't; they haven't been worse though. Plan Fed 215's have always been consistent for me but if both are on the shelf I will pick the Gold Medal match everytime........... Just like I deburr flash holes I guess!

BigRx

Ditto BigRx.
If there is a difference, I can't tell it.
I would like to find out just what quality control or material difference there is between the two. I never tried to contact Federal directly to ask. Sumbuddy who know?

I've tried them in my 7mmDakota & while I get a bit more consistancy over the F215, they shoot about the same as thr RP9 1/2M. Once you get a load you like, try diff. primers & see if it helps or hurts, never know until you try.

The story I heard was this:

Primer manufacturing relies on hands-on labor. Spreading the primer compound into the cups, etc.

Federal keeps track of the employees who have the fewest problem primers. In other words, do the best job.

So Federal puts those employees on the task of making Match primers. So the primers should have a more consistant amount of primer compound, less likely to be missing the anvil or whatever.

I use them on my hunting rounds, but I still visually check them for missing compound, anvil or too much sealer goop before seating them in the case.

But I have never had a problem with any Federal primer anyways.

quote:

So Federal puts those employees on the task of making Match primers. So the primers should have a more consistant amount of primer compound, less likely to be missing the anvil or whatever.

True story. You can accomplish much the same if you weight sort the regular 215's. I've never noted a difference but I still prefer using both the 210M's and 215M's for peace of mind. The weight sorting isn't worth it to me.

The Federal Gold Medal primers are held to stricter manufacturing standards than are the standard primers. This "should" lead to more consistancy and therefore better performance.

However, it is hard to tell much difference in some guns.

I own some of each. I have a couple of rifles that I simply cannot tell the difference when I switch from the standard Federals to the match version. I have others that CLEARLY shoot better when fed the match version of primer.

You just have to check if you are really that interested. I own a 300 Wby Magnum that simply shows no difference at all when using Fed 215 versus the 215M. But I own an identical rifle in 7mm Wby Magnum that gave a 28% reduction in average group size when I tried the match primer. (I am talking a bunch of test groups, not just one or two.)

I finally just standardized on the Gold Medal Fed 215M or 210M depending on the cartridge.

R F

quote:

Originally posted by McCray:
The story I heard was this:

Primer manufacturing relies on hands-on labor. Spreading the primer compound into the cups, etc.

Federal keeps track of the employees who have the fewest problem primers. In other words, do the best job.

So Federal puts those employees on the task of making Match primers. So the primers should have a more consistant amount of primer compound, less likely to be missing the anvil or whatever.

I use them on my hunting rounds, but I still visually check them for missing compound, anvil or too much sealer goop before seating them in the case.

But I have never had a problem with any Federal primer anyways.

Well ain't that special! Thank you very much! Buy a donkey! (That's Afrikaans lingo for those in Rio Linda.)

None of my rifles seemed to care one iota! So I bought the cheaper FM215. Then I learned that they (the rifles) didn't care if I used the even cheaper CCI250s! So guess what, my cheap arse buys CCI250 primers now.

ASS_CLOWN

Thanks for the input guys!