Primers

I have always used CCI 250 magnum large rifle primers. But as I go through my learning curve reloading, I see a lot of other primers and rarely see the ones I use mentioned.

What, based on your experience, yields the better accuracy in median calibers like .270, 7mm-08, etc..?

I use CCi LR for about everything SA non magnum. I keep it simple and use CCi magnums for all my magnum stuff. I test everything including primers and CCi has always done me right and best of all they are usually available when FGMM is not.

I have found good loads and groups with Remington, Winchester, Wolf, CCI, and Federal primers. They all can work and be accurate if your powder and bullet combo work with them. You can always tinker with different primers if you can't get consistent or accurate results with a certain load. Primers are one of the easiest and cheapest variables to change and experiment with. I tend to use Federal primers, either standard or Gold Metal Match. I have had great success with them. My Dad however found Remington 9.5 Magnums to work better in his 7mmRM recently. It really depends on your load.

I'm using H4831 and H1000 type powders. Getting decent accuracy with occasional fliers. However I do see a large 40 to 70 FPS jump in FPS occasionally. Sometimes up, sometimes down but it blows my ES and accuracy on target to crap.

Are you loading inside a powder "node"? No primer in the world can fix barrel harmonics or a charge weight that's way out of a node.

Jud96 said:

Are you loading inside a powder "node"? No primer in the world can fix barrel harmonics or a charge weight that's way out of a node.

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Yes, just wondered if I could possibly tighten up the group a little better?

I was told of a high power shooter who owned a gun store in Tucson who used to have his employees test every new lot of primers they were shipped. They used a 17 caliber centerfire case with just the primer and IIRC a BB. Several primers were fired and the ES was established. If the ES was very low the owner kept that lot for himself.

I realize it sounds crazy doing that and I could argue that the neck tension could be a factor in ES. Seeing the guy was a LR shooting rifle loon back in the 70s to now, perhaps there is some validity to his sorting out lots of primers and perhaps his methods were well thought out.

I don't have the time to try several brands of primers with my best loads. I knew a guy that would substitute primers judging group size at 200 yds. While POI would change often there was little difference in group size sometimes there was. BUT back in the 70s we didn't own chronographs and missed ES calculations.

I suppose I am lazy as I use Federal primers for all my hunting rifles. My 6 BR uses CCI 450 because I read on accurate shooter it worked the best. I am certain most of us can get excellent results with a variety of primers.

There is no best. Different guns and loads prefer different primers.

I for years ran nothing but Federal 215s. I did shoot a lot of big cases, but also did a lot of pred hunting in very cold 25ish below weather and figured hotter the better. I did discover that I did get much better consistency using Large rifle primers in cases smaller than 65 grains. I played around and use mostly WLR in my 308/30-06 size cases. Still the Fed 215M in the bigs though.