I'm curious to know something . . .

I sat in to do some reloading tonight and realized that the clerk pulled CCI large pistol magnum primers instead of just large pistol primers. I'm newer to reloading for rifle and pistol, so I need some guidance about this.

I'm reloading .45 ACP, and I've been fairly successful running 6.2gr Unique, or 11.1gr of Accurate #7, under a 200gr jacketed bullet. Would the difference between magnum and regular primers make this a generally unsafe load?

I notice that I've also been given small rifle magnum primers instead of just small rifle for realoading .223, so given my usual load of 23.1gr of H335 under a 55gr JSP what can I expect?

I'm not asking anyone to bless a particular load, I just need some help about this magnum vs regular primer question. I'd rather toss the few loads I've done and chalk it up to an expensive lesson in paying better attention to what the clerk hands me than pull the trigger on an unsafe load.

Thanks!

I know the .223 load is very mild, and you won't have a problem with high pressure with the magnum primer. It may even help with better ignition. Not sure about the .45acp.

Magnum primers were created to do a better job of igniting large charges of slow burning powder. Particularly in magnum rifle cartridges. They're not generally recommended for non-magnum cartridges. May or may not cause pressure problems with your loads, but they sure can.

The .45 auto is best served with fast - medium burning powders and standard large pistol primers. Your load of 6.2 grains of Unique and a 200 grain jacketed bullet is below the recommended minimum load in Speer's manual.

If you're going for accuracy loads in the .45, Unique is okay, but I've had much better results with light charges of either Bullseye or 231.

I don't load for the .223, so can't offer a voice of experience there. My non-magnum rifles, 6mm Rem, .308, .30-06, & .45-70 all get standard large rifle primers.

As I understand it Federal developed their 215 magnum rifle primer primarily to serve the Weatherby magnums when they were gaining popularity. Regards, Guy

[ 11-12-2002, 23:59: Message edited by: m700 ]

Sorry, can't help with the 45.

It will not hurt anything to use magnum primers in your 223, in fact, Speer recommends them with ball type powders (W748, H335, TAC, BLC2, etc..). I've used CCI450's in a number of load combos and never had any problems.

If you have a load that works now with regular primers, drop back a grain or so with the magnums, and work from there.

Just read that Ramshot says to try the mag's if using TAC and not getting the results you expect.

R-WEST

Lyman also recommends magnum primers with all .223 loads. Your H335 load, as pointed out in an earlier post, is well below max, so no problem there. Again, as pointed out earlier, your Unique load for .45 is very mild, so again, there should be no problem with the magnum pistol primers.

I don't know about your .45 because I don't load for handguns.

But I have loaded for the .223, using both regular and magnum CCI primers, and 748 powder. I found that the magnum primer gave significantly poorer accuracy. That seems to be a general rule: unless you need them to ignite large charges of powder or hard-to-ignite ball powder, magnum primers will probably be less accurate than regular (non-magnum) ones.