It has been quite a while since we looked at PRIMERS. They are so small, yet a very important part of reloading and IF the primers do not do their job, nothing else happens.

Let me note something right here and now. ALL PRIMERS ARE GOOD, BUT ALLPRIMERS ARE DIFFERENT. I am going to refer to several instances of different primer performance. I have no particular love or hate for any certain primer. I would use any of those listed in any applicable circumstance.

Just because I mention Winchester doing one thing in one caliber, and something good or bad in another does not mean Winchester primers are better or worse than CCI or Remington’s are. These are illustrations to show what difference PRIMERS can make.

Since I just mentioned Winchester, let’s start right there. Really this in two parts. The first was using some new factory primed Winchester 243 Win cases. Midway USA had them for sale a while back and it was a good deal. The frustrating part was, I could not get that 243 to shoot a decent group. I tried all the usual tricks, but nothing really helped.

So I deprimed a few cases and replaced the primers with CCI 200 primers. Whoa, what a difference. Seldom have I had a 243 shoot that well.

The second part to this is that I was wondering if it were in the primers, so I took those exact decapped ones, and put them in my 338 Win Mag with IMR 4831 powder.

I know about now half of the readers are jumping up and down about my “decapping” live primers. I assure you it was done with great care, and only done in order to achieve the test data I was looking for. If you ever must decap live primers, there are not enough ways to say, BE CAREFUL, and wear eye and ear protection.

Those primers out of the 243 Winchester cases shot just great in the 338 Mag. What does it mean? Maybe they were just too hot for that size case but it could be almost anything.

The next test was with Federal 210 and Federal 210 Match primers along with some Remington 9½ Magnums in a 30-06. The load was one of “known ability” with AA 3100 and a Sierra 220-gr RNSP bullet.

What happened here is “typical”, in that the standard primer averaged slightly faster, but with a larger Velocity spread than the Match Primer.

To make matters even more interesting, since I use this load in very cold weather during November here in Michigan, I tried some Federal 215 Magnum primers.

The initial test was conducted on a 68-degree day, so I loaded some of the exact components except with the Federal 215 primers, and took them to the range on a day far too cold to enjoy doing what I was doing.

The temperature ranged from11 to 15 degrees F. The gun was cold, (I was cold) and so was the ammo, just like hunting.

The average Velocity was 2311 fps with an extreme spread of 22 fps. It shows that even with a hotter primer, cold weather does make a difference.

I also was working on some African loads for my 338 Winchester Magnum for use next spring, and had been using Winchester Large Rifle (WLR) primers in Federal nickel cases.

Using mostly IMR 4831 and AA 4350 with 225 gr bullets I just could not get this gun to really settle in on what I wanted. Again, out of curiosity, I switched to some CCI 250 Magnum primers. The velocities were very close, 2805 fps to 2822 fps, but the groups with the CCI 250 were “half” the size of the WLR.

So not as to blame the primers too much, I put the same WLR primers in my 7mm Rem Mag with 7828, and proceeded to shoot just wonderful groups.

Normally primer changes are the last thing I do to “tweak” out better groups, but sometimes it is just the last thing to make something fit just right.

I finally settled on using Reloder 19 and 225 gr bullets using a CCI 250 primer. The next best load was with a 200 gr Hornady bullet and again Reloder 19 but using a standard CCI 200 primer.

The 300 Winchester can also benefit from primer changes. I loaded up some 150 gr Hornady Spire Point bullets for Antelope and Deer hunting with IMR 4831 powder.

This time I used all CCI primers, Standard, Bench Rest, and Magnum.

Here a wonderful thing happened. It seems that there was no perceivable difference in group sizes. Maybe if I shot 10 more groups of 10 shots each there might be, but they shot into separate points of impact. Why? Just the way the barrel vibrated I guess upon bullet exiting from the muzzle.

One of the most “forgiving” guns is the 375H&H. Unless you load a case full of “Ball” powder, the 375 H&H gets along just fine with either Standard or Magnum Primers. Using Winchester cases and 300 gr Hornady RN bullets and 68 gr of IMR 4064 in a 24” M70 the results were as follows:

I can assure you that there is not an Elk, Moose, Kudu, Wildebeest, or Eland that could ever tell the difference between any of those loads used above.

Just recently I was working on some 30-06 180 gr loads with AA 2700 “ball” powder. Again I started with standard CCI 200 primers, and worked from there. Nothing really clicked until I switched to Winchester WLR primers. Whoa, groups were cut in half, and velocity up slightly. It must be that that powder was quite hard to ignite, and that hot WLR what just the spark it needed to do the job right.

That is just one of those rare occasions when experimenting with a different primer can pay big dividends.

RELOADING is a great hobby, and the fun is in shooting and experimenting. Remember to stay safe, and check the manual for details on data.

As always, “NOTHING BEATS BULLET PLACEMENT’.

If you have any special questions, feel free to contact Terry at 616-896-6500 or for E-mail to tblauwkamp@superior-sales.com