Primer preference in 308

Wendyj · April 5, 2015, 07:38 PM

Just started but I was only able to find winchester primers. Wanting to try cci. Had one failure to fire at range today. Always used cci in my blackpowder without any failure. Any preferences on primers?

Marco Califo · April 5, 2015, 08:06 PM

FTF is often caused by not seating primers completely. The firing pin pushes the whole primer forward, robbing the energy to slam the cup angaist the anvil. These are likely to fire when tried again.

The type of rifle makes a difference.
The type of powder used also matters.

CCI#34 for semi-autos. These are the exact military 7.62 NATO primer. They are less prone to slamfire (they have a spec to not go off with ~2 lbs impact, but must go off with ~6 lbs impact), and are hot for lighting the military type ball powders.

Other LR magnum primers should (but not must) be used for ball type powders (roughly half of powders are ball types (tiny roundish specs), and the other half are extruded (little sticks or tubes).

For bolt action rifles, it doesn't matter as much, but magnum primers should give more consistent results when ball powder is used. But don't switch back and forth.

In all cases, start 10% lower than max load and work up slowly.

4runnerman · April 5, 2015, 08:16 PM

308---- GM210M primers-PS good luck finding any. The CCI-BR2 is as close as you will get to the GM's Most times Magnum Primers are not needed in a 308, but what ever works. Also if you have access try H4895 and RL-15 powders.
If at all possible-stay away from ball powders in a 308. Not very good for the 308.

Marco Califo · April 5, 2015, 08:29 PM

Quote:

If at all possible-stay away from ball powders in a 308. Not very good for the 308.

Someone better tell Uncle Sam.
And don't buy U.S. Military surplus.
All military 7.62 and 5.56 (and most 50 cal and 20mm) use ball powders.
Not because they are better, but, because they cost less to make. Contracts go to low bidder. They do work just fine, although extruded powders get used more in competition shooting.

4runnerman · April 5, 2015, 08:43 PM

You hit the nail on the head there Marco--Because there cheaper. Accuracy suffers with ball powder in a 308.
I will admit I was not aware of that- I thought RL-15 is what the military used.

jmr40 · April 5, 2015, 09:11 PM

I prefer Winchester large rifle primers in my 308. They tend to be hotter than most standard primers. Equal to, or hotter than some magnum primers or so I've been told. At any rate they have worked well for me. I've used CCI, they work fine too, but my go-to loads were all developed with Winchester and I just don't want to change.

Hang around gun forums long enough and you'll find individuals who have had bad experiences with every product out there.

Generally speaking ball powder isn't considered quite as accurate as stick powder, but most will never be able to tell the difference. I've used both and my rifles are not able to note any difference with me shooting them. Ball powder can be faster, and it is a lot easier to meter and measure precisely compared to stick powder.

TAC is a ball powder and it throws 130 gr TTSX's at close to 3100 fps from my 308. I can live with the accuracy.

Marco Califo · April 5, 2015, 09:28 PM

Quote:

I thought RL-15 is what the military used.

You are right, in a way. RL15 is used for military Match ammo (M118), but not the standard service rounds used by troops.

Google: TM 43-001-27 see page 11-23.
The switch to RL15 happened after that TM was written. When Alliant (2001) took over the LC facility management, . . .guess what they make? RL15!*. Used to be IMR 4895 was used in the M118.

In WWII millions of pounds of IMR 4895 were used in the 30-06 Springfield and Garand M1's.

*Actually, RL#15 is made in Sweden by [Norma?], and imported and sold by Alliant, labeled as Alliant RL#15.

jwrowland77 · April 6, 2015, 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4runnerman

You hit the nail on the head there Marco--Because there cheaper. Accuracy suffers with ball powder in a 308.

I will admit I was not aware of that- I thought RL-15 is what the military used.

Ever try 2000-MR (ball powder, well more like a squished ball powder)? Great stuff. I generally get great accuracy and velocity from it. As a matter of fact, I use it in my 1000yd match load.

To the OP, I use CCI BR2. They're tough to find but I love them. I use these in my match loads.

For my hunting rounds, I use CCI 250's. Get great accuracy out of these as well.

