Friends-

Common sense tells me (perhaps a bad assumption) that shotshell primers are pretty homogenius. It would seem a 209 primer would be the same for Winchester as it would be for Federal.

In short, are primers inter-changeable?

In a word, no. Just look at the different pressure results, brought on by merely switching primers, shown in the data published by all of the major players.

That said, I have been guilty, years ago, of swapping primers around. (using a fixed-charge press with whatever wads/primers I could find) Nothing bad happened, but I really wish I had been more astute!

quote:

Originally posted by 30 Caliber Mag Fan:
In short, are primers inter-changeable?

NO. In fact none of the components in a shotshell recipe is interchangeable. You don't 'work up' a shotshell load, either. That's not to say that there isn't the same recipe with a Federal primer, instead of Winchester, out there somewhere.

You could always load up 5 shells of whatever you have laying around and send them to Tom Armbruster for pressure testing.

As the others have said NO.
The Federal Primers are a little hotter, than Winchesters and Winchester a little hotter than the Remington. The powder manfactures data does show different powder charges for like loads where the only difference is the primer. And the pressures change as well.

Shoot well, and Be Safe,

Mark,
The problem comes when you start pushing the pressure limits on a load and then substitute a hotter primer. Some primers, Fiocchi and Win 209 are very close and I have been substituting them for a number of years (and Hodgons have said it is acceptable also) but I am doing it with information that it is safe.

There are wads that are substitutes for factory wads, but not much else. I have seen powders that subtitute but in reality they are the same item with a different name.