Small rifle magnum primers

So I find that these thin cups are great for fireforming. I get misfires with the cci 450 when fireforming 6 BRA from 6 BR. And I just load a bit light when fireforming. There is just less support for that case when fireforming so soft primers work better. Would like to get my hands on a brick of these as I am almost out.
 
Speaking of primers, I just found a bunch of primers stashed away in my reloading room that are about 20-25 years old. How long do primers last ? There are some federal small rifle match, and some Remington large rifle, standard and magnum. Are these still good to shoot ?
 
nicholasjohn said:
Speaking of primers, I just found a bunch of primers stashed away in my reloading room that are about 20-25 years old. How long do primers last ? There are some federal small rifle match, and some Remington large rifle, standard and magnum. Are these still good to shoot ?
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I just shot some primers that are 21 years old, maybe older. No problems. It's all on how they were stored. If they are stored in a fairly stable temperature, dry environment they should be fine.
 
xsn10s said:
I just shot some primers that are 21 years old, maybe older. No problems. It's all on how they were stored. If they are stored in a fairly stable temperature, dry environment they should be fine.
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Thanks - that's good news to me, because I've got a substantial supply. They were sitting on a shelf in the house, not out in the garage sitting on a concrete slab. I've heard that the garage floor is the absolute worst place for them, short-term or long-term.
 
nicholasjohn said:
Thanks - that's good news to me, because I've got a substantial supply. They were sitting on a shelf in the house, not out in the garage sitting on a concrete slab. I've heard that the garage floor is the absolute worst place for them, short-term or long-term.
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Garages can vary pretty dramatically in temperature, hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Plus concrete being porous the primer box itself could soak up moisture. So yeah I wouldn't want to keep primers on the garage floor.
 
Wrenches said:
I just went into my load room and pulled out a brick of 6.5 Remington primers and read the Safety warning on the box. Here is what it says: Warning do not us 6 1/2 small rifle primers in high intensity rifle cartridges such as the 17 Rem. 222 Rem, and the 223 Rem. Damage to your firearm and/or serious personal injury may result. Contact Remington Arms @ 800-243-9700 for a free catalog or visit our website: www. remington.com. Recommended primers for each cartridge are listed in the catalog ballistics tables. Looks to me like usage in high pressure cartridges is courting disaster.
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Holy moly! If 222 Rem is a "high intensity rifle cartridge" then I'd say 6-1/2s are close to useless. I did not realize this, but I do have some so glad you guys pointed it out. I guess I'll be getting rid of those because I don't load for anything smaller.
 
johnnyk said:
I interchange them quiet often in the 6mmBR Norma. Some powders work great with the CCI BR4's and/or Rem 7 1/2's. My most consistent and accurate loads seem to come from using CCI-450 SRM's.

I saw a mention above of the Rem 6 1/2's. I read some controversy about them from a few years back. Someone was saying they were developed by Remington for low pressure cartridges, like the 22 Hornet, I think. It also went on to mention that they should not be used in .223 loads but I think they were meaning to say AR-15 loads, as the cups are thin and susceptible to slam fires in these semi's.
I have and can confirm that they behave and shoot just fine in bolt action .223 Rem's. As a matter of fact,
6 1/2's with 25.4gn of Viht N133 and 50gn VMax's is very accurate to 600yds in my Marlin X7VH.
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I bought 10k 6-1/2s years ago. Ive loaded them in AR loads by the thousands and never had a punched cup or a slam fire. No idea where that comes from. I suspect some "arm chair expert" considered the thin cups and started the whole thing. They do not like my dillion 650 or 1050 with swaged mil brass. The cups are thin. The slightest resistance flattens or crushes them. Otherwise i load full pressure max loads with no issues.
 
The issue with running primers in 6BRs is the projectile weight. If you are running 100gr plus projectiles use either the CCI450 or Rem 7 1/2, they are slightly hotter and work better with the slower powders at a larger volume. The other one is the CCI BR4 all of the 3 mentioned have thicker cups to hold the higher ignition pressure from starting to move heavy projectiles, the same is true with ant 308 or CM case with a small rifle primer.
If you are running sub 90gr projectiles anything except the Rem 6 1/2 is GTG.
 
xsn10s said:
Garages can vary pretty dramatically in temperature, hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Plus concrete being porous the primer box itself could soak up moisture. So yeah I wouldn't want to keep primers on the garage floor.
Click to expand...

I talked with a guy about this the other day and he asked me specifically if they had been sitting on the garage floor, and stated everything you just said here. I would also suspect that even if not stored on the floor, the humidity changes in a garage wouldn't do anything positive for primers. Since mine were stored in a closet in the house, I think it will be OK.
 

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