The powder I've had great success are IMR 4064, IMR 4166 (new powder, really loving this stuff), and Alliant 2000-MR (squished ball powder).

Rimfire5 · April 6, 2015, 07:18 AM

I have 5 .308s (3 bolt actions) and have found that Fed 210M primers give the best results with the bolt actions. I started with Winchester WLR primers and got good results but the 210M primers improved the accuracy with the same loads.

I don't use Federal primers in my semi autos because I believe that Federal primers are too soft for semis, especially military type semis that have a very hard firing pin strike and tend to hole soft primers.
I use the harder Winchester or CCI primers in my M1A and FN-FAL.

mehavey · April 6, 2015, 08:20 AM

Before getting too far down the road
bashing ball powders for the 308, see HERE.

emcon5 · April 6, 2015, 10:47 AM

I have used several thousand WLR primers and never had a failure. Did you re-cock the rifle and try a second time? If the primer wasn't fully seated, that would probably make it work.

**Unclenick** · April 6, 2015, 11:10 AM

Mehavey,

Check the image link in that post. It's telling me the image has been deleted.

Lots of match shooter have used 748 and other spherical propellants in the past. There's no theoretical reason I am aware of that they shouldn't work, other than it is apparently harder to make them temperature insensitive for a wide range of conditions, and some folks have had difficulty with keeping ignition consistent with the older formulations. Ramshot claims to have corrected that with their powders, and it is certainly the case that their TAC product has proven a favorite for many.

Sometime in the early 90's I decided to try Accurate 2520 one season. It's an older type spherical formulation. Unfortunately I could not tune it to work well with the 168 grain SMK's I was usually loading back then. I got about 1.25 moa from it, where 0.7 moa was what my stick powders were giving me. Then one day I decided to buy my first primer pocket deburring tool, and, lo and behold, the 2520 groups tightened up to 0.7 moa, same as the stick powders I'd been using in that gun (M1A). What I didn't know at the time was that CCI, in 1989 had altered their magnum primer formulation specifically for the Western Cannon spherical propellants like BL-C(2), and 2520 was apparently similar. If I had tried a magnum primer, I expect I'd have got the same results and saved a lot of flash hole deburring, but it didn't occur to me back then. Clearly, it was an ignition issue.

Fortunately, chronograph numbers give you a good hint about ignition consistency, with narrower velocity extreme spread tending to indicate better ignition performance. It's not that the powder with the smallest ES necessarily shoots best (at least, not at short range), but that any change you make that narrows the ES for a particular powder from whatever its starting point was, will have improved its ignition consistency. You may need to readjust the charge weight afterward for best accuracy, but when you do both, you usually end up with better accuracy, if you and your gun are up to taking advantage of it.

Wendyj · April 6, 2015, 01:05 PM

I did open the bolt. Checked cartridge primer and it had hit it good. Tried to fire 3 more times. No success. Using 40 grains of Hodgdon benchark powder in this particular load. Tossed it in bucket of water. Now I've got to buy a bullet puller. Lol. Just when I thought I'd bought all id needed.

cw308 · April 6, 2015, 01:25 PM

Used CCI & Federal without any problems. Use a primer pocket uniformer & just bottom your primers. Minimum headspace, with a good firing pin & spring, your priming problems will be zero.I may be lucky but haven't had a primer failure.I feel it's do to uniforming the primer pockets every time. Once there cut to the proper depth it just clean the pockets great. Hope I helped in some way.

**Unclenick** · April 6, 2015, 03:12 PM

Wendyj,

The eye can fool you. The dent can be just fine, but if the primer was not fully seated, that indentation may merely have pushed the anvil out of the cup on the inside, rather than squashing the primer mix against it. In that circumstance the firing pin can often finish seating the primer, but by then the pellet can be broken and with nothing left between the cup and anvil, subsequent strikes do nothing.

Primers should be seated firmly and just past the point you feel the anvil feet touch the bottom of the primer pocket. Fairly firm seating.

Bart B. · April 6, 2015, 04:33 PM

Wendy, I hope there was powder in that case. I mention this because I've shot a few rounds without powder in the cases. Primers were very deeply dented, more so than those with powder in the case.

