Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

Was reloading some .45 acp last night and came across some brass that seems to take small primers. Identical in every way except the primer size. I have never come across this untill now. Any info? Is it safe to load as normal, just use the small primer? I'm loading 230gr rn with 4 gr of bullseye, just for the record.

I've seen discussions on this before. Don't remember the brand of brass that was mentioned, but bottom line was use a small standard pistol primer and load as usual.
A real PITA when they get mixed in with the rest. Time to sort.

Jim wrote:I've seen discussions on this before. Don't remember the brand of brass that was mentioned, but bottom line was use a small standard pistol primer and load as usual.
A real PITA when they get mixed in with the rest. Time to sort.

Suggest that you get rid of them instead of reloading them.
Bill

Yup big PITA I know some speer " Lawman" .45 acp cases take the small primer. I'm sure there are others. other than the primer the load is the same, Personally unless I had enough of a quantity to make it worth the hassle to keep them seperated I would scrap them or just use them for an instance were you can't shag your brass.

I ran into the exact opposite problem with about twenty .357 Magnum cases. Found some nickel-plated ones, headstamped "REM-UMC", that use large primers! Not being one to throw away any .357 Magnum cases these days, and appreciating the novelty, I keep these segregated and load 'em single-stage until they finally wear out.

I think this is some kind of green initiative...clean fire cartridges...

That's exactly what it is. Fiocchi is just one company making small pistol "green" primers w/o the lead styphnate.

I've had some of the Winchester Win Clean brass with the small primer's. I just sort those out and recycle.

This was on Speer bullet Web site A number of factory 45 Auto cartridges are fitted with small primer pockets. There is no safety hazard in reloading these cases with standard small pistol primers. However, most published load data is developed using cartridge cases with large primer pockets and standard large pistol primers. A small pistol primer should have no trouble igniting a 45 Auto charge but may produce slightly less pressure.
Whatever that means ? (open to Interpretation I Guess)

I got a few 10mm cartridges like that! The small primer doesn't burn the powder charge as quickly as the large primer does, so you have to either up the powder charge or us magnum small pistol primers. 10mm brass is hard enough to get, this is just aggravating.

What you got is those non-toxic rounds. I blame California....again.
http://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=280831

It works just fine. I keep it sorted out and make a batch when I have 500 or so. Shoots as good as the large primer. I keep my brass head sorted so no problem for me to find the small primer stuff. Why not use it???

RC

I have been reloading for 25 years and I have reloaded these using the small primer and have had no problems. I have also used small pistol magnum primers with the same results. If you think about it there is so many variables with the different powders, projectiles and such that the difference in the primer size is a small thing. Not insignificant but small. If you don't want to do that, once you get about 500 just get in touch with me...I will be happy to take them off your hands.