Regional Government Sales Manager for Aimpoint, Inc. USA
Co-owner Hardwired Tactical Shooting (HiTS)
Very interesting info. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to empirically. If you want to ignite CCI primers reliably, you need a crush fit, or a long firing pin and heavy hammer strike. The crush fit is tricky if you are relying on a constant position of the primer pusher to do the job on random range brass. I wish someone would invent a spring-loaded priming system for constant force, not position. Until then, my Level10 primer support die seems to be doing the trick by providing constant force from the case side.
https://lvl10i.com/collections/dillo...for-super-1050
Last edited by Clusterfrack; 01-04-2020 at 12:15 PM.
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
I've been using Winchester primers almost exclusively in my pistol loads for some time. No issues at all. I hand prime all my hand loads with a Lee priming tool. I don't have any handguns that require the Federals.
Last edited by LtDave; 01-04-2020 at 01:28 PM.
The first indication a bad guy should have that I'm dangerous is when his
disembodied soul is looking down at his own corpse wondering what happened.
All I can come up with so far would need to be adapted from a machine shop engine valve tester. I suppose something could also be conjured up using an inch-pound torque wrench, perhaps in combination with one of the bench mounted primer seating tool popular with benchrest & competition rifle shooters.
If you think handgun primer pockets are messed, look at 223/5.56 primer pockets, especially with military brass. I went through this with some friends a week ago, so the topic was still pretty fresh in my mind when I read this thread. The rifle solution appears to be to seat your primers fully (naturally), and make certain your firing pin protrusion is at least on the high side if you run an AR15. There could really be something to the old complaint that military brass isn't as accurate as commercial brass. This takes us back to the matching commercial cases from the same lot recommendation from just about every match shooter out there anymore.
As others have said, seating depth is an important variable. Another is the cases and their primer pocket dimension themselves. A third is cylinder end shake. Few clean primer pockets. Dirty pockets can be a variable. The priming tool itself may be, particularly the primer rod seating the primer.
I’ve loaded CCI for decades and never had a problem, including my S&W M-24 which had a competition action job on it 33 years ago and breaks at 7.5 lbs DA. Over 14,000 rounds and counting. Most of those were fired before I even knew there was such a thing as hard/soft primers and used CCIs exclusively. All were loaded on a single stage press and primed with a Lee hand tool.
Every other DA I own is 8-11 lbs and lights off CCIs just fine.
People seem to think Federals are some sort of magic, but they’re really only necessary when mainspring power has been reduced quite a bit. Then they also have to be well-seated. Serious competitors often install an extended firing pin.
Federals are also a bit pricey and harder to find.
The only primers I won’t use are WSP. They don’t play well with the feed on my Hornady LNL AP. The cup is slightly more rounded and they jam up. So I’ve come back to CCI.
A Hornady rep also told me Sellier & Bellot primers are out of spec in size. I haven’t confirmed the primers, but their .38 cases have Uber-tight pockets. After several high primers, I cull them. They require so much pressure to seat a primer I worry about putting additional wear on my press.
Last edited by jtcarm; 01-16-2020 at 10:25 PM.