stargeezer

On a recent range trip I discovered a big pile of once fired blazer brass heaped up on the shooting table with a note that said "help yourself". There were several empty blazer boxes in the trash can, so I assumed that some police group had been there practicing. I helped myself to a couple hundred rounds that went into my range bag with my other empties.

After deprimeing everything and cleaning it in my ultrasonic cleaner, it was dried and inspected along with everything else I shot that trip. Cases were lubed and dropped into the case feeder of my Dillon progressive press which was loaded with Winchester large pistol primers.

As the loading progressed there were no problems until I got to some of the blazer brass - I could not push the primer into the case. It was like the case was already primed - stopped dead. None of the blazer brass would accept a primer. I was a little short on time today and decided to stop and go to my appointments but hope to research it more tomorrow.

Does anyone know if CCI uses a different sized primer in blazer 45ACP? It didn't look crimped. Any clues?

Stugots

Is it small pistol primer size, I know I come across some of that from time to time.

BW64

Yep! Small pistol primers. Federal has them also! No problem just use SPP's & fire away!! They shoot the same! But for loading you're going to have to sort first!



BW

stargeezer

Thanks bw. That's going to be a pain now... At least I didn't buy it. :-)

scattershot

That comes up from time to time, just segregate it and shoot them together, and after the initial sorting it won't be a problem. Not real sure why they did that, but it's free brass, after all.

BlackhawkShooter

The reason that the small primers are being used more in the 45ACP is because of the trend toward the new Non Toxic primer mixture. This mixture is more powerful and it takes less of it to equal the force of the old large primer. Also the same reason for larger flash holes and crimping the primers in place, thus pressure won’t build up in the primer pocket and the primer will not back out. Sometime in the future all will be made with small primers.

krwada

Go run out and purchase a bunch of small pistol primers.

At 1st, I thought that I would not load small pistol primer .45 ACP brass. Then, I find out that ALL the competition shooters are getting rid of large pistol primer .45 ACP brass and building up a supply of small pistol primer brass.

I have a friend, a competition IDPA shooter, who showed me result from his chronograph that the small pistol primer .45 ACP brass outperforms the traditional large pistol primer brass by a significant margin. It is significant enough that now, most, if not all competition shooters are hoarding this stuff.

Tellico

Speer make SP brass too. It used to be you could buy SP brass from a lot of ranges very cheap as no one wanted it. That is changing rapidly. I have not accepted any yet. But?

bhefley59

The small pistol primers work well but a lot of guys won't mix them with the large. When I find some I throw them in a bucket till I have a few hundred and them prime them when I have my primer installer set for small primers .

krwada

Yes, I forgot to mention this. Do not mix the small primer brass with the large primer brass. Doing so will create an accident waiting to happen.

cowboy85306

More powerful? More likely explanation is cheaper to produce! In spite of the desire of ammo makers who do this wanting to make consumers feel that they are getter something "better" or "New and Improved", when ,in fact, that is not necessarily the case. It is flat cheaper to make small pistol primers, regardless of what else is claimed. It IS in fact good business try attempt to cut production costs as long as quality is not adversely impacted, as long as the the result is not "Well, how good does it HAVE to be for this?" ;then corner cutting ensues, quality drops, and you get center fire bulk pack ammo that is no better than the most inferior rim fire bulk pack ammo ( we are not there yet, and hopefully, will not get that far! )
Just my 0.02

krwada

I tell ALL of you what ... I have a friend who frequents The RCBS Reloader HUB, who will take ALL of your .45 ACP brass with the small pistol primers off your hands. He will even pay shipping too! He goes by the handle Dangun, and he is a life NRA member, NRA instructor, BRSA competition shooter, and IDPA competition shooter.

I foolishly tossed all of my small primer brass in the recycling until he showed me the chrono, group and powder residue data. The most compelling was the unburnt powder residue test he did. The conventional large primers left some unburnt powder residue behind. The newer small primers left no detectable powder residue behind.

The chrono and grouping data clearly showed that the small primers were superior in every way. This explains why all the competition shooters are starting to hoard this stuff.

stargeezer

The larger primers would have more "material" that ejects since there is more size. That seems very plausible and I know that in the old days a bigger primer meant more certain ignition. Which is less of a issue today. Our primers today are much higher quality and "dependable" is the watchword.

I'm less convinced about chrono and group improvements from shooting SB. My unscientific testing of various primer manufacturers showed no difference measurable. Not saying there's none, but I'll keep my powder dry on this one.

Thanks all!