.357 Magnum primer question

[mnoirot64]

Good afternoon, friends. I have been trying unsuccessfully to locate CCI 550 small pistol magnum primers (or equivalent) for three weeks. They are hard to come by. I have plenty of Remington 1 1/2 small pistol primers, but am unsure if I should use these in the .357 magnum. I have searched the Firing Line and did not locate an answer to this question. I have been told by others, at local gun shops, that I can use the standard small pistol primers in a magnum. Is this true or will they not have enough pressure to adequately fire the magnum? Thank you in advance.

Mike Noirot
Lifetime NRA Member
Clarksville, Tennessee

[ligonierbill]

What powder? If it's H110, I'd stay with the mag primer. But there are lots of powders that work in .357 Mag that will do fine with standard small pistol primers. Find a Speer manual - they specify which powders are recommended for mag primers.

[mehavey]

If you are using ball powders (H110/W296, etc) use a magnum primer.
You "can" use regular primers w/o any significantproblems, but
the hotter magnums will give more consistant ignition.

Flake powders, use regular primers.

[mnoirot64]

Thank you for the responses! I will be using either Accurate #5 or IMR 800-X.

[rclark]

Just use the standard primers. No problem. FYI, magnum primers have nothing in common with magnum revolvers (common misconception). All about the powder. For example H110/296 require a magnum primer. 4227 should also use a magnum primer. But other powders such as AA#5, Unique, Red Dot, W231, and many many others do not.

[Misssissippi Dave]

I don't even try to use magnum primers with AA5. I did work up a nice load with a magnum primer and AA7 in .357 Mag. It didn't need the mag primer, but since I had them I used them to work up the load. A little more powder and a standard prime would have given me the same results. As mentioned, very few powders need a magnum primer in pistol loads.

[mmb713]

Don't use the Remington 1 1/2 in 357 Magnum. The cup is too soft for the high intensity cartridges that use small pistol primers like 357 Magnum, 357 SIG and 40 S&W. Remington specifically says not to use the 1 1/2 for these cartridges. Their 5 1/2 is what they recommend for 357 Magnum and they use them in their factory ammo. I've used the 1 1/2 in 357 with Universal and some of the primers were pierced by my Blackhawk. Remington uses the 1 1/2 in their 9mm factory loads and in my 9mm handloads they work great.

[Nick_C_S]

Ah the irony: In the peak of the madness, I purchased 3 bricks of CCI 550's - because that was all that was available. I figured, if it came down to it, I could load with mag primers instead of the standard primers I was running low on. I still have all the 550's since the 500's (and Winchester WSP - which I don't hesitate using) became available before I needed to use them. Just my boring story.

To my knowledge, AA5 will ignite just fine with a standard primer. H110/W296 is the powder (they're one in the same) that really needs that magnum boost to get going with consistency. IMO --> unless you're barrel length is 6" or more, you have no need for H110.

[mnoirot64]

So it seems there is some disagreement on using Remington 1 1/2 primers in .357 magnum....

Anyone else have any advice?

[jimbob86]

I've actually had better velocity using WSP with 2400 than with WSPM primers.

[m&p45acp10+1]

In .357 Mag the best numbers over the chrono I borrowed came from CCI small rifle primers. (Loads tested with Blue Dot, Red Dot, AA#9, and Trail Boss. All used cast lead 158 grain LSWC. Primers tested were Win SP, CCI SP,SP Mag, and CCI SR.) They gave the most consistent numbers for velocity, and the lowest SD, and ES. Though I would use any small primers I could get, and start low working up.

I am not looking at my notes at this time. Holes in the target were consistent with all primers. Numbers over the chrono were close enough I would not sweat using any of them.

[mnoirot64]

Thank you all, for your helpful replies!

[Gster]

[QUOTE] .357 Magnum primer question
Good afternoon, friends. I have been trying unsuccessfully to locate CCI 550 small pistol magnum primers (or equivalent) for three weeks. They are hard to come by. I have plenty of Remington 1 1/2 small pistol primers, but am unsure if I should use these in the .357 magnum. I have searched the Firing Line and did not locate an answer to this question. I have been told by others, at local gun shops, that I can use the standard small pistol primers in a magnum. Is this true or will they not have enough pressure to adequately fire the magnum? Thank you in advance.

If I knew how to ship them, I could pick you up some. One of my lgs has 1000s upon 1000s of them.

[rclark]

Don't use the Remington 1 1/2 in 357 Magnum. The cup is too soft for the high intensity cartridges

Yes you can . Another misconception is you have to load 'hot' if you have a magnum . In fact my normal .357 load is a tad over 1000fps.... . So if using AA#5 for example, the Remington primers will work just fine!

