I'm brand new to reloading, still just feeling my way along. And this confuses me: I load .45 ACP and I thought that caliber used Large Pistol Primers. Yet, in sorting my used brass, I find I've got quite a lot of brass with Small Pistol Primers...well, small primers at least (guess I don't know for sure if they're pistol primers or small rifle primers). What gives?

The reason for the small primers is to:

To annoy the crap out of .45 reloaders.

As I understand it the small primer started when they started loading "non-toxic" ammo. No lead etc. What I read was that the only non-toxic primers were small. So the manufuctures redesigned the 45ACP from the normal large to small for NT ammo. If you pick up brass at the range you will have to watch for primer size.

I may be all wet so if someone has a better answer let me know.

I have seen both, Some of the blazer ammo has small pockets. i reloaded a batch of them and they shoot. I keep them soorted from my good stuff.
some ranges dont allow you to police your brass so that would be a good place to loose it.
Or sort it and sell it to the scrap guy.
Dave

They look smaller then what they really are, which are small pistol primers, because the big head diameter that's on the 45ACP case. They work fine, but you have to make sure that your pistol's firing pin strikes very near center. If it's off near the edge on a large pistol primer it may not give good ignition on the small pistol primered ammo.

CCI Blazer started out with aluminum berdan primed cases that are basically unreloadable. There have been very many adventurous reloaders who have managed to reload them I expect to say "because I wanted to see if I could".

Pretty much what ramrod said. You have a couple of choices 1) throw away the small primer brass (why throw away brass?) 2) trade it to someone who loads both primer sizes, 3) set it aside and when you get enough to run a batch make a batch of small primer .45 ACP.

There's no difference in the load from small to large just a pain if you don't sort them and get a small in your progressive pree when you're set up for large primers.

I throw away the small primer brass. Most of mine comes to me as range pickups and I don't want to be bothered sorting brass by primer size.

Thanks to everyone who responded. You cleared up my confusion. Think I'll save the brass and load Small Pistol Primers at some point. Can't bring myself to toss or give away good .45 ACP brass. Thanks again.

The story I have is one plant makes all the ammunition. They have contracts with Walmart, Federal, and CCI (and are probably owned by CCI).
They only make "generic" low cost ammunition by contract. The cost or retooling just for .45 Auto and large primers caused them to procure small primer cases. Purely a money saving thing for low cost ammo and bottom line return.