You could pull the bullet grabbing it with a pair of pliers above the press top then lower the ram to remove it. The bullet would be damaged but this would save you buying a bullet puller.

Wendyj · April 6, 2015, 06:03 PM

I'm 99% sure they're was powder as I'm so new I weighed every bullet. Not that I couldn't have missed one. That's a good idea of pulling the bullet without banging a plastic hammer into a 4x4 to get one out. Cheaper than the $30.00 for a puller. I would have loved to deprived it and seen what the primer looked like. I had only shot this factory hornady brass once through my old 308 but I noticed when I cleaned my brass after going to the range I had 3 pieces of brass that my primers wouldn't seat deep enough. I fls and decapper again and little tool for cleaning primer hole was flaring the brass and not cleaning. Finally got the shaved ends cleaned but these 3 seated but don't look centered on one. It's a round I've marked with a sharpie to check next range visit. Maybe three pieces of brass I'll have to throw away. I'm not sure what you all do if this happens. Im priming off the press on Lee challenger outfit. Tried the hand primer but arthritic hands prefer the press. When it seats it seats good. You can just feel it and see it.

Wendyj · April 6, 2015, 06:28 PM

I'd like to also ask you a brass question. I just took a Nosler case fls it and trimmed and cleaned the flash hole for the primer. Found some cci 200 primers today and the cci seated off the press with much more ease than the winchesters. Other brass on my first reloads were hornady factory superformance once fired from my 1-12 twist rifle. This one was Nosler trophy grade shot from the rifle I'm reloading for. Remington 700 bdl. 1-10 twist. Brass seems better than the Hornady but is that just my thought or was it because it was fired from the gun im actually using. Or on my less experienced side could the cci primer just seat better?

Marco Califo · April 6, 2015, 09:01 PM

In 308 with around 50 grns. of powder, a scale may help tell if you got a zero powder charge, since the bullet is 3 times that, the case itself, too.
Or as some else posted, take the die out of you press, raise the cartridge, then use vice grip locking pliers to hold the bullet while you pull the case down with the handle.

April 5, 2015, 08:06 PM	#2
Marco Califo Senior Member Join Date: April 4, 2011 Location: LA (Greater Los Angeles Area) Posts: 2,598	FTF is often caused by not seating primers completely. The firing pin pushes the whole primer forward, robbing the energy to slam the cup angaist the anvil. These are likely to fire when tried again. The type of rifle makes a difference. The type of powder used also matters. CCI#34 for semi-autos. These are the exact military 7.62 NATO primer. They are less prone to slamfire (they have a spec to not go off with ~2 lbs impact, but must go off with ~6 lbs impact), and are hot for lighting the military type ball powders. Other LR magnum primers should (but not must) be used for ball type powders (roughly half of powders are ball types (tiny roundish specs), and the other half are extruded (little sticks or tubes). For bolt action rifles, it doesn't matter as much, but magnum primers should give more consistent results when ball powder is used. But don't switch back and forth. In all cases, start 10% lower than max load and work up slowly. __________________ ............ Last edited by Marco Califo; April 5, 2015 at 08:21 PM.

April 5, 2015, 08:43 PM	#5
4runnerman Senior Member Join Date: January 16, 2010 Location: Minnesota Posts: 3,577	You hit the nail on the head there Marco--Because there cheaper. Accuracy suffers with ball powder in a 308. I will admit I was not aware of that- I thought RL-15 is what the military used. __________________ NRA Certified RSO NwCP- Performance Isn't Optional

