Primers make a difference?

[RDub01]

Hello

Thought it would be fun to assemble some ammo with 180gr FMJ and Blue Dot, then put six different primers behind it and see what happens..

So I put 11.0grs of Blue Dot in thirty once fired Starline cases and seated five of each primer.
Rem 2½
Fed 150
CCI 300
Fed 155
CCI 350
WLP

Topped these off with a Federal 180gr FMJ (pulled bullets from American Reloading), seated to 1.250".

I shot these at 25 yards and put a KKM SS 4.6" barrel since the cases weren't new. Factory spring.

Data on tartgets;
Velocity average
Extreme spread
standard deviation
Temp F°



The real surprise this time was the Fed 150 outperforming all the others and the CCI 300 lagging behind the Rem 2½..

I did this a while ago in cooler weather, but didn't have any Federal primers on hand.  This was shot with a stock G20-SF barrel and new cases with Speer TMJ bullets.
And that time the WLP primer came out on top..




Seems like the more questions one tries to answer, the more questions pop up..

[Taterhead]

That is a cool experiment and nice photos.

The sample size leaves the "lessons learned" a bit inconclusive.

Curi oink us about the pulled bullets. Many pull pistol bullets I've woked with have been sized down by seating and crimping with some inconsistency in diameter. I wonder if the bullets are adding some statistical noise?

[The_Shadow]

RDub01, Thanks for the data...The differences are not a great big deal even the 35-40 fps difference of the CCI 300 / CCI 350.

I have worked up many loads using the CCI350's knowing I could swap directly to any of the other primers...

58 / 68 fps is not a big deal as an overall difference between all of the loadings either.  I bet the bullets themselves also account for some of the variations.

Seems like the more questions one tries to answer, the more questions pop up..

I'd say don't beat yourself up over any of these, it's all good!

[Benchrst]

My 'experimenting' with 300, 350, 2.5, 150, WLP, and S&B is pretty limited, but my hunch is the differences in pressure developed are more powder dependent than not.

[RDub01]

About the pulled bullets..
For $49.00 you are supposed to get 500 180gr bullets.  Well after examining these I discovered that there were some 165gr in there as well as some 155gr.  The 155's were easy to spot but the 165's not as easy.  I began weighing and measuring each one prior to loading and discovered also there were some weighing 176-177grs.  Then some were scarred from crimping, so I used those for fodder.
However, most were Ok..  They micked at .400" and weighed 180-181grs.  I shot some very nice groups with these in a .40..  I'll post that later.
All the bullets shot in this test passed inspection.

I was mostly interested in velocity anyway..  As long as they weighed good and measured correctly, I believed the results should be pretty close to what new bullets would provide for this test.. And since they were relatively cheap, I didn't mind burning them up.  Although the CCI 350 provided a nice group as it did in the first test.. The first test I was just getting used to the gun so one got away from me..

Wasn't really trying to prove any particular point, just curious how the Federal primers compared to the rest since I didn't test those before..  And thought it might be of interest.

[blaster]

good info thanks for posting.