Well, I did it - used magnum pistol primers in .45 ACP loads

C

cdoc42

New member
Well, I did it. All potential advice notwithstanding, I decided to see if I could use a magnum pistol primer in my .45 ACP loads.

Why? Simply because I load .45 ACP, .45 Colt, .38 and .357, 9mm, .380 auto, .44 Mag and .454 Casull and I have 1000 large pistol primers and 3000 large pistol Magnum primers, and LRP cost $89/1000.

To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, I'm in the October...or November...of my years and I don't want to leave this earth with a lot of Mag primers I could have used before I wasted my largess to my kids.

So...I made two each of "blanks" in .45 ACP with CCI 300 and CCI 350 primers with styrofoam "bullets" measuring 0.60" in length and suitable diameter by sharpening the case mouth and coring out the styrofoam to fit before I crimped the cases. Then I loaded my usual max 4.0 gr of Clays under the 230gr FMJ-plated bullets with CCI 300 and dropped the load to
3.6gr with the CCI 350 primers.

Off I went to the range. I fired the blanks in an effort to some sense of any difference in velocity produced by pressure. None of the shots fired in a first attempt. Apparently, manual insertion of the round, even slammed shut by the slide activation, was not strong enough to engage the required
case seating. Pulled the hammer back, off they went! But- no way I could find the projectile. Either it was burned up or the wind blew it away.

OK. To the range and chronograph. A PACT model that I've had since 1980s has always worked with rifles and never worked with handguns and today there was no difference other than the stop links on one leg of the tripod broke so the whole thing dropped to the left when I finally had it all set up. No problem with masking tape. Except I, once again, could not get ANY velocity recording, as has been my previous experience.

So my semi-scientific approach to primer evaluation disintegrated to just firing the rounds at a target 15 yards away. The result? I could not detect any difference in recoil. So the next step is to increase the Clays charge toward 4.0 gr max from 3.6gr. Group sizes were comparable (but not impressive) but I can't tell if velocity difference played a role.

All in all, I wish it would have rained today today to keep me at home.
 
I always wondered if the manufacturer has in mind if a reloader accidentally loads a Large magnum pistol primer vs just Large pistol primer in handload or reload.

Clays is a pretty fast burning powder as well you brave soul
 
Well, I did it. All potential advice notwithstanding, I decided to see if I could use a magnum pistol primer in my .45 ACP loads.
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I've reloaded .45acp for years and have used a bunch of Winchester Primers thru the years, which, oddly enough are labeled to be used for standard or magnum loads.
 
Lurch37 said:
I've reloaded .45acp for years and have used a bunch of Winchester Primers thru the years, which, oddly enough are labeled to be used for standard or magnum loads.
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You beat me to it. I've pretty much used only Winchester primers for handgun. They have separate standard and magnum primers for small pistol, but in large pistol it's one size fits all.

I don't understand what the significance is of playing with styrofoam bullets. I must be missing something, because I don't see how firing something as lightweight as styrofoam, that's probably going to burn up completely before it leaves the barrel, can tell you anything. If you want to assess the difference between standard and magnum primers, load up some 230-grain bullets with a starting load of your powder of choice. Make 10 with the standard primers and 10 with the magnum primers and run those through the chronograph.
 
Aguila Blanca said:
You beat me to it. I've pretty much used only Winchester primers for handgun. They have separate standard and magnum primers for small pistol, but in large pistol it's one size fits all.

I don't understand what the significance is of playing with styrofoam bullets. I must be missing something, because I don't see how firing something as lightweight as styrofoam, that's probably going to burn up completely before it leaves the barrel, can tell you anything. If you want to assess the difference between standard and magnum primers, load up some 230-grain bullets with a starting load of your powder of choice. Make 10 with the standard primers and 10 with the magnum primers and run those through the chronograph.
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Just curious , if its one size fits all why dont they have Just 1 Large pistol primer instead of two?
 
I started with Winchester LP primers when I first started loading 45acp . At the time I had no idea they are designed for both standard and magnum loadings . I never adjust powder charges up or down to start . I have no idea what the actual difference is in standard or magnum primers but at least one manufacturer doesn’t think it’s enough to blow things up or produce squib loads by combining both into one . When I can I , buy Winchester LP primers so I don’t have to worry about such things ;-)
 
akinswi said:
Just curious , if its one size fits all why dont they have Just 1 Large pistol primer instead of two?
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Winchester does have only one. Perhaps you could ask some of the other manufacturers why they have two?
 
This article is a good read and explains that the difference between magnum and standard primers isn't uniform from brand to brand. Some just give their magnum primers more of the same priming mix their standard primers use. Others change the mix to have more fuel compounds, but not more of the high brisance sensitizer.