April 6, 2015, 11:10 AM	#12
Unclenick Staff Join Date: March 4, 2005 Location: Ohio Posts: 21,061	Mehavey, Check the image link in that post. It's telling me the image has been deleted. Lots of match shooter have used 748 and other spherical propellants in the past. There's no theoretical reason I am aware of that they shouldn't work, other than it is apparently harder to make them temperature insensitive for a wide range of conditions, and some folks have had difficulty with keeping ignition consistent with the older formulations. Ramshot claims to have corrected that with their powders, and it is certainly the case that their TAC product has proven a favorite for many. Sometime in the early 90's I decided to try Accurate 2520 one season. It's an older type spherical formulation. Unfortunately I could not tune it to work well with the 168 grain SMK's I was usually loading back then. I got about 1.25 moa from it, where 0.7 moa was what my stick powders were giving me. Then one day I decided to buy my first primer pocket deburring tool, and, lo and behold, the 2520 groups tightened up to 0.7 moa, same as the stick powders I'd been using in that gun (M1A). What I didn't know at the time was that CCI, in 1989 had altered their magnum primer formulation specifically for the Western Cannon spherical propellants like BL-C(2), and 2520 was apparently similar. If I had tried a magnum primer, I expect I'd have got the same results and saved a lot of flash hole deburring, but it didn't occur to me back then. Clearly, it was an ignition issue. Fortunately, chronograph numbers give you a good hint about ignition consistency, with narrower velocity extreme spread tending to indicate better ignition performance. It's not that the powder with the smallest ES necessarily shoots best (at least, not at short range), but that any change you make that narrows the ES for a particular powder from whatever its starting point was, will have improved its ignition consistency. You may need to readjust the charge weight afterward for best accuracy, but when you do both, you usually end up with better accuracy, if you and your gun are up to taking advantage of it. __________________ Gunsite Orange Hat Family Member CMP Certified GSM Master Instructor NRA Certified Rifle Instructor NRA Benefactor Member and Golden Eagle

April 6, 2015, 09:01 PM	#19
Marco Califo Senior Member Join Date: April 4, 2011 Location: LA (Greater Los Angeles Area) Posts: 2,598	In 308 with around 50 grns. of powder, a scale may help tell if you got a zero powder charge, since the bullet is 3 times that, the case itself, too. Or as some else posted, take the die out of you press, raise the cartridge, then use vice grip locking pliers to hold the bullet while you pull the case down with the handle. __________________ ............

April 5, 2015, 07:38 PM	#1
Wendyj Senior Member Join Date: April 3, 2015 Location: North Georgia Posts: 1,372	Primer preference in 308 Just started but I was only able to find winchester primers. Wanting to try cci. Had one failure to fire at range today. Always used cci in my blackpowder without any failure. Any preferences on primers?

April 5, 2015, 08:16 PM	#3
4runnerman Senior Member Join Date: January 16, 2010 Location: Minnesota Posts: 3,577	308---- GM210M primers-PS good luck finding any. The CCI-BR2 is as close as you will get to the GM's Most times Magnum Primers are not needed in a 308, but what ever works. Also if you have access try H4895 and RL-15 powders. If at all possible-stay away from ball powders in a 308. Not very good for the 308. __________________ NRA Certified RSO NwCP- Performance Isn't Optional

April 5, 2015, 09:11 PM	#6
jmr40 Senior Member Join Date: June 15, 2008 Location: Georgia Posts: 10,805	I prefer Winchester large rifle primers in my 308. They tend to be hotter than most standard primers. Equal to, or hotter than some magnum primers or so I've been told. At any rate they have worked well for me. I've used CCI, they work fine too, but my go-to loads were all developed with Winchester and I just don't want to change. Hang around gun forums long enough and you'll find individuals who have had bad experiences with every product out there. Generally speaking ball powder isn't considered quite as accurate as stick powder, but most will never be able to tell the difference. I've used both and my rifles are not able to note any difference with me shooting them. Ball powder can be faster, and it is a lot easier to meter and measure precisely compared to stick powder. TAC is a ball powder and it throws 130 gr TTSX's at close to 3100 fps from my 308. I can live with the accuracy.

April 6, 2015, 07:18 AM	#9
Rimfire5 Senior Member Join Date: January 2, 2009 Location: Northern Virginia Posts: 922	I have 5 .308s (3 bolt actions) and have found that Fed 210M primers give the best results with the bolt actions. I started with Winchester WLR primers and got good results but the 210M primers improved the accuracy with the same loads. I don't use Federal primers in my semi autos because I believe that Federal primers are too soft for semis, especially military type semis that have a very hard firing pin strike and tend to hole soft primers. I use the harder Winchester or CCI primers in my M1A and FN-FAL.

April 6, 2015, 08:20 AM	#10
mehavey Senior Member Join Date: June 17, 2010 Location: Virginia Posts: 6,885	Before getting too far down the road bashing ball powders for the 308, see HERE.

