CCI "OEM" primers

[fly out]

I just received 5,000 CCI small pistol primers. They came in white boxes of 1,000 marked OEM brass unplated primers - Not for resale. Black and white sleeves of 100 inside, marked 500 - Commercial Use Only. I would have preferred the traditional consumer packaging, but I'll take the primers.

I assume that there is nothing I need to know about these, but I'll ask. Is there anything I need to know about these? Care and feeding instructions are the same?

I guess in the back of my head, I'm also thinking of the recent primer issues in Gold Dots and hoping no one was dumping primers from questionable lot numbers. Since the Gold Dots were Speer's own production, and these are presumably intended for other commercial users, I'm hoping there is no issue. CCI isn't going to knowingly dump bad lot numbers.

I'm probably overthinking this, but I tend to do that in all things reloading.

[vcdgrips]

Edge of my lane:

I would not worry. This strikes me as the first cousin of an ammo loaded for an agency that ends up being an over run. Not for sale to the general public initially but still quite fine to use in the end.

CCI makes good stuff.

The only "knock" against CCI primers were that they can be a little "harder" that ones by Winchester and Remington. My data points on that are admittedly old. It was enough that when I has a choice, I went with a non CCI offering. In this market, beggars may not be able to be choosers.

[fly out]

In this market, beggars may not be able to be choosers.

That's for sure. I've favored CCI even back when we had a choice. They have a reputation for being harder but 80+% of my shooting is through hammer-fired guns so I suspect I have less potential for issues with harder primers? That's what I tell myself.

[ECK]

I ended up with 5K of those OEM primers about 5-6 years ago. Got them in a trade from a guy who got them from another guy who was a commercial reloader that went out of business. I reloaded them for my practice ammo, but I don’t ever recall there being any difference or issues with them compared to the regular CCI primers. I probably shot some of it in local matches as well.

For peace of mind I would suggest shooting a few over a chrono before committing to loading a lot of them in case you have to adjust your powder measurer up or down.