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Old 04-17-2016, 02:19 PM
AKtinman AKtinman is offline
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Default "A" Mark on CCI 500 Small Pistol Primers

I opened a new box of CCI 500 Small Pistol Primers and noticed an "A" marked on the primers.

CCI marks their Benchrest primers with a small "B", but I've never seen a marking on the standard primers.

Note that when I say this is a "new" box, it is one of a lot I haven't used before and would be several years old.

Anyone know about these?

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Old 04-17-2016, 03:09 PM
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I'll bet these people can tell you! (800) 379-1732

That's CCI BTW
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Old 04-17-2016, 04:31 PM
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A is for the Canadian market, eh?
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Old 04-17-2016, 05:38 PM
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I bought a carton of interesting Winchester small pistol primers last week, cheaply. They were white box, normal tray sleeves of 100, but marked "O.E.M. PRIMERS, Commercial Use Only." Obviously made for sale to commercial reloaders. Strange I have never seen any of them before. Some primer cups are seen stamped "LF" for lead-free. No idea what the "A" means.
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Old 04-17-2016, 05:57 PM
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Norma primers used to be marked "NP". I bought a batch of Norma-made 7MM RM cases, and each case had a primer with those two characters on it.
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Old 04-17-2016, 09:17 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mtgianni View Post
A is for the Canadian market, eh?
"C" is for the Spanish-speaking segment of the market.
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Old 04-18-2016, 07:17 AM
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"Y" is for the U.S. market Y'all
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Old 04-18-2016, 08:02 AM
moxie moxie is offline
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Never seen that marking!

The box with the yellow and light blue colors is pretty old. All CCI boxes I've seen in at least the last 5 years are dark blue with red and white letters and a silver swoosh.
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Old 04-18-2016, 04:10 PM
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I don't know about the packaged primers themselves, but I do have some loaded Speer ammo (Gold Dot) that has "A" stamps on the primers. This ammo is several (10 ?) years old and is in the old gold red and black 50 round boxes.

I remember contacting Speer about the significance of the "A" stamp and as best I recall they told me there had been some kind of prior issue with the primers and they went to the "A" stamp to differentiate between the two.

This was also around the time we saw 250 round bulk boxes of Speer Gold Dot ammo that was marked "not for duty use". I bought several boxes of this stuff back then in .40 S&W, both 165 and 180 grain Gold Dot bullets in Speer nickel cases. I was paying about $60 for the 250 count boxes! All that I have used has gone bang. This ammo DID NOT have the "A" stamp primers. From what I remember this bulk ammo was available in other service calibers too.

I would guess that an email to Speer/CCI would confirm/clear up this information.
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Old 04-18-2016, 08:13 PM
AKtinman AKtinman is offline
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Thanks for all the replies. I enjoyed the humor

I called CCI today and was told “the A doesn’t mean anything. It was an engineer’s idea that didn’t work out”. The CCI rep told me that the primers with the “A” on them were manufactured between May 2004 and March 2005.

It is a good reminder to me that if I have primers that are 11+ years old, I’m not doing enough shooting!
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Old 04-18-2016, 10:29 PM
NC Bob NC Bob is offline
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I found this on an old "The High Road" thread, note reference to "A" mark primers;


From: Site Map | Web.com

Speer Recalls Gold Dot Ammunition
Speer Gold Dot Ammunition -380 Auto, 9mm, 9mm+P, and 40 S&W. An intermittent, low frequency occurrence of primer misfires may occur under certain circumstances in several calibers of Gold Dot ammunition. This only applies to Gold Dot ammunition of the specified calibers produced between 09-25-01 and 03-31-02.
An unauthorized change in manufacturing process was made in late September [2001]. This resulted in primers being used that did not meet specifications. Those primers are mostly used for ammo going to Government Contract shipments. However some of the ammo does go out through distributors to local and state contracts.
Speer Gold Dot 380 Auto, 9mm, 9mm+P, and 40 S&W ammunition produced between 09-25-01 and 03-31-02 should be returned to the factory for a no-charge replacement. Replacement ammunition will incorporate an "A" mark on the primer cup for identification purposes.
You should discontinue use of the subject ammunition and follow the procedure below immediately.
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Old 04-19-2016, 12:13 AM
AKtinman AKtinman is offline
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Bob:

Thanks for the additional research on this.

When I was told "it doesn't mean anything", I was thinking that it must have meant SOMETHING or else it wouldn't have been marked.

Not slamming the CCI folks, but that was 10 years ago, and maybe the reason for the marking had been forgotten.

I'll load these up and think of the "A" as being for "accurate"

I reckon the primers I have were left over after the new Gold Dot ammo was manufactured and then those excess primers were packaged for resale.

Last edited by AKtinman; 04-19-2016 at 12:15 AM.
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