About 2 months ago, my supply of .45 ACP brass was getting low and very well used. I had always passed up the small primer brass at the range and the large primer brass was getting harder to find. I was going to buy 1000 pieces of new brass, when I got an ad from SGAmmo for CCI Blazer Brass 230 grain FMJ ammo (small primer) for $259 per 1000, so I bought 2000 rounds.

I've now reloaded 300 of these small primer cases and am delighted. Primers seat easily, the cases are all one lot, so have uniform thickness and length compared to my mixed large primer brass. I've fired these through 3 different 1911's and can't tell the difference from the large primer loads. The loaded ammo was cheaper than the sum of the components if bought separately. I guess I'm a "small primer convert" now! I'll use my large primers for .44 Special and .45 Colt.

Read an article where all things being equal, the small primer rounds are about 40 fps slower than the large primer rounds. Not a deal breaker, just an interesting article...Have you chrony'ed it?

I don't have a chronograph, but recoil and muzzle blast feel about the same. Do you have a reference to that article?

Thanks

First, a 40 ft/sec average MV difference is not that much. Second, I'd think the primer make and type, powder type and charge and the bullet weight and type used might minimize (or accentuate) any difference in average MV. No idea just how thorough the results published in that article are.

It will depend on the powder used, but my exp has been 25-40fps loss with identical loads.

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

Agreed...25-40 fps isn't a game-changer. Just wanted to let you know FYI...Haven't got time to dig out the article, but if you Google it, I'm sure there's several references on it...

I picked up 500# 45acp reprocessed (small primer pocket, no primers, though) brass from Xtreme earlier in the month for under $0.08 per shipped. This had been full-length sized, cleaned & inspected: well over half was Blazer, a third Federal...

Looked really good to me, there was one (as in "1") large pistol primer case and 506 good 'un's, IMHO.

A deal that was pretty hard to beat (although $0.26 per round for factory new ammo is a true find!): if only there ever was a deal anywaheres near that on 45 AutoRim!

Cheers!

I took a personal defense class in 2006 and the instructor owned the range. He required frangible ammo and that stuff all had small primer pocket brass. I ended up with about 1000 empties which I have reloaded at least once.

People get grumpy about the small primer pocket because they have to sort the brass. Other than that the ammo is good.

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

Any luck using Winchester Small Pistol Magnum Primers in this application? A buddy ordered an extra 1K in error, gave them to me and I don't envision loading more 357mags than the 1500 or so WSMP's I already have...

P.S. I already use them in 38 Special +P loads

I own 2 Colts in 1911 dressing and 1 Ruger Blackhawk in .45 with both Colt and ACP cylinders.I keep my small primer cases segregated and load them for the revolver while my large primers are being used for the autos.This way,just by looking at the primer size I know for which gun the load is intended.
As far as accuracy is concerned,I don't see any difference.And for the slightly slower velocity,after doing a highly scientific survey,none of my paper targets could tell about any difference.
Qc

After reloading for 36+ years all my .45acp Brass is large primer. When I first discovered the .45 Brass (by accident) also now comes in a small primer version, I immediately made a decision NOT to bring it home. The way I found out about the small primed cases is one snuck in while I was reloading and the primer got mangled. Thankfully it did not go bang but being that I never want that to happen I made the choice to give away any small primer .45's I come across. Just makes things simple for me.

Anyone who wants to use both SHOULD make a concerted effort to make SURE the do not get mixed up. Personally, I'd stick with one or the other and separate Brass at the Range so it does not get into your house.

And yes the small primer stuff is 30 - 40 fps slower if the same bullets and powder is to be used, so if you want consistency two different powder charges might be required.

A few years back I went shooting outdoors with my daughter at a favorite outdoor spot. Someone there before me left over 200 spent .45 auto SP brass. I didn't realize they were SP till I got home. I cleaned and de-primed and stored them in a plastic baggie. They came in handy a few months later when I had run out of LP primers and had plenty of SP primers. I use them and just make sure I separate them from the LP brass.

During the late unlamented regime, I bought a few hundred SP .45 cases, just in case large pistol primers became hard to get. I have used them before, and can't tell the difference. Pays to keep them separated, though. After reloading a batch I place a black stripe across the bottom of the loaded round, so I can tell them apart when I go to reload.

In fact, if anyone has some they want to get rid of I'll pay postage to get them here.

Use SP Magnums anywhere you would use regular SP primers. You probably will see little if any difference. For many years I have used SR primers for most of my reloading in .38/.357, 9mm, and .38 Super. Just loaded up 200 rounds of .38 Super this morning using SR primers.

I became intrigued with the SP verses LP primers in the 45 ACP. I commented on this thread with a friend of mine. He shot me this article from Starline brass. I found it interesting. Small Primer vs. Large Primer

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Steve
The Lounge Rant Master

Just PM me and I will provide an address that will gratefully accept any and all .45 ACP small primer brass that you want to get rid of - and pay the shipping.

Thanks for the StarLine link. I have never chronographed to compare small primer vs. large primer 45 ACP and am surprised at the difference reported. I wonder if small pistol magnum primers would close the gap?

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

With my 45 ACP loads using Bullseye, there is no noticable difference in their performance when using small primer brass versus large primer.

With my 45 ACP loads using Blue Dot, the load performs much better using a large primer.

Ran across some "once fired" .45 Auto Speer brass with small primer pockets in 2K lots for 4.3 cents each SHIPPED about 4 years ago. By the time I bought my third or fourth box the priced jumped to 6.3 cents shipped!

Life is so much easier for single headstamp reloading and the Speer brand has held up unbelievably well.

Can you blame me for being a SP convert?

Hey I haven't loaded any small pistol primer 45 cap brass yet. I have been collecting it and sorting it out I'm still mainly on large primer brass. Because a while back I bought a new 1911 so I wanted to run several boxes of factory ammo through it to make sure everything is running right on the gun. I was using blazer brass I got through one box of it. It was doing good so far then I noticed I accuracy was all over place I would have a good group then bam it be way off the. It would do it again. I then notice there were small and large primer brass in the same lot box of blazer brass. So I benchrwst gun shot both and there was a very noticeable difference between small and large primer brass it maybe they load the loads differently on powder but the small brass was hitting 4 inches lower at 20 yards. So that's why I stuck with big primer 45 brass so maybe I got a bad Lot of ammo. Anyone have shot reloads off rest side by side comparison with a chrony. Thanks