Did a bit of a primer test the other day.

Lefty Dick

Lefty Dick

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We hear it all the time use a certain primer as its the hottest, which is always a parroted comment from a publication posted sometime in the past.

The question is do those old standards hold true with the primers available today?

At my disposal I have CCI 200's, Win WLR's, Fed 210's, CCI 250's, Win WLRM's, and Fed 215's.

So I threw together some reloads with 3 cartridges I have on hand as well (yes I have more cartridges) I chose the boys .264 Win Mag, Model 70 Super grade with a 26" barrel, The Mrs., 270 Win Remington 700 with a 22" barrel, and my Ruger American Predator in .243 Win, with a 22" barrel.

The ,264 was loaded up with barnes 127grain LRX and IMR 7828 (this is a worked load so I wont give specifics beyond this)

The .270 was loaded up with 55.7 grains of IMR 4831, and 130 grain Winchester Power Points. (this is a low to moderate load in this rifle as this combination has never been tried before)

The .243 was loaded up with 41.5 grains of IMR 4831, and 100 grain sierra gameking's (SPBT) (again like the 270, this was a new to the rifle combo)


All 3 rifles were given a deep cleaning before the test, with a full soak with Wipeout foam, followed by a good scrubbing with Iosso bore paste.

All 3 rifles were fired twice before the testing began.

All 3 rifles started from ambiant temperature before testing, and I followed the same shot sequence for each 3 shot string, from ambiant shot number 1, eject and leave the bolt open, wait 30 seconds, load and shoot shot number 2, eject and leave the bolt open, wait 45 seconds, and fire shot number 3, the rifle was racked and with the help of the worlds smallest leaf blower, was cooled, while the other rifles were tested.

kI4fHrx.jpg

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The rifles had their velocities tracked with a LabRadar chronograph.

The rifles were shot on paper, but group size was not a driving factor in this test, it was a velocity tracking endeavour after all.

4MZKB0A.jpg

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Weather conditions on the day of the test were a staring temperature of 10 degrees Celcius, and a finishing temerature of 15 degress celcius, Relative humidity ranged from 65% to 50%, and the barrometric pressure hung around 1007 hpa. Range elevation is almost spot on 2000 feet ASL.

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My key take aways from this test:

-Indeed the Federal 215 primers have lost the crown of "hottest" magnum primer, and gave up the title to the Winchester WLRM, while CCI 250's and Federal 215's are a close tie in performance too.

-The differences with magnum primers in the .243 Win are negalgable in this test.

-The difference in the Magnum primers in the true Magnum cartridge is very slim.

-The 270 Win saw the best velocity gains by moving to a magnum primer.
 

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Lefty #### said:
We hear it all the time use a certain primer as its the hottest, which is always a parroted comment from a publication posted sometime in the past.

The question is do those old standards hold true with the primers available today?

At my disposal I have CCI 200's, Win WLR's, Fed 210's, CCI 250's, Win WLRM's, and Fed 215's.

So I threw together some reloads with 3 cartridges I have on hand as well (yes I have more cartridges) I chose the boys .264 Win Mag, Model 70 Super grade with a 26" barrel, The Mrs., 270 Win Remington 700 with a 22" barrel, and my Ruger American Predator in .243 Win, with a 22" barrel.

The ,264 was loaded up with barnes 127grain LRX and IMR 7828 (this is a worked load so I wont give specifics beyond this)

The .270 was loaded up with 55.7 grains of IMR 4831, and 130 grain Winchester Power Points. (this is a low to moderate load in this rifle as this combination has never been tried before)

The .243 was loaded up with 41.5 grains of IMR 4831, and 100 grain sierra gameking's (SPBT) (again like the 270, this was a new to the rifle combo)


All 3 rifles were given a deep cleaning before the test, with a full soak with Wipeout foam, followed by a good scrubbing with Iosso bore paste.

All 3 rifles were fired twice before the testing began.

All 3 rifles started from ambiant temperature before testing, and I followed the same shot sequence for each 3 shot string, from ambiant shot number 1, eject and leave the bolt open, wait 30 seconds, load and shoot shot number 2, eject and leave the bolt open, wait 45 seconds, and fire shot number 3, the rifle was racked and with the help of the worlds smallest leaf blower, was cooled, while the other rifles were tested.

kI4fHrx.jpg

View attachment 1133518

The rifles had their velocities tracked with a LabRadar chronograph.

