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Are CCI Primers Bigger?

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As I have written here before, a friend died last Summer and I got a bunch of his reloading stuff. Also as I have written here, I just switched from reloading 9mm to 45.

There were some old CCI LP in his supply and I tried them last night. I have been using Winchester for the last 30 years as that was what my LGS stocked. The Federals seem to take more pressure to seat.

I apologize to you, they are CCI not Federal. I don't know where that came from, but I got it wrong.
 
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Can't answer your question specifically but in the 45 years of reloading and using various brands of primers, some brands took more seating pressure than others. Never had any of the 'higher seating pressure required' not able to fully seat and all went bang.
 
Over the years Winchester primers have been easier to seat than most other brands I've used.

I've used a number of Federal SP and LR primers, don't recall them being as tight as CCI.

For me any CCI type has usually required a bit more effort than others.
 
My last 1000 CCI small pistol primers were so hard to seat that the seating punch left indentions on the primer. That was a mixed lot of .38 brass, so it was not a case issue. That was over 15 years ago and I have not bought another CCI primer.

I have not noticed any brand of primer that hard to seat since. I have found some brands of brass more difficult than others, expecially MagTech.
 
oldman10mm said:
Can't answer your question specifically but in the 45 years of reloading and using various brands of primers, some brands took more seating pressure than others. Never had any of the 'higher seating pressure required' not able to fully seat and all went bang.
Click to expand...

Pretty much my experience as well. I've used most or all brands (except foreign) since 1965 for rifle and handgun cartridges, but at least 75% of the primers have been CCI. I don't mix brass.
 
S&B .45 acp brass is not as good as others imo with tighter pockets. I’ve used cci exclusively for years and haven’t noticed any size issues but my primers are not current, the newest ones are a few years old. I date my primer bricks and powder when it goes on the shelf. Rotate your stock to get the freshest reloads around. Mmmmgood.
 
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Is your .45 brass commercial or military? Improper/incomplete removal of primer crimp can definitely cause seating pressure issues.

Way back when Peanuts Carter was President I bought X thousand Federal LP primers to the point that I didn't use them all until this century. Never saw any seating issues.

All that said, every once in awhile everyone has a small amount of product get onto the market that isn't the best/normal example of the product.

Someone mentioned S&B earlier. I've got some of their brass and the primer pockets are really, really tight.
 
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Yes, S&B pockets are definitely tight. I usually have to ream them to get primers to fit. Some older military .45 cases (including steel cases) also used a slightly smaller diameter primer. I have needed to ream pockets to get a LP primer to seat in them. I have several dozen WWI REM-UMC .45 empty cases that I reloaded that way. I also experienced some undersized SP pockets in some ancient .38 S&W cases that would not accept new primers. I like to reload old brass cases.
 
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Some primers are copper, others are plated. The only difference I've encountered are one vs. the other. Now I will only use silver primers, simply because of the operational performance, not the ballistics.
 
I've never noticed any difference in metallic primers (pistol and rifle) between the popular American brands, but there is a definite difference in shotshell primers. Rio and cheddite are two popular foreign makes due to their cost, but if you try to use Winchester 209s in hulls previously loaded with rios or cheddites , often they will be a loose fit and sometimes fall right back out
 
Patrick L said:
I've never noticed any difference in metallic primers (pistol and rifle) between the popular American brands, but there is a definite difference in shotshell primers. Rio and cheddite are two popular foreign makes due to their cost, but if you try to use Winchester 209s in hulls previously loaded with rios or cheddites , often they will be a loose fit and sometimes fall right back out
Click to expand...

At one time, Remington used shotshell primers which were smaller in diameter than 209s. I think they switched to 209s back in the 1980s, maybe before that. The way the older Remington shells were reloaded (if one didn't have the Remington size primers) was to force an fired 209 primer into the Remington case's primer hole to size it, then punch out the fired primer. Then thereafter you could seat a live 209 primer. I loaded many Remington cases that way. Back at that time, Remington cases used a strange crumbly inside base material that would fall apart after a few loadings. Sort of like it was made of sawdust in some binder. Winchester and Federal cases (which always used 209 primers) were much better.
 
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I changed my original post, they are CCI.


Cdog said:
Over the years Winchester primers have been easier to seat than most other brands I've used.

I've used a number of Federal SP and LR primers, don't recall them being as tight as CCI.

For me any CCI type has usually required a bit more effort than others.
Click to expand...
 
They ARE CCI. I apologize.

Nightowl said:
My last 1000 CCI small pistol primers were so hard to seat that the seating punch left indentions on the primer. That was a mixed lot of .38 brass, so it was not a case issue. That was over 15 years ago and I have not bought another CCI primer.

I have not noticed any brand of primer that hard to seat since. I have found some brands of brass more difficult than others, expecially MagTech.
Click to expand...
 
My brass is mixed and it has been reloaded many times, or at least most of it has.

WR Moore said:
Is your .45 brass commercial or military? Improper/incomplete removal of primer crimp can definitely cause seating pressure issues.

Way back when Peanuts Carter was President I bought X thousand Federal LP primers to the point that I didn't use them all until this century. Never saw any seating issues.

All that said, every once in awhile everyone has a small amount of product get onto the market that isn't the best/normal example of the product.

Someone mentioned S&B earlier. I've got some of their brass and the primer pockets are really, really tight.
Click to expand...
 
These are older CCI silver. I have used many thousand of the "new" copper Winchester primers.

GypsmJim said:
Some primers are copper, others are plated. The only difference I've encountered are one vs. the other. Now I will only use silver primers, simply because of the operational performance, not the ballistics.
Click to expand...
 
CCI = harder

Fed = very soft thin cup, easy to seat but also easy to distort which is not a problem really.
 
I switched back to Winchester tonight and they seemed to seat easier. Over the past few months, I loaded approx 1,000 9mm with CCI primers and I don't remember any big problems there.
 
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