The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Firing Cartridge with Primer and Nothing Else

SL1 · October 24, 2009, 08:30 AM

It would not matter if the primers are "pistol" or "rifle" or "magnum" or "standard" if you shoot them in .454 cases in a SRH at pressures down in the .45 Long Colt range. And, do you want to shoot ALL of your practice loads at full Casull power?!

One thing to be careful about when you reload these cases is that not all .454 Casull brass uses the same primers. I may have this backwards, because I don't shoot that cartridge and am working from memory of what I read, but that cartride was originally developed with large pistol primers and later was "converted" to large rifle primers because of the high pressure. SO, as I understand it, some brass has the deeper primer pockets needed for the rifle primers and some does not. That could create a hazard if you seat large rifle primers in cases with (more shallow) large pistol primer pockets, because it would leave the primers "high". Cartridges with high primers that are loaded in a revolver can fire from the recoil banging them against the recoil shield when they are NOT in the chambers aligned with the barrel. Sine the bullet is blocked from leaving the case/cylinder, this is effectively a bomb, and would be very dangerous with a .454 Casull load.

Because you don't know what brass you got with the gun, you need to check-out ALL of you primer pockets before you reload them and segregate the ones with large and small primers if you do have both.

SL1

October 24, 2009, 08:30 AM	#15
SL1 Senior Member Join Date: November 8, 2007 Posts: 2,001	Why not just load them to .45 Colt pressures and shoot them? It would not matter if the primers are "pistol" or "rifle" or "magnum" or "standard" if you shoot them in .454 cases in a SRH at pressures down in the .45 Long Colt range. And, do you want to shoot ALL of your practice loads at full Casull power?! One thing to be careful about when you reload these cases is that not all .454 Casull brass uses the same primers. I may have this backwards, because I don't shoot that cartridge and am working from memory of what I read, but that cartride was originally developed with large pistol primers and later was "converted" to large rifle primers because of the high pressure. SO, as I understand it, some brass has the deeper primer pockets needed for the rifle primers and some does not. That could create a hazard if you seat large rifle primers in cases with (more shallow) large pistol primer pockets, because it would leave the primers "high". Cartridges with high primers that are loaded in a revolver can fire from the recoil banging them against the recoil shield when they are NOT in the chambers aligned with the barrel. Sine the bullet is blocked from leaving the case/cylinder, this is effectively a bomb, and would be very dangerous with a .454 Casull load. Because you don't know what brass you got with the gun, you need to check-out ALL of you primer pockets before you reload them and segregate the ones with large and small primers if you do have both. SL1