Primer Hardness

[TEX]

Question for any well versed reloader.

In the area of hardness of primers (necessary firing pin strike to set off) where do Federal primers fall.

I have hear CCI primer are very hard. I would assume that if you are trying for as light a trigger pull in a revolver, the lighter the hammer spring the lighter the pull, and thus you would want to use primers that would reliably go off at the reduced hammer spring weight.

Thanks in advance

[LTUME1978]

Federal Primers are about as soft as they get. That is what most folks use when they lighten up the springs in their revolver or striker pistol.

[Jumping Frog]

Federal are good for revolvers with light springs. Conversely, there are rifles that do better with harder primers. If you have a "vigorous" hammer strike, you don't want to pierce a soft primer.

Winchester are my personal favorite, but I've used Federal, CCI, Winchester, and Wolf without any troubles.

[LTUME1978]

Just to add to Jumping Frog's list, I have fired about 2K of the Tula 223 primers in my AR to date. I was hesitant to buy them because they are Russian but got them on sale for about $80/5000 a couple of years ago and, after a lot of research, could not pass them up. I use them for 3 gun matches and practice and see no negatives on reliability or accuracy.

[ghostrider]

I've used Winchester, CCI, Federal and Remington without issues.

I only use Winchester for 460 Rowland, otherwise I'm not tied to particular brands.

[SPDGG]

As stated Federal Primers are about as soft as you can get & be safe. Most shooting comps will run lighter mainsprings, hammer, striker, ignition springs in general = Most All will run Federal Primers. Many PPC smiths that build Wheel Guns for National Teams will state the use of Federal Primers only with their set double action triggers.

Not asked, but for info.
- Quality Std. Primers are usually neck and neck up to 25 yards. If you shooting a 50 yard game, like PPC, your better off to run Match Pistol Primers. Testing from various shooters have shown a decrease in spread at 50 yards with MATCH primers.

Like most re-loaders I have run my fair share of CCI, Winchester, Federal, etc. All are great, work but I prefer CCI, Winchester for the harder cup. My carry ammo runs the same specs as my training ammo, nothing lighter than it needs to me. Smooth is my goal more than light.

forgot to add:
Rifles, different approach. I run BR primers from CCI or Federal.

[rotor]

I may be late on this but I recently bought a S&W 19-4 and have been reloading 38 special because I have lots of sp primers and cases. Here is what I found. The cci and winchester were the hardest to seat in new brass and I had a bunch of failure to fire with first strike, cci was worst. I made sure that all of these were properly seated too. Federal and remington easily inserted into new brass and no failure to fires. I found that my mainspring tension screw was not fully tightened ( probably prior owner trying to get a lighter trigger) and after tightening the screw all cases fired well with no ftf. I then did a chrono to see if there was any difference between primer brands and pretty much all of the rounds were about the same. So I would rate CCI the hardest, Winchester next and Remington and Federal probably about the same. None of the small pistol primers produced a variation in velocity of round. Everything I own now goes bang with the first strike. There is a true satisfaction with reloading your own. Never thought that I would be taking this up in my senior years.

[Gyrogearhead]

Speaking of which primers are set off with the lightest strike, I have a problem that bears directly on this question.

I'm in the process of designing / building an all metal semi-scale model of the German FLAK 88 cannon in 1:11 scale. That's the scale in which .308" = 88mm and a 30-30 brass case is almost exactly the scale length and diameter of the original German 88mm shells. Needless to say it will only be shooting wax "bullets" and talcum powder to give some smoke and recoil.

Problem is that when you scale down the original 110# breech block to about 1/2" square by 1-1/4" long there isn't much room for firing pin, spring, sear & actuating rod; think watch maker size parts. So only a very light strike on the primer will be possible.

I need to know what primers take the absolute lightest strike in order to make this thing work.

I'm using a Mossberg 30-30 rifle barrel cut down to the 17" scale length and contoured to the scale dimentions on the lathe. To prevent the possibility of chambering a real 30-30 round the rim of the brass cases are turned down to the correct scale size in order to fit the scale size hole in the breech ring. If someone should attempt to load a real 30-30 round the rim will not enter the breech and the breech block will not close. Should be safe as houses.

Any suggestions on easily ignited primers would be greatly appreciated.

Gerry

[rotor]

Have not tested rifle caliber but for pistol I would say federal. Probably the same for rifle.