450 Bushmaster primer pockets

[wolverines]

I was just prepping some brass yesterday from what I shot the past few seasons and a few once fired somebody gave me. While cleaning the primer pockets I noticed the once fired I got all had large rifle primer pockets. All of mine that I’ve had since I started working with it have been small rifle primers. Guy said he just bought the ammo this past season.

I heard that Hornady made the change sometime back in 2022? Does anyone know the back story as to why the change was made? I don’t see any data with large primers, and I don’t see any brass sold with large primer pockets. I guess I’m kind of confused why Hornady has taken this direction?

 

[Dultimatpredator]

I don’t know they do the same thing with 10 mm so I make sure to look for the ones that take large pistol instead of small since it’s almost impossible to get small pistol primers the last couple years unless you want to pay an arm and a leg for them. I wonder if manufacturing did the same thing and went with large because they’re easier to get? Or somebody converted them because they didn’t have small pistol primers and drilled them out? All I know is when I go buy 10 mm loaded ammo. I pull them out of the box to make sure they have large pistol primers since I only have a brick of small laying around and one small magnum brick. Large pistol can get anywhere around here.

I don’t know either, so I’ll be curious to hear… just my guess answers from above

What brand of brass came with the large rifle primer?

 

[wolverines]

What brand of brass came with the large rifle primer?

Hornady

 

[Dultimatpredator]

Well, that’s easy enough call Hornady and ask them if they changed. After about a minute and a half phone call, you’ll get your answer and then let me know. It’ll save me a call for you.

 

[Dultimatpredator]

No answers here so I called Hornady directly this morning. I wanted to find out for myself because I probably have a couple hundred, or more, small rifle primer cases. I was curious to see if I was gonna get an answer if it was a better way to build the mouse trap with a hotter ignition From a large rifle primer.

Their customer service rep told me they couldn’t get small rifle primers so they substituted the large rifle primers for a short period of time. They said the same issue with powder. They substituted with a different powder as well because they couldn’t get the powder they normally used. I was told from CS that the “factory loaded casings” that Hornady wasn’t concerned with being reloaded. They were only concerned about getting factory loaded ammo out to the general public. So, as long as the pressures were the same, they rolled with it. I was also told they’re back to using small rifle primer currently so there was just a small batch of large rifle primer casings produced. I didn’t ask if they went back to the original powder. So if you’re gonna reload those I would start with starting loads and work your way up because if I had to guess they’re going to build pressure a little faster than small rifle primers and that’s exactly what the Hornady customer service representative told me too.

I am glad I hand load after hearing this Because I’m sure people were scratching their heads when their groups opened up when buying replacement boxes of factory ammo that were loaded with different primers and different powder. No wonder why people used to chase a lot numbers back years ago with factory loaded ammo.


If it were me, and you only have a few of them, I’d probably toss them and forget about them. The CS rep said there wasn’t a lot of them that were produced with large rifle primers, so sounds like they were oddballs. He said he heard of them being produced but never saw any himself. If you have a pretty big pile of them, I would probably just sell them or trade them to somebody for smalls. Either that or load them up for dummy rounds or some funky cool stuff. I made a few keychains and fan light switches out of some of my old brass. If you have 50, or more, I would probably work upload data and make sure they are definitely separated from the small rifle primer batches.

 

[wolverines]

No answers here so I called Hornady directly this morning. I wanted to find out for myself because I probably have a couple hundred, or more, small rifle primer cases. I was curious to see if I was gonna get an answer if it was a better way to build the mouse trap with a hotter ignition From a large rifle primer.

Their customer service rep told me they couldn’t get small rifle primers so they substituted the large rifle primers for a short period of time. They said the same issue with powder. They substituted with a different powder as well because they couldn’t get the powder they normally used. I was told from CS that the “factory loaded casings” that Hornady wasn’t concerned with being reloaded. They were only concerned about getting factory loaded ammo out to the general public. So, as long as the pressures were the same, they rolled with it. I was also told they’re back to using small rifle primer currently so there was just a small batch of large rifle primer casings produced. I didn’t ask if they went back to the original powder. So if you’re gonna reload those I would start with starting loads and work your way up because if I had to guess they’re going to build pressure a little faster than small rifle primers and that’s exactly what the Hornady customer service representative told me too.

I am glad I hand load after hearing this Because I’m sure people were scratching their heads when their groups opened up when buying replacement boxes of factory ammo that were loaded with different primers and different powder. No wonder why people used to chase a lot numbers back years ago with factory loaded ammo.


If it were me, and you only have a few of them, I’d probably toss them and forget about them. The CS rep said there wasn’t a lot of them that were produced with large rifle primers, so sounds like they were oddballs. He said he heard of them being produced but never saw any himself. If you have a pretty big pile of them, I would probably just sell them or trade them to somebody for smalls. Either that or load them up for dummy rounds or some funky cool stuff. I made a few keychains and fan light switches out of some of my old brass. If you have 50, or more, I would probably work upload data and make sure they are definitely separated from the small rifle primer batches.

Yeah, I've only got the few I got from a buddy. I'll pitch them or save them for something else like you mentioned. I was under the assumption they (Hornady) were using Lil'gun for powder, but I have no proof of that. That's what I'm using for my reloads. I'm interested now to know if anyone else I know had a run of these and had POI issues???