The general idea for a magnum primer is to make more gas so the larger volume magnum cartridge cases get adequate start pressure. This is to produce consistent pressure rise times from the slower powders usually used in magnum loads. For fast, easily ignited powders, there is little reason to think you would see much difference. The only exception seems to be that with some small powder space loads, the primer, having higher brisance than powder (much faster burning), can unseat a bullet before some slower powders start to burn adequately. Again, with a fast powder, there's not a lot of chance of this.

The bottom line: try different primers out and see what happens. Expect that any change you make to your load, minor or major, will mean you need to test for the best primer over again.
 
Well, I did it. All potential advice notwithstanding, I decided to see if I could use a magnum pistol primer in my .45 ACP loads.
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To make things even more confusing for the .45acp reloaders, there is also brass that requires a small pistol primer.

I found this out by accident after picking up some shiny range brass several years ago and trying to run it thru my Dillon. Decapping and resizing went ok, but re-priming did not.

Anyways, at least the company that made that particular .45acp load determined a small pistol primer worked just fine. The only question I would have is would be if it was a standard or magnum small pistol primer?
 
I found this out by accident after picking up some shiny range brass several years ago and trying to run it thru my Dillon. Decapping and resizing went ok, but re-priming did not.
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I've heard similar stories, many times. Seems that one of the things many "brass rats" often do is, fail to look closely at what they're picking up, before feeding it into their handloading process.

I got nothing against brass scroungers, been one myself, but I ALWAYS inspect each case FULLY before it gets into the "to be processed for loading" bin.

But there are also people who are brass rats, with vulture behavior, and most of us find that unpleasant, at the least. One such fellow got what he deserved, due to his own ignorance and arrogance. Or so the story I heard, went.

Fellow hung out in the local shop /clubs and was a notorious brass rat. Not well liked for other reasons as well, but he was the kind of guy who wouldn't go out shooting with you, but would note where /when you were going to the local gravel pits to do some shooting, then, would vulture like, wait nearby while you were shooting and then when you left, swoop down and "score" any brass left behind.

Couple of the local guys decided to use that, just to see his reaction. They made a point of talking about going shooting where he overheard it. THEN, they went out and shot up a few hundred rounds of surplus 06. All but the last 20 rnds was surplus BERDAN primed stuff. The last 20 were reloadable National Match brass (NM headstamp), which was left on top of the pile....

Brass vulturerat swooped in, saw NM on a couple cases and scooped up the whole bunch.

he was in the shop the next day, buying a pack of decapping pins and bitching about how hard it was to decap NM brass....
smirks and smiles from the gang....
When he came in the SECOND time to buy more decapping pins, they actually laughed......

ALL his trouble was of his own making, simply not taking the time to properly inspect the brass. Don't know if he ever did learn his lesson, but the guys at the shop enjoyed it. :D

The lesson is, LOOK at your brass and know what it is, before you try to reload it.
 
"I don't understand what the significance is of playing with styrofoam bullets. "

I didn't want to start with a fully loaded cartridge, despite using a 10% reduction in powder. I was hoping for some indication of the difference in pressure produced by both primers under the same conditions. If the standard LP primer spit the foam "bullet" 10 feet and the magnum LP threw it 12 feet, o.k., there IS a potential difference. As it turned out, I could only find one of the foam "bullets" and it was not burned away. The other 3, despite my use of a dirt field surrounded by grass fields, were lost to the grass because of the wind conditions even though I thought I adjusted for that.

So I just proceeded to shoot the full loads I made anyway. Hey! Even the Keystone Cops and the 3 Stooges did stupid things.

What I DID come away with was my .45 ACP prefers jacketed, not plated, bullets. But that was serendipity.
 
Unclenick, thanks for the Speer primer link; it was really informative. However, I did not get any idea why my 4 "fake" cartridges failed to fire on the first primer strike. I made sure all the cases were the same OAL and the styrofoam "bullet" was the same size because I cut it with each of the beveled cases. I had to insert each round manually into the chamber, then closed the action as usual. The first attempt to fire failed. I pulled the hammer back and the rounds fired each second time. On one occasion I ejected the cartridge and noticed the primer strike was obviously too light.
Was it a matter of each primer being too high, and then driven deeper by the first strike? I had no such problem with any of the fully loaded cartridges.
 
The lesson is, LOOK at your brass and know what it is, before you try to reload it.
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Although I understand what your saying and also enjoyed your "vulturerat" story, at the time I found the range brass, there was no indication or word of small primer 45acp brass even being a thing so, I didn't really think about looking at the primer as there was no reason to do so.

Was it a matter of each primer being too high, and then driven deeper by the first strike? I had no such problem with any of the fully loaded cartridges.
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If you didn't leave them "high" I doubt they were but only you would know that.

Were you able to taper crimp your foam bullet? The 45 headspaces on the case mouth so maybe some of the problems lies with that? But you would think using the slide to load your practice rounds would drive it in deep enough.
 