[Sevens]

A little digging by a poster active on this forum has brought us to the conclusion that the CCI-400 Small Rifle primer and the CCI-550 Small Pistol Magnum primer is exactly the same product in two different packages.

When you need a magnum small pistol primer, the CCI-400 is your primer.

[mehavey]

Interesting...

From the horse's mouth:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/show...78&postcount=1

[rclark]

Hmmm interesting, I may have to test that out one of these days. Do a back to back test over the chronograph of CCI-400 vs CCI-350 just to verify for my own self.

[zxcvbob]

Don't use the Remington 1 1/2 in 357 Magnum. The cup is too soft for the high intensity cartridges that use small pistol primers like 357 Magnum, 357 SIG and 40 S&W. Remington specifically says not to use the 1 1/2 for these cartridges. Their 5 1/2 is what they recommend for 357 Magnum and they use them in their factory ammo. I've used the 1 1/2 in 357 with Universal and some of the primers were pierced by my Blackhawk. Remington uses the 1 1/2 in their 9mm factory loads and in my 9mm handloads they work great.

9mm and .357 Magnum operate at about the same pressure, the 9mm just has less case capacity and uses faster-burning powders. If Remington does say that (and I don't really doubt it) the pressure is not the reason.

I generally use Wolf or Federal small rifle primers to load .357 Magnum, but small pistol primers will work just fine unless you're using one of the slow hard-to-ignite powders like 296.

[Gster]

Here is some good info on primers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centerfire_ammunition

[mmb713]

Yes you can . Another misconception is you have to load 'hot' if you have a magnum . In fact my normal .357 load is a tad over 1000fps.... . So if using AA#5 for example, the Remington primers will work just fine!

They will work, in the sense that they will go bang. My experience with the Remington 1 1/2 in 357 Magnum using Universal, which is in the same burning range as AA#5, is I got pierced primers. I didn't get them with CCI500s with the same load. I know 9mm runs at nearly the same pressure as 357 Magnum but I don't get pierced primers with Remington 1 1/2s in 9mm in my pistols. Check out the pressure specs on Hodgdon's website. With most powders, even the fast ones, with their 357 Magnum data they are getting 30,000+ psi even though velocities are quite a bit less than the "Magnum" powders like 296, H110 and 4227. Just because you aren't getting magnum speeds with faster powders does not mean you aren't getting magnum peak pressures. I do not, and neither does Remington, recommend the 1 1/2 primer in 357 Magnum. I would use the 5 1/2 instead, or CCI500 or WSP with the faster powders and CCI550 or WSPM with the slow powders.

[mnoirot64]

Thank you very much for all your responses. Great information.

[Real Gun]

When this question is asked, you will find some disagreement. Fundamentally though, the load manuals and probably online load data may have asterisks to indicate that the powder mentioned is believed to require magnum primers. They seem to be in agreement that W296/H110 need magnum primers. I can't think of another one that is consistently flagged.

[rclark]

They seem to be in agreement that W296/H110 need magnum primers.

The only other one that I use magnum primers with is IMR 4227. While you don't need to ... you do get better results ... at least I did.

Over the chronograph in .45 Colt:

20g 4227, CCI-300, 255g SWC, _911fps, 35 SD, 138 ES, 30 shots
20g 4227, CCI-350, 255g SWC, 1030fps, 18 SD, _69 ES, 29 shots (accurate)

....you will find some disagreement.

Yep... I don't run .357 over 1200fps (more like 900-1000fps in general) as I am one of those that if I need more, I go to a bigger caliber and bigger bullet and stay subsonic. Way past the need for speed . Therefore my experience is more .38 or .38 +P in magnum cases... YMMV. Also I shoot only lead, either 125g TC, or anymore just sticking with 158g SWCs for all my loads. Colors my view a bit .

The only time I have experienced pierced primers was in .45 ACP using those NT cases with bigger flash holes. After 'repeating' the condition (once fluke, twice not), I tossed all the bigger primer hole brass in the round bucket. This was with CCI regular primers, don't remember the load but it was 'standard' ACP load.

[Sevens]

If you REALLY wanted the easiest answer for "which primer?!?", there's a way to get there.

Remove every non-magnum primer from your world, and that would get you where you want to be.

You could load every.single.thing at your bench using magnum primers only and never use a non-mag ever again.

However, you would need to RE-WORK your loads, you don't ever want to simply insert a magnum primer in a load you developed with a different primer. That's poor technique.

And you'd have to go in knowing that some loads MAY not work as well with magnum primers as they did with non-magnum primer. (loads with Alliant 2400 have this reputation, actually)

But you could simplify the whole primer business.