Large rifle primers. What's your opinion?

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Phil Boyles

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Winchester, CCI or another brand. What do you use and why? I have been using CCI only. Mostly because I heard some negative things about Winchester QC and folks having issues with them. All the reloading data I have calls for Winchester, but I haven't noticed any differences. I am interested to hear from other reloaders. Thanks
 
I pay absolutely zero attention to what the books list for primers. All I use them for is to get a baseline of what to use for a start charge and where to expect my max to be.

I prefer cci primers. Second choice is rem.
 
I use cci or remington in my hunting loads, but i've never seen a difference between those and the winchesters I use in my range ammo which some people claim to be the worst.
 
Pretty much use #210M Federal Premium Gold Metal Match for large rifle, they have gave the best accuracy along with the best ES/SD in all my long range rifles.
 
federal or Remington,i had a dud with cci and quit using them for years then primers became hard to get so I tried them again and had another dud just weird luck I guess. but rem.does good in my varmint guns and even some of the others but they are smaller in diameter and come loose in in my 300 ultra.
 
my reloading shelf is stock with about 95% cci.

i have a few other boxes for testing and plinking load stuff - a brick of wolf and a couple bricks of S&B primers because they were cheap, and well i mean they're primers and any primers were hard to get then. so i have them.


i still use almost exclusively CCI's.
 
I use Winchester exclusively. Only because that is what i bought when i started reloading. Haven't had any issues yet and have been able to develop VERY accurate loads for all of my rifles.
 
I use several different primers to tweek accuracy. Work up loads with several different combos. Many times you will find slight improvements. Not always at the same powder charge weight.
 
Personally, I have noticed more of a difference between small rifle primers than I have large rifle. But as long as I was not loading for any magnum cases then the CCI BR2 would be my cap of choice. I have gotten my best groups with them in my .22/250 and especially my .220 Swift.
 
Like Bowhunt I too started out with Win primers, always have had good results, but then again I have nothing to compare it to.

Here Kitty kitty
 
Originally Posted By: reddog964Pretty much use #210M Federal Premium Gold Metal Match for large rifle,..
Those have dried up around here, been that way for over a year.
Those were my 1st choice.
 
Originally Posted By: RustydustPersonally, I have noticed more of a difference between small rifle primers than I have large rifle. But as long as I was not loading for any magnum cases then the CCI BR2 would be my cap of choice. I have gotten my best groups with them in my .22/250 and especially my .220 Swift.

I'm sure it was nothing but dumb luck but I built up a pretty health supply of Federal 205M 210M & 215M primers before the whole primer and powder thing got went crazy so I'm pretty well locked into always using Federal "M" primers but my dad is like RD and anything he has that takes a large rifle primer gets nothing but CCI BR2's. Personally, I've never seen a lot of difference between them but my pops swears by those d*mn BR2's and won't use anything else.
 
I use CCI and Federal only. I refuse to use Winchester primers as they had several bad lots some time back and several were having issues with etched bolt faces from flame cutting. I realize it could happen to any brand but I have gone with what I know and besides, I like the nickel color.
 
Originally Posted By: BowhuntI use Winchester exclusively. Only because that is what i bought when i started reloading. Haven't had any issues yet and have been able to develop VERY accurate loads for all of my rifles.

Yep, me too. They were the "standard" primer at my local gun shop, so I started using them and just stuck with them. They were relatively available during the primer scare, so that just helped. Now that all my loads are worked up with Winchesters though, they'll probably stop making them...
 
I typically use CCI-200s for the standard rounds, and Federal 215s for magnums like my 400 H&H, 7 RM, 308 NM, etc. But primarily it is because I buy primers a sleeve at a time, and it takes a long time to shoot up 5K of any rifle primer...
 
I use Fed 215M for my 300WM and 243AI, for my Garand loads I typically use CCIs.

Aside from that, I tend to use mostly Winchester for everything else. Why? Winchester and CCI packaging takes up half the space as Federal. It's as complicated as that!
 
I reload for service rifles and use Winchester because they are supposed to have a harder cap to prevent slam fires. I was given a couple of cases of them and they are about 10 years old so I can't speak of their recent quality issues if there are any.
 
I pretty much use Federal 210 and 215, some of them M (match). I use them because that is pretty much what I have used for the past 35+ years for my large rifle reloading. Have always performed well for me so I never felt a need to look beyond them.
 
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