Primers

Ok as we all know primers are getting hard to come by. I can get some small pistol magum but not reg small pistol. Is ther any data out there for how much to reduce a load if using mag vs reg primer? Or would you do it at all?

If that's all you can buy I would buy! If nothing else I would use them in an emergency. There are several posts on this in several forums where people have had success using mag primers in std loads. I'm not sure that you will find posted data for them as they were not intended to be used as such.

I personally have bought them when they were out of sp primers.

Just a word of caution: Remington doesn't mark there spm primers as mag primers on the box and if you don't know Remington's numbering system you could pick up mag primers instead of std primers. Remington sp primers are 1 1/2 and mag primers are 5 1/2

I just went to a gun show locally specifically to buy primers. In the entire show, which would have covered two highschool gyms, there were only 4000 primers all of which were magnum small pistol. I bought 2000.

I have used them in the past in .38spl loads but don't remember the data. I was using old Herc 2400 at the time. I plan on using them and reducing the load by about 25% to start. I am using Unique and if anyone sees a MAJOR problem with this PLEASE let me know. I will be shooting these in a S&W 2" M10.

Also this has bee approached in depth on another forum I frequent and there still is no real concensous on the major differences other then the primers coming out of the old Soviet block have thicker wall but the same power as the standard. And that the ones made by major ammo companies like CCI & Federal have a bit hotter spark but no data on pressure increase over standard.

I have used them reduce 10% and work back up just like developing any other load a Pain I know but once you have the load write it down and you have it forever.

Last time components got scare all I could find where magnum primer I bought them and used them I reduced my loads by 10% never had any issues