CFE pistol powder. Regular small pistol primer

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Dec 9, 2016
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Hey all I'm using CFE pistol powder to reload 357 Magnum and I was wondering if I can use regular small pistol primer for it cause I cannot find Magnum primers anywhere in my state or there all on backorder online?
 
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I've seen ppl do it and it works fine but I haven't tried it.

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If you check Hodgdon's data for 38 special you will see that they used a standard Small Pistol primer for 38 special. Based on this I would consider it rather obvious that there isn't anything at all "dangerous" with using a Small Pistol primer for a 357 Magnum load. At worst you may see a less than ideal "spread" in the velocities produced from load to load but because CFE Pistol is such a recently introduced powder I suspect that you'll find the only advantage to using a Magnum primer with this powder might be a small gain in the produced velocity.

PS; anytime you can't find something specific it's a very good idea to lets us know your general location. Because you may have a neighbor in a nearby town who has seen exactly what you are looking for in his local gun shop.

I'll also note that Cabelas is showing CCI 550 SPM primers in stock and on sale for 28.04 per 1000. If you have a Cabelas nearby I would suggest going online and checking if they have them in stock in your store. If not you can always do a "ship to store" which will eliminated the HAZMAT shipping fee.
 
I've gotten great results using CFE-P 357 mag loads and standard primers. I'm loading at the upper end of recommended charge weights using 158gr. plated or coated bullets and find it pretty clean burning there. It does get dirty as you down load, but then again what powder doesn't.
Have had the same results with CFE-P and 44 mag, 9mm and 45acp. All with standard primers.
 
They show magnum primers with load data for magnum calibers . Just to keep things all the same for all powders , even though most of the powders listed really don't need magnum primers . I'm sure CFE Pistol doesn't really need mag primers in other calibers .
 
As a note on using a cci500 standard primer with CFE pistol powder......

My 6" 686 gets a 125 XTP to 1221fps and a 158 lead to 1175fps. Both shot at POA at 25 yards.

Have fun.
 
Small rifle primers are usually easier to find than any small pistol primers
and are often cheaper as well. I use mostly Winchester primers and
have found out in several chronograph tests that their SR primers are
just about identical to their SPM primers. Average velocities between
357 loads using SPM primers and SR primers may differ by less than
5 fps so they are interchangeable actually. They might be sitting on
the store shelves in your area waiting for buyers if you look.
 
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