Hi everyone, what's the deal with pistol primers and rifle primers ? I have allways shot Federal br primers in my ppc bench gun. Why pistol primers  when loading for 32-40, 38-55 and so on?

Thanks....Larry

Larry, in some older rifles such as Stevens 44's and 44½'s the firing pins won't work reliably with rifle primers, however my rifles all like WLR rifle primers.

Another oddball requiring large pistol primers is the .44-40.  Primer pockets are a bit shallow on those cases, so that rifle primers tend to sit a bit high in the pockets.

Larry D wrote on Feb 18^th, 2015 at 11:44am:


Me too.

    Joe. 

You guys are great! A load of great info and spot on time. Thanks!

Larry

RFD, do you have any more info on the Kermit swage die? I remember seeing something on the old BPCR sight but can not pull it up anymore. I use a lot of pistol primers and it would be great to seat them out like LR.

  I have one also and it works very well.

The trend of large pistol primer use tends to be more prevalent in black powder use.  A group of shooters are using the large pistol primers in an attempt to minimize the movement of the powder column before powder ignition.  The theory is that the primer ignition can  move the powder column and bullet a slight amount before the powder combustion leading to less accuracy.  As stated this is a theory held by some shooters.  A friend of mine did a test where he loaded 45-70 rounds with primers and no powder in them.  They were fired and the distance the bullet moved was measured. He tested a large number of different primers with a sample size of 15 shots per primer type.  He found that the Fed 150 large pistol primers moved the bullet the least.  In theory then the powder column would be moved the least also.  He sent me the data and it turned out that I was already using Fed 150, with good success.  The problem in using the pistol primers is that they can crater the firing pin hole in the breech block face of some rifles.  I have never had any problems using them in my Shiloh Sharp rifles or my CPA.  I did crater the breech block insert in a Miller F after about 25 shots.  It apparently had not been heat treated.  A new one was made out of O1 and heat treated properly and have had no problem since.  Some shooters are putting a paper wad under the pistol primer to take up the gap from them seating deeper. I don't seem to see much difference in LPP vs LRP when using smokeless.  It really all boils down to what is the most accurate in your rifle and "less damaging".