With the critical shortage of small pistol primers going on, I tried something yesterday that yielded "interesting" results. I found 500 old CCI small rifle primers in my inventory. Having read in several forums where people have successfully used CCI 400 small rifle primers as substitutes in small pistols by backing charge way off, I decided to try it in a 40 S&W.
I loaded 10 rounds using 2.8 grains of Bullseye over a 180 grain HiTek-coated lead bullet. I loaded them in a mag for one of my striker fired pistol. Three of the ten failed to fire, even with an apparently good strike on the primer. OK, I concluded that these were too old to used reliably even though the ones that did fire seemed very mild in recoil yet still cycled the pistol. There were certainly no signs of over-pressure.
I was going to toss the three failed rounds but decided just for the heck of it to see if they'd fire in a hammer fired pistol. I didn't expect them to, but they did! What's up with that?
Lastly, and perhaps of more concern and reason not to use them in pistol loads was that I noticed when shooting them in both guns, I could see sparks fly up from the ejection port on both guns. I then fired my normal reloads in both guns and there were no sparks. Obvious conclusion - NOT GOOD, so no more magnum rifle primers in pistols. However, I wonder what causes this? Seems like over pressure would cause more recoil and deformed brass, neither of which were in evidence. Any ideas?
I loaded 10 rounds using 2.8 grains of Bullseye over a 180 grain HiTek-coated lead bullet. I loaded them in a mag for one of my striker fired pistol. Three of the ten failed to fire, even with an apparently good strike on the primer. OK, I concluded that these were too old to used reliably even though the ones that did fire seemed very mild in recoil yet still cycled the pistol. There were certainly no signs of over-pressure.
I was going to toss the three failed rounds but decided just for the heck of it to see if they'd fire in a hammer fired pistol. I didn't expect them to, but they did! What's up with that?
Lastly, and perhaps of more concern and reason not to use them in pistol loads was that I noticed when shooting them in both guns, I could see sparks fly up from the ejection port on both guns. I then fired my normal reloads in both guns and there were no sparks. Obvious conclusion - NOT GOOD, so no more magnum rifle primers in pistols. However, I wonder what causes this? Seems like over pressure would cause more recoil and deformed brass, neither of which were in evidence. Any ideas?