Are these both Large Rifle Primers?

Suther

Suther

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Long story short, I bought some large rifle primers off a guy locally who was getting out of reloading. While I was on the way to his place he found a pack of CCI Large Rifle Magnum mixed in with a brick of Pistol primers he had. He wasn't sure if the box actually contained LRM primers, or if they had pistol primers but were in the wrong packaging for some reason, so he threw them in with the Federal primers I was buying for free (I know, what a deal in todays market!)

I measured them, and they're all about 0.126-0.129" tall, with the ones on the left trending towards 0.128-0.129, while the ones on the right trended towards 0.126-0.127. (As measured with dial calipers, I know, not ideal for such precise measurements). My problem is Sierra lists Large Rifle being taller than Large Pistol, but the ranges have a slight overlap between 0.123 and 0.126: https://www.sierrabullets.com/primer-substitutions/

So, other than measuring the height of the primer is there another way to figure out whether these are pistol or not? Can you tell simply by looking at them side-by-side? They sure look like the same thing to me, but obviously I don't want to make a bunch of loads with pistol primers.

Here are some pics comparing what I bought from the guy vs some I already had on the shelf.
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Small pistol and rifle primers are similar height; large have a noticeable height difference.

My CCI large pistol primers measure about .119" or .120", and my CCI large rifle primers measure .127". Looks like they're rifle.
 
Not sure if this helps, but here are some measurements of primers I have on my bench;

Federal large pistol- 0.119
Federal large rifle- 0.128
Federal large rifle Magnum- 0.128
Federal small rifle- 0.119
CCI large rifle- 0.126
CCI small rifle- 0.120
 
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They're both large rifle primers of the type I use almost exclusively for everything that requires ''large rifle'' primers.

When you seat those primers, every thing will be fine.

I've measured outside diameters and heights of the cups on different lots and they are not all created equal.

They are very close though and likely have a very tight plus or minus ''acceptable'' tolerance.

Like you, I noticed one day that there was a very slight difference between lots of similar marked boxes of primers

I even weighed them to check the difference. I was surprised at how much difference there can be within any single lot of primers and between lots of primers.

I'm talking about less than .005 grains here, measured on special scales.

The difference seemed to be exclusively attributable to height of the skirts on the cups.

I also weighed a couple of dozen anvils that were pried out of fired primer cups and couldn't detect any difference, even on the very sensitive scale I had access to at the time.

Shoot them with confidence. I never noticed any unusual measureable difference in velocities when mixed up and used for loads in a custom Palma Match 308Win chambered rifle.
 
Thanks guys!

@bearhunter, it's not that I noticed the difference, I was given them for free with the other primers I bought under the pretense that he didn't know if they were rifle or pistol because the box says rifle but they were mixed in with his brick of pistol. I don't reload pistol yet so I don't have any pistol primers to compare them to.

My friends will be happy, I've got 3 buddies looking to get into reloading thanks to how bloody hard it has been to find 30-06 ammo in this past year, but finding rifle primers has been an issue. Now I have a few boxes at least; they're hunters not sport shooters so they don't go through ammo like we do.
 
The colour of the priming compound is the same. Both yellow.

The only difference is the depth of the cups. The CCI pistol primers are 0.120 and the rifle primers are 0.126.
 
HammerliSP20 said:
The colour of the priming compound is the same. Both yellow.

The only difference is the depth of the cups. The CCI pistol primers are 0.120 and the rifle primers are 0.126.
Click to expand...

The Large Rifle primers will be ''bright'' yellow.

The Large Pistol primers will be a "dull'' yellow

From what I can see in your pics, they are both ''bright'' yellow.

I would be surprised if your very generous benefactor would have mixed up the primers in the same boxes.

Maybe, but not likely

I had a friend that devoped Dimentia over a year to the point he could no longer make distinctions such as that. We had to throw out over 20 pounds of powder because he had mixed every one of them up.

Ball powders with extruded powders and real waste was about 5 pounds of the old Scot single base powder.
 
The Winchester large rifle and large pistol primers that I have are different colors
large rifle is green and large pistol standard and magnum is red
CCI primers all look the same to me lol, can't tell if one yellow is brighter then the other
 
bearhunter said:
The Large Rifle primers will be ''bright'' yellow.

The Large Pistol primers will be a "dull'' yellow

From what I can see in your pics, they are both ''bright'' yellow.

I would be surprised if your very generous benefactor would have mixed up the primers in the same boxes.

Maybe, but not likely

I had a friend that devoped Dimentia over a year to the point he could no longer make distinctions such as that. We had to throw out over 20 pounds of powder because he had mixed every one of them up.

Ball powders with extruded powders and real waste was about 5 pounds of the old Scot single base powder.
Click to expand...

Colour mean nothing. I have Large CCI rifle magnum primer that are red instead of yellow and a box of yellow. Purchased at different time, mean you cannot trust colour to identify primers.

For the dimensions:

BF60396C-D0E0-43AB-9293-EFD1B23A8AA0.jpg
 

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May I suggest you measure the cup height not the "cup and anvil" height. To measure the difference between Large Rifle and Large Pistol primers you must measure on the side between the arms of the anvil. With a blade micrometer.
The three arms stick up a bit to help make good pressure contact between the anvil and priming compound when the primer is properly seated flush with the base of the primer pocket. The height that the anvil arms stick up past the cup can vary even between lots of the "same" primer since it is not a critical measurement for proper function.
 
Longwalker said:
May I suggest you measure the cup height not the "cup and anvil" height. To measure the difference between Large Rifle and Large Pistol primers you must measure on the side between the arms of the anvil. With a blade micrometer.
The three arms stick up a bit to help make good pressure contact between the anvil and priming compound when the primer is properly seated flush with the base of the primer pocket. The height that the anvil arms stick up past the cup can vary even between lots of the "same" primer since it is not a critical measurement for proper function.
Click to expand...

I started by measuring that, but then looking at this diagram from Sierra (which in turn they say is straight from SAAMI) it looks like their measurements include the anvil:

case-head.png
 
If all else fails you could load up a few of the suspected pistol primers and see if there’s any difference in velocity over the chronograph.
 
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