Low Pressure Plinking With 209 Primers

A

Al Bear

CGN Regular
Rating - 97.8%
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Location
Montreal area
Warning: not for regular loads!

Here’s how I handle the primer shortage: drill out the primer pocket out of a rifle cartridge with a 1/4” drill, countersink it slightly with a larger drill, pop in a 209 shotgun primer with a dab of blue thread locker and, bingo, you’re ready to load.

This assumes, of course, that you’re able to get 209 primers .

I use this recipe with my 338-06: 209 primer, 5 grains of Accurate N100, Hornady 000 buckshot (.35”) sized to .339. Shoots 1” @ 25 yards (perfect grouse/rabbit load).

Again, this is my way of dealing with a primer shortage andnot for usual pressure hunting loads. Mind you, I will now and forever use this recipe since it’s so darn accurate.
 
Back in Jan ‘19 I bought 12k primers at $30/k with the intention of selling them at the spring gun show. Along comes Covid, no gun show. These should get me through until primers are readily available again.
If I was doing low pressure loads I wouldn’t sacrifice my good brass for special loads. I would use LP primers and light pistol powder loads.
 
270 totheend said:
Back in Jan ‘19 I bought 12k primers at $30/k with the intention of selling them at the spring gun show. Along comes Covid, no gun show. These should get me through until primers are readily available again.
If I was doing low pressure loads I wouldn’t sacrifice my good brass for special loads. I would use LP primers and light pistol powder loads.
Click to expand...

Sacrifice? I find 30-06 brass in the trash bin at the local range.
 
i have enough primers to last me a while if i dont go crazy reloading even 209 primers are starting to get hard to find.
 
To make our rifle supplies last longer we got into shotshell slugs, round ball, lead casting, bullet casting, powder coating, and blackpowder guns. Supplies would run out much faster is we kept the hobby pigeon-holed to long range and hunting bullets.

The shortage was pretty easy to see it coming, so we stocked up on everything. Other than primers, most of the shotgun supplies are still a reasonable price and most places have stock, and we stumbled on an almost unlimited source of free lead ingots.
 
I have done this with berden primed 303, so no need to sacrifice my good brass.
Also, 1/2” of crayon, and no powder, is quiet and flies strait for at least 25 yards.
Still working on it, so I don’t know grouping, I just judge that it is spinning well because the mark is a circle, and not a square or smear.
I think I need to make a custom bit, because I want it to be a press fit, with a recess for the rim.
 
Innovative shooters! I’ve not heard of drilling out rifle brass to accept 209 primers. I have scads