of primers that is.

 

Anyone have any leads on small rifle primers at reasonable prices?

sure right next to the ice cubes in aisle 4 of hell

I keep hearing good things about Jim Fynn up your way.

 

Otherwise I could probably trade you a brick for a brick of pistol primers if you need it.

powder valley posted they have a big shipment of wolf primers coming in this week...might want to pre-order

Strangely, I've seen lots of primers in the past few weeks.

 

I am pretty sure that Dunkelbergers in Stroudsburg will have them for around $34. They also have had all the powder I've needed lately, and have had every brand ammo in every caliber lately. They also had the RCBS die I wanted last time I was there.

 

There are some strange political issues with Dunkelbergers (I believe they video tape all firearm transactions for the NYC police, if you can believe that), and they seem to have a completely incorrect view of what guns are legal in NJ and which are not, but for supplies, ammo and primers they've had what I needed.

 

-Melgamatic

I was surprised to see Winchester value packs on the shelf at out Wal-Mart. first time I've seen that in a while. Unless my timing was good. Too bad I don't use the stuff although I did buy some for our club to use in the NRA classes. We just raised the cost of the courses due to ammo costs.

what walmart sells primers + ammo in n.j. ?

None.....but the PA walmarts do.

I keep hearing good things about Jim Fynn up your way.

 

Otherwise I could probably trade you a brick for a brick of pistol primers if you need it.

 

I'm going to check with Jim Flynn tomorrow. I do have a backorder with Midsouth, but who knows when that will ship.

 

Are Wolf primers decent? I've only used CCI and Remington.

I have heard good reports on Wolf, but have not yet used them. I do have a few thousand of them on Backorder.

I just got off the phone with Jim Flynn. He has magnum small rifle primers. Does anyone know if I can use these for .223? I've never used them myself.

Some powders are listed to be used with magum primers. Win 748 is one of them if you are using that for 223.

 

Magnum primers burn a little hotter and can be used in place of standard primers if you reduce your load by 10% and work it back up.

I use IMR 4895 for .223 in a bolt action rifle. I use mostly 50 gr and 55 gr bullets.

I like 4895 also, not many people use it in 223. In the bolt you have a little more leeway to play with charges because you do not need to cycle the action. You could start at the lowest charge and try the magnum primers if you want to start over again, or just keep looking.

Too late, I went at lunchtime and bought a box. :mrgreen: I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to get small rifle primers at a good price. I'll try to contact IMR, Speer, Sierra, etc and see if they have anything to say. Otherwise, I'll start low and build up the powder charge.

I have found the bullet techs at Sierra to be a wealth of information, good luck.

Well, I thought I post a followup to this issue. I got two responses regarding replacing normal SR primers with magnum SR primers. One was from Speer and the other from Sierra. Totally different answers. :?

 

Here's what I sent to both:

I've been reloading the .223 cartridge for years for my bolt-action rifle using your bullets (50 grains and 55 grains). I usually use 25 grains of IMR 4895 powder. Normally, I use CCI 400 small rifle primers. With the limited availability of primers, I was only able to get CCI 450 small rifle magnum primers. Is it okay to substitute magnum primers for normal primers? Im mainly interested in safety, not reduction in accuracy. Is this safe? Should I reduce the powder charge?

 

Here's my response from Speer:

change to a powder that was tested with the 450 Magnum, most of the ball powders were tested with the CCI 450 primer.

 

Here's my response from Sierra:

Hi,

With a mag primer I'd reduce the load by .5 gr. This will balance it back out pretty well like the load would have run with just the standard primer.

 

So, Speer effectively says don't do it and Sierra says to back down the powder charge a bit. I guess the lawyers at Speers are more active.

 

I've seen conflicting information on the web regarding this, so it's good to hear from the experts. I was thinking of getting some ball powder like Winchester 748 so I could use these primers. It's much easier to get powder these days than primers, but now I think I can use the magnum primers with IMR 4895.

That is interesting to read. It is just like their loading manuals. There are different start and max loads for the same cartridge in different manuals.

 

As I wrote I have relied on Sierra bullet techs for many years and they have not let me down.

 

Good Luck

http://www.wideners.com has WOLF primers in stock. For AR they say to use the SR magnum primers.

I thought I'd post a followup with my experience using the magnum primers versus standard primers. I loaded 25.0 gr of IMR 4895 powder using standard CCI 400 primers and 24.5 gr of IMR 4895 powder using magnum CCI 450 primers per Sierra's advice. I used my Remington bolt action rifle for this test. Unfortunately, I forgot my scope so I had to use the iron sights.

 

Over about 20-30 rounds, it seemed the magnum primers shot a little higher than the standard primers. Now, I can't say conclusively that this is a fact since I was using the iron sights, not my Leupold scope. But, I didn't notice anything different as far as excess pressures. I don't own a crono, so I'll just have to assume the magnum primers have a slightly higher velocity.

 

I'll post again when get a chance to try this again with my scope.

 

The usual disclaimers apply. Don't sue me if you get hurt or damage your equipment. This is my experience, use you own judgement.

FYI, I just visited Harry's/Cheyenne mtn in Hamilton this past saturday and they had a lot of different primers available.

JonF,

 

Thanks for the update. They had CCI 400 small rifle primers? If so, that's good news. Maybe, the shortages are moderating. I wish I lived near Hamilton.

 

I just picked up a Sierra reloading manual. I previously used a Speer manual. In the Sierra manual, they claim when you switch from standard primers to magnum primers, to reduce the powder load 5%. I only reduced 2% (0.5/25*100%). I guess I'm not near the maximum load so I didn't need to reduce the full 5%.