Using Pistol primers instead of Rifle primers?

[mjrducky]

To make a long story short. Brother in-law primed about 800 cases of 223 using small magnum pistol primers instead of rifle primers.

I told him hes going to have to de-prime all the live ones and swap them out for rifle primers. Luckily hes not loaded them yet. He's thinking someone on here has ran into this and has tested this?

So anyone have experience on if the magnum pistol primers will work instead of rifle?

 

[one more]

I have never tried doing this. But I have not done a lot of reloading. I would look online to see if you can find pressure ratings for the Mag Pistol primers compared to the pressure you will be loading these .223's too.
Hopefully some one on here will have some insight on this. I will do some looking in my books to see if I can find anything?
It may be time to start depriming!

 

[scheesman]

DO NOT deprime live primers! You WILL detonate them.

 

[SSGSAD]

Primers

Magnum primers increase pressure!!!!! Everything I have read said that using pistol primers in a rifle case, the firing pin will rupture the primer, causing gas to escape out the back....... I would rather waste a bunch of primers, than do damage to my rifle, or myself.....

 

[Eddie]

DO NOT deprime live primers! You WILL detonate them.

I recall reading about using a hot plate to detonate live primers. The nature of the article was detonating the primers in such a way that the surface remained smooth so that they could be used to take firing pin impressions but it might provide a safe alternative. In the article they had the hot plate outside on a cement pad. They sat several cartridge casings (that already had bullets pulled and powder removed) upright on the plate and then turned it on and backed off. This might be a method he could use.

 

[mwilson]

DO NOT deprime live primers! You WILL detonate them.

have heard this numerous times. have been reloading for over 20 years and never had one go off yet. have done over 250 millitary brass. not one went off. always wear safety glasses in case

 

[Cat-Herder]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]from: exterior ballistics

SMALL PRIMERS Small Pistol[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Used with most of the smaller handgun cartridges, from the .357 Magnum down to the .25 ACP, when faster burning, easy to ignite powders are being loaded. Small pistol primers, either standard or magnum, must not be used for rifle cartridges. The higher operating pressures common to these cartridges (even when used in a pistol, such as the T/C Contender) presents a serious risk of pierced or blown primers if the thin-cupped small pistol primers are substituted for the correct rifle primer.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Examples: Winchester WSP, Federal No.100[/FONT]

 

[scheesman]

have heard this numerous times. have been reloading for over 20 years and never had one go off yet. have done over 250 millitary brass. not one went off. always wear safety glasses in case

And he's going to do 3x as many as you have. It's one of those things where things never go wrong until they go wrong. Just because you haven't had it happen doesn't mean it's not dangerous...

 

[kfarmerk]

Ouch!! Consider firing the primers off in your rifle before depriming. You didn't say what type of action you have, but I'm betting it isn't a bolt action. It is the long way out, but safety is pretty important to me.

 

[mwilson]

And he's going to do 3x as many as you have. It's one of those things where things never go wrong until they go wrong. Just because you haven't had it happen doesn't mean it's not dangerous...

never said it was not dangerous. never had one go off and do not know anyone else who has either. as a matter of fact id like to see a pole on who has or has not had it happen. not heard about but had it happen to them personally

 

[mjrducky]

I'm not sure which AR he has but thats what he loads his 223 for.

Now I've deprimed a few pistol rounds here and there with no problems and taking it very easy. Depriming a 223 round thats been sized not as easy in my mind it take a little more force to get past the neck. And trying to do about 800 of them and not get into a hurry, even harder I think.

I'm planning to tell him it looks like he needs to toss them at this point.
His mistake and next time triple check first.

Thanks all for the input.

 

[fireball168]

I must be living on borrowed time.

Several years ago, I was given 2000+ pieces of 45 ACP that had been loaded with rifle primers. He only noticed because they protruded slightly from the primer pocket and were rocking inside his loading blocks.

Needless to say, I'm still here - with all my digits intact, after depriming all of them.

Didn't have any of them detonate, I even reused half or better of the primers after I realized it wasn't doing any damage to the anvil and priming compound.

Back then, I was desperate for brass and that was during the primer shortage of 1996 - unsure that I'd do it again, and certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

 

[kycrawler]

DO NOT LOAD AND SHOOT THEM IN AN AR the softer primer cups in pistol primers would be much more succeptible to a slam fire/out of battery discharge in a self loading rifle with a floating firing pin

i personally would load and shoot them with a starting load in a bolt gun

 

[in812]

I've removed live primers before w/o any problems

 

[Jack Ryan]

To make a long story short. Brother in-law primed about 800 cases of 223 using small magnum pistol primers instead of rifle primers.

I told him hes going to have to de-prime all the live ones and swap them out for rifle primers. Luckily hes not loaded them yet. He's thinking someone on here has ran into this and has tested this?

So anyone have experience on if the magnum pistol primers will work instead of rifle?

If I had that many cases primed I'd go ahead and load one may be 5% under what I'd planned and shoot it through a chrony. If the velocity was what I expect I'd go ahead and load 'em or make another adjustment to the powder charge to make the velocity right and call 'em good enough.

 

[Jack Ryan]

To make a long story short. Brother in-law primed about 800 cases of 223 using small magnum pistol primers instead of rifle primers.

I told him hes going to have to de-prime all the live ones and swap them out for rifle primers. Luckily hes not loaded them yet. He's thinking someone on here has ran into this and has tested this?

So anyone have experience on if the magnum pistol primers will work instead of rifle?

Get some 22 pellets and load them on top of just the primer. Try a few and ya may have a great short range mouse and chipmunk load. Especially if you had a break action to shoot them from.

 

[Old Syko]

DO NOT deprime live primers! You WILL detonate them.

B/S! What do you think the ammo salvage guys do with them. Didn't you ever shoot reclaimed primers? How do you think they came to be. Jeff Bartlett used to sell them by the bucket and they worked fine. As long as your operation is smooth and you don't intentionally slam the depriming pin, they will not discharge or be damaged and can be reused. I've used thousands of them.

The problem with spp and srp is that they are of different dimentions and are not compatable. Especially for use in an AR. The answer here is simple.

Step 1, Remove head from backside

Step 2, Deprime using proper methods

Step 3, Prime and load correctly

 

[buzz815]

National Reloading Manufacturers Association recomends on page 108 of the NRA guide to reloading "Don't decap live primers. Fire them in the appropriate gun, then decap." You might do a 1000 with no problem, but 1001 may give you a problem you don't need.

 

[red_zr24x4]

I've been loading for about 18 years and have deprimed a lot of live primers with no problem.
also about reuseing primers, I've bought 10,000 small rifle primers from knob creek that came out of 30 carbine ammo, they deprimed them somehow with no problems, and I've shot them out of my .223 with no trouble

 

[Fargo]

If I had that many cases primed I'd go ahead and load one may be 5% under what I'd planned and shoot it through a chrony. If the velocity was what I expect I'd go ahead and load 'em or make another adjustment to the powder charge to make the velocity right and call 'em good enough.

As pointed out above, it isn't a question of too much pressure for the gun, it is a question of too much pressure for the weaker primer. We are talking about thousands of CUP of difference here as well as different amounts of primer sensitivity. There is no way I'd consider firing these, especially in an AR pattern.

Best,

Joe