There was a large selection of "weaker," or less brisant, primers available back in The Good Old Days.  People like Pope, Roberts and Donaldson used to write that after a certain primer became unavailable, either a whole new loading regime became necessary for a cartridge, or the cartridge itself was never as legendarily accurate again.  All these black powder primers went into the discard when smokeless powders came along, and the primers for smokeless now are either strong, stronger, or extra strong; take your choice.  Like the Fries at Fast Food places; how do you order a "small" anymore?

The argument for attenuating the effect of these primers back to those of the black powder era doesn't strike me as unscientific or specious. I would love to stop using primer wads because they are an extra loading step I would prefer to avoid, if possible.  Whether it is voodoo or real, every bench test I've made at 500 and 600 yards with and without the primer wads show a slightly better grouping with the same loads with the primer wads.  And since a lot of effort goes into loading those cartridges anyway, the addition of one more step doesn't increase the effort that much, for the effect sought.

The old buff hunters had simple hand tools, including a "follower" which compressed the powder column and seated a wad, and a "shell reducer," which squeezed the shell mouth, if necessary, so the bullet wouldn't shake out.  The ancients were surprisingly modern in a lot of ways. 

Bruce,
There are two primers that have been tested with very good results in smokeless rounds with low brisance and S.D.'s.  I have been wanting to try them in my BPTR rifle but the one source has now dried up in the U.S. and the other has now become available which I plan on trying this summer.  The one that is  available is a Czech primer by Sellier & Bellot and the other is Russian made and sold under several names, Wolf, Tula and Murom.
Do you have them available down under and have you tried them with any good results?  Bob

Thanks everyone for your input.  I should have mentioned from the beginning that I'm using Black Horn 209 and Federal Magnum 215 rifle primers.  It does seem counter productive using over primer wads if it makes the primer less brisant since BH209 requires a hot primer to set it off. Maybe there is an advantage to dispersing the flash into the powder charge?  The kernel size of BH209 is small and there could be the possibility of some variable amount creeping into the touch hole.
Using news paper for the wad, I have never found any remnants of it any where.  I have to assume it's consumed with the burning of the powder.
Anyways, I can't complain about accuracy and the limited chronographing  I have done showed consistent velocities.
I guess I shouldn't tinker with this just to find out something else isn't as good.
Thanks again,
Mike.

It depends on what you are doing and with what powder. Black Powder will ignite fairly easily the current fashion is to use either newspaper or tissue paper over the primer to blunt the force of the primer explosion. Smokeless is harder to ignite and requires a hotter primer than Black. In the early years of smokeless you could buy primers for black powder or smokeless power. If you look at some of the early duplex loads you will see that the old timers used a priming charge of Black powder and a main charge of smokeless this was to properly light off the smokeless with the easier to ignite Black powder. 
  Some of this is fashion somebody tries some thing new and if he shoots a good score then everyone flocks to the new thing. I can remember not so long ago when shooters were telling others that only a magnum primer would do on larger cases.
  Try it and see if it helps you if it does then go for it! If not experiment and find your own way.

40 Rod

As a very limited BP shooter who is interested in it and trying to learn, I am confused... in the latest BPCR News magazine there is an article where the writer talks about using MAGNUM primers!

Isn't that just the opposite of what you guys are all saying?

Other than my shotguns, I have only used BP in my .577/.450 martini. (it is a kick to hunt preserve birds with BP shotguns, the dog is the first one to know if you hit or missed )

Just asking so I can learn.
Jerry

IOwnDoubles,

The subject of proper priming of black powder cartridge loads has "evolved" over the years.  Spencer Wolf started the ball rolling by stating that the original .45-70 Govt cartridge was made with a large excess of priming compound because of reliability issues.  They put in a lot of extra priming compound so the fat firing pin had a chance of setting something off in there when the shot was fired.  This was logical since the Henry and the 1866 Winchester rimfire rifles had dual firing pin ends to more surely fire the priming in the rimfire cartridges they used.

Wolf said the side effect of the extra priming was that it blasted the black powder column in the shell to smithereens, increasing the combustion surface and, supposedly, making the cartridge accurate in the old days.  Modern loaders who had trouble getting accuracy with their old Trapdoors were using modern standard primers, which didn't have this blasting effect.  So the recommendation was to use Magnum primers as the closest thing to the overlarge primers of old.

Everybody tried that for a while and then some brave soul tried some normal primers (using the black powder cartridge loading techniques that had also been rediscovered and refined) and got better accuracy than with the Magnum primers.  Suddenly the theories changed from needing to light as much black powder off as possible to having as controlled a burn as possible, with minimal pressurization in the shell, and minimum movement of the bullet from the pressure, from the primer ignition.  Then, Benchrest primers, Match primers and even Large Pistol primers were used to make as mild an ignition as possible.  Some even modified their shells so Small Rifle or even Pistol primers could be used.  Somewhere in there the Primer Wads started being used and advocated by some.

Basically, it's whatever works for you.  I should be proof against this voodoo since I did some of my best BPCR work (coincidentally, before my eyes started giving out) with a Mason jar full of Frankford Arsenal corrosive Large Rifle primers, although I eventually did use newsprint Primer Wads with them.  I now use Federal Gold Medal Match Large Pistol primers, with a punched out wad in the primer pocket.  Just neurotic, I guess.

How do you get a wad over the primer? Paste it onto the head of the case? What if your head space is already on the tight side? I don't get it. 

       Joe.