The rifles were shot on paper, but group size was not a driving factor in this test, it was a velocity tracking endeavour after all.

4MZKB0A.jpg

View attachment 1133533

Weather conditions on the day of the test were a staring temperature of 10 degrees Celcius, and a finishing temerature of 15 degress celcius, Relative humidity ranged from 65% to 50%, and the barrometric pressure hung around 1007 hpa. Range elevation is almost spot on 2000 feet ASL.

oi0LoYH.png

View attachment 1133531
cCZ3Sbp.png

View attachment 1133535
PzBEcBz.png

View attachment 1133536

My key take aways from this test:

-Indeed the Federal 215 primers have lost the crown of "hottest" magnum primer, and gave up the title to the Winchester WLRM, while CCI 250's and Federal 215's are a close tie in performance too.

-The differences with magnum primers in the .243 Win are negalgable in this test.

-The difference in the Magnum primers in the true Magnum cartridge is very slim.

-The 270 Win saw the best velocity gains by moving to a magnum primer.
Click to expand...
Very interesting information there ####. Thnkx for the data. On a given day , under those conditions, in your rifles this definitely shows a trend that the WLR produce the highest velocity’s. It’s not an accuracy test, nor a bullet test, not a barrel length test, just a primer velocity test with a given load.
 
I was playing around with a 30-06 and Superformance loads for my son’s short barrelled rifle this winter. The hotter magnum primers WLRM and 215s were worth right around 50 fps over standards, Or to put it another way, the hot primers were worth about the same as another grain of powder which was always my operating assumptiion since someone told me that in a gunstore over 40 years ago. He wasn’t the counter guy, he was another customer the counter guy flagged over and said that this was a guy I really should talk to🤣 Rem magnum primers were half way in between which didn’t surprise me at all.

There’s more though. It’s easy to play when my reloading bench is 30 feet from a shooting bench. We were seeing about the same 50 fps difference between virgin brass and fired brass. Yep the same 1 grain equivalent, with the virgin brass being slower. We could get that speed back with a 1 grain increase, and that load would be too hot in the fired cases. It was predictable and repeatable.

Building on that, we then tried stacking the 2 variables, new brass and mild primers were 100 fps slower than fired brass and hot primers. 100 is getting to be a lot, lots of guys would change their load over that big a difference, and some would try a different cartridge for that much difference. Campfire discussiins can turn heated over less. Hell, divorces have probably happened over less.🤣
And all over a couple differences that some loaders would claim are no difference at all.😉
 
I agree. A guy shoots 5 animals with one shot kills then looses one at the same average distance and blames the bullet.
My first question is always " How do you know where you hit and if the bullet failed if you didn't recover the animal??"
Cat
 
As mentioned by others, knowing the es/sd of the loads would be useful for comparison. Some of those differences could easily be lost in the overall dispersion of the load.
The raw velocity produced by the primer isn’t the only factor that should be considered in selection either, flame temperature, burn duration and how well the explosion is projected into the case all factor into how it ignites a powder charge. You show minimal difference between standard and magnum primers in a couple cases but would the results be the same in something burning 100+ grains of powder? 60 grains is a commonly accepted threshold for needing a magnum primer, none of the tested cartridges quite make that.
 
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Cool test.
Gonna be bad weather all weekend here in Calgary.
Think I'm going to load for primer tests too.
I bought a bunch of Ginex so gonna include them
 
Great test leftydick thanks for sharing, testing and gathering ones own information is so much better than just hitting google to see what others claim is or isn't happening, I have done various different primers test myself and drawn my own conclusion.
 
Very nice test. It’s good to see that primers availability is such that reloaders are again able to do this type of testing!

I did a similar test a number of years ago (when components were relatively less expensive). However, maximizing velocity wasn’t my goal…accuracy and velocity consistency was.

Now, I only use one manufacturer of primer for LR, LRM, SR and I also use a small rifle match primer.

It saved me a lot of time and possibly money, going forward. I was able to downsize the number of different primers that I personally stocked. It also reduced the number of variables that I considered when working up a new load. I believe it simplifies the process.

I stocked up on those primers that I use and managed to make it through the primer crunch of the last 5 years without having to modify my loads.

However, when component availability is good, experimentation is one of the fun parts about reloading.
 
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