"Were you able to taper crimp your foam bullet? The 45 headspaces on the case mouth so maybe some of the problems lies with that? But you would think using the slide to load your practice rounds would drive it in deep enough."

I did, indeed, taper crimp the "bullet" because I was sure that the belled cases would not chamber - but I did not check that to be sure. I just assumed, so I tapered. The only other thing I can think of is even if they were all OAL, there was no increase in case mouth diameter because the foam "bullets" did not expand the cases at all. But then, why did they all fireafter the second attempt?
 
cdoc42,

I am going to hazard a guess that the styrofoam was sticking out enough to engage the throat or the step in the chamber that the case mouth is supposed to stop against. The stuff is fairly elastic, so having it come out wider than an actual bullet is not unexpected. In either case, the styrofoam could act as a cushion, giving way to the force of the firing pin and providing the case with a soft landing instead of letting it make a sudden stop against the chamber step that it is supposed to headspace against. That could certainly prevent firing for the same reason a primer at inadequate seating depth can do it.

If these rounds had fired, I expect you'd have discovered another issue. In general, primer pressure is inadequate to push the case back against the breech face to reseat the primer. Primers have much higher brisance (in effect, quickness of burn) than powder, so they fire up faster and push themselves backward out of the primer pocket like a little piston before pressure due to the powder burn builds up much. Subsequently, the powder builds the chamber pressure to a level that forces the case head (in the case of a high-power rifle) or the whole case (for cartridges that peak below about 30,000 psi) back against the breech face to reseat them. Without the powder pressure, the cases don't reseat the primer, so you wind up with a case that has the primer sticking out, and in revolvers, this can jam cylinder rotation. In a self-loader, you may find a bit of friction in cycling the slide with those protruding primers. For this reason, when shooting wax bullets or other low-power loads that don't generate reseating pressure, it is standard practice to designate cases to the cause by drilling the flash holes out to 1/8 inch, which vents primer pressure into the case fast enough to prevent the primer from backing out in the first place.
 
Unclenick, when I sharpened the case mouth with my chamfer/deburr tool, it was simply a matter of turning the case into the 0.61-inch thick styrofoam against a wooden backboard so that each case had the styrofoam completely flush with the case mouth, then I taper-crimped them. The case internal size averaged 0.72 inches in the 4 cases, so the space between the base of the foam and primer pocket hole was about 0.11". All the cases fired after I simply recocked the hammer on the 1911.

I happen to have the 4 cases available, so I just looked and each of them has the primer sticking out with a rounded top. There was not enough pressure available for the cases to auto-exit, and I had to manually work the slide each time to remove them. I didn't pay attention to any difficulty in extracting them.
 
In that case I wonder if the cartridge's low mass is making the cushion. That is, if it is so light that the firing pin pushes it forward before reaching the primer's ignition energy, so the firing pin is then hitting the back of a cartridge moving away from it. That would lower energy transfer. Magnum primers can have thicker cups in some instances, which wouldn't help. Try tipping the muzzle down before firing to get the cartridge in contact with the headspacing ledge in the chamber before raising it slowly into firing position. That way it would be against a hard stop when the firing pin hit it.

Incidentally, chronographs have improved a lot since you got yours. A $60 one of Amazon may do better with pistol rounds than your old one does.
 
Try tipping the muzzle down before firing to get the cartridge in contact with the headspacing ledge in the chamber before raising it slowly into firing position. That way it would be against a hard stop when the firing pin hit it.
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This assumes the cases used are actually long enough to reach the chamber headspace ledge before being stopped by the extractor hook.

However, held on the extractor hook should give enough of a "stop" to the cartridge to fire it.

None of the shots fired in a first attempt. Apparently, manual insertion of the round, even slammed shut by the slide activation, was not strong enough to engage the required
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Semi auto, 1911pattern gun? The possibility exists that inserting a round into the chamber and then letting the slide slam shut on it might allow the extractor hook to snap over the rim, or it might not. Some guns are not tuned to allow that, in which case, your slide might not be 100% in battery, or the case might have been driven too deeply into the chamber.

Such things don't always create misfires due to light strikes, but they can, and I'm, guessing did in your case.
 
I've been using magnum primers in non magnum revolver calibers for years depending on the load. I've never seen the point of using a magnum primer in an autoloading caliber, maybe I will when I finally get around to loading for 7.62x25, but in .32 S&W Long and .38 I've tried magnum primers with loads of Trail Boss and have had more consistent performance with it than with standard primers.

I would probably do the same with Titegroup, but can't remember if I have.

I don't have concerns about higher pressures with the magnum primers and I don't shy away from using them, but I don't use them for things I know a standard primer will work for.

I could see a use for small magnums in the .45 ACP tho. We're losing some ignition power going from large to small and the magnum primers may help improve results. It doesn't hurt to try.
 
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