April 6, 2015, 10:47 AM	#11
emcon5 Senior Member Join Date: July 10, 1999 Location: High Desert NV Posts: 2,850	I have used several thousand WLR primers and never had a failure. Did you re-cock the rifle and try a second time? If the primer wasn't fully seated, that would probably make it work.

April 6, 2015, 01:05 PM	#13
Wendyj Senior Member Join Date: April 3, 2015 Location: North Georgia Posts: 1,372	I did open the bolt. Checked cartridge primer and it had hit it good. Tried to fire 3 more times. No success. Using 40 grains of Hodgdon benchark powder in this particular load. Tossed it in bucket of water. Now I've got to buy a bullet puller. Lol. Just when I thought I'd bought all id needed.

April 6, 2015, 01:25 PM	#14
cw308 Senior Member Join Date: September 2, 2010 Location: Plainview , Long Island NY Posts: 3,863	Used CCI & Federal without any problems. Use a primer pocket uniformer & just bottom your primers. Minimum headspace, with a good firing pin & spring, your priming problems will be zero.I may be lucky but haven't had a primer failure.I feel it's do to uniforming the primer pockets every time. Once there cut to the proper depth it just clean the pockets great. Hope I helped in some way.

April 6, 2015, 03:12 PM	#15
Unclenick Staff Join Date: March 4, 2005 Location: Ohio Posts: 21,061	Wendyj, The eye can fool you. The dent can be just fine, but if the primer was not fully seated, that indentation may merely have pushed the anvil out of the cup on the inside, rather than squashing the primer mix against it. In that circumstance the firing pin can often finish seating the primer, but by then the pellet can be broken and with nothing left between the cup and anvil, subsequent strikes do nothing. Primers should be seated firmly and just past the point you feel the anvil feet touch the bottom of the primer pocket. Fairly firm seating. __________________ Gunsite Orange Hat Family Member CMP Certified GSM Master Instructor NRA Certified Rifle Instructor NRA Benefactor Member and Golden Eagle

April 6, 2015, 04:33 PM	#16
Bart B. Senior Member Join Date: February 15, 2009 Posts: 8,927	Wendy, I hope there was powder in that case. I mention this because I've shot a few rounds without powder in the cases. Primers were very deeply dented, more so than those with powder in the case. You could pull the bullet grabbing it with a pair of pliers above the press top then lower the ram to remove it. The bullet would be damaged but this would save you buying a bullet puller.

April 6, 2015, 06:03 PM	#17
Wendyj Senior Member Join Date: April 3, 2015 Location: North Georgia Posts: 1,372	I'm 99% sure they're was powder as I'm so new I weighed every bullet. Not that I couldn't have missed one. That's a good idea of pulling the bullet without banging a plastic hammer into a 4x4 to get one out. Cheaper than the $30.00 for a puller. I would have loved to deprived it and seen what the primer looked like. I had only shot this factory hornady brass once through my old 308 but I noticed when I cleaned my brass after going to the range I had 3 pieces of brass that my primers wouldn't seat deep enough. I fls and decapper again and little tool for cleaning primer hole was flaring the brass and not cleaning. Finally got the shaved ends cleaned but these 3 seated but don't look centered on one. It's a round I've marked with a sharpie to check next range visit. Maybe three pieces of brass I'll have to throw away. I'm not sure what you all do if this happens. Im priming off the press on Lee challenger outfit. Tried the hand primer but arthritic hands prefer the press. When it seats it seats good. You can just feel it and see it.

April 6, 2015, 06:28 PM	#18
Wendyj Senior Member Join Date: April 3, 2015 Location: North Georgia Posts: 1,372	I'd like to also ask you a brass question. I just took a Nosler case fls it and trimmed and cleaned the flash hole for the primer. Found some cci 200 primers today and the cci seated off the press with much more ease than the winchesters. Other brass on my first reloads were hornady factory superformance once fired from my 1-12 twist rifle. This one was Nosler trophy grade shot from the rifle I'm reloading for. Remington 700 bdl. 1-10 twist. Brass seems better than the Hornady but is that just my thought or was it because it was fired from the gun im actually using. Or on my less experienced side could the cci primer just seat better?