Interesting video. It pretty much confirms my suspicions, but it’s more of a demonstration than a real scientific test.

I have never understood calling 231 a ball powder. It looks nothing like, for example, AA5 or Ball C2, or any other powder I normally think of as a ball powder. If it’s a “flattened” ball, then isn’t it, for ignition purposes, really no longer a ball? Well anyway, I remain with the “no need of a magnum primer with 231” camp. My chronograph has never shown any improvement in ES or SD with magnum primers, and in some cases has shown the opposite, so what few I have are getting old and don’t get used.

I recently tried something similar with my .300 Weatherby and Reloader 25 powder. It’s a big charge of very slow burning powder in a long, thin case. I used Federal 215s and standard Winchester large rifle primers (not the ones marked for “standard or magnum” loads). I have no pressure measuring equipment and I don’t have the chronograph readings or targets handy right now, but I saw very little difference in ES and SD, and accuracy at 100 yards. I only fired 3 rounds of each, so, again, not much of a test. Temperature was about 85 degrees F.

These very limited tests, like mine and the one in the video, really don’t stand up to much scrutiny. But they are what they are.