Do you use magnum primers with ball powder?

Hi all, some established wisdom I've encountered is that ball powder is harder to ignite and performs more consistently when lit by a magnum primer. Now obviously ball powder has been around longer than magnum primers have so I know it's not required BUT what has been your experience and practice? Any before and after data indicating improvements from using magnum primers with ball powder even in standard cartridges?


While we're at it, what about using standard primers in magnum cartridges with stick powder.

I've never had any trouble using CCI 200's with Ball or Magnum loads but i have seen slightly better ES's and SD's with Federal 215GM's in Magnum Loads

I was told that many times and did a lot of ball powder loads in both 22-250 and 260/7mm-08. Found no problems with the fed 210m and WLR primers. I do have a stock of CCI and Fed magnum primers I tried as well. ES / SD as well as simple accuracy was not an issue with ball powders (H414 H380 Win760) and large rifle non magnum primers. Good Shooting

Savage 12BVSS said:

I was told that many times and did a lot of ball powder loads in both 22-250 and 260/7mm-08. Found no problems with the fed 210m and WLR primers. I do have a stock of CCI and Fed magnum primers I tried as well. ES / SD as well as simple accuracy was not an issue with ball powders (H414 H380 Win760) and large rifle non magnum primers. Good Shooting

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I love H414, Just sayin

I use Fed 215 in anything that uses more than 70 grains of powder. Winchester is the second choice for the big powder loads. I have seen other mag primers do click booms or fail to fire at all, despite them actually going off and leaving clumpy burned powder in the case,. Effect is worse in cold weather but I have seen it a 60 F too. I use CCI mag rifle in ALL hunting loads less than 70 grains. The only time I do not start with mag primers is developing highly precise competition loads and even then I have often found the best grouping with mag primers. In a 45-70 a mag primer will dramatically reduce unburned powder in the 18" barrel guide guns..

Almost always. It's not always totally necessary. Anymore I'm using magnum primers almost exclusively but part of that is going to small primer brass and not wanting to bush my firing pin.

Some as the guy that posted using magnum primers for 70gr or more of powder. Use standard in most everything else.

As an habit I generally use mag primers with ball powders starting off. If I don't get what I'm looking for I have no problem moving to a standard primer. In fact I done just this with my 7mm/08 with WW760. Moved from a mag primer to CCI Br2. Worked great. I would not try this with large cap cases, say powder cap of 70 grs+ with ball powder. JMO

Guess that's why I have had no issue's with std LR primers, my load's are all in the mid 30's to mid 40gr powder capacity. Even in zero weather no failure's or misfire's.

Ball or double base primers contain nitroglycerine and have more deterrent coatings to slow down the burn rate. And these deterrent coatings make ball powder harder to ignite and most reloading manuals use magnum primers.

I've been using staball 6.5 in a coue rifles lately, with 210's, getting sd number in single digits in both rifles.

NO....solution, never use ball powder as long as anything is available..

I attempted to work up a load with Hunter in 30-06 using standard primers. The accuracy was terrible and the ES was high. At the time I didn't have access to a quality chrono but my pro chrono showed ~80 ft/sec variation. I switched over to magnum primers and worked back up. Single digit ES half MOA groups.

Mostly I use Mag primers with ball powders. I do use CCI 400 and Winchester SR with some 223 loads using ball powders with no problems. But I really don't use all that much ball powder in rifles. I always use mag primers in pistol loads with ball powders. In larger capacity like my 264 Win mag I always use mag primer. Usually CCI 250 or Fed 215. With any rifle load I usually try a number of primers that I have on hand to see which one will bring the best accuracy and go with that weather it be a mag or not in 30-06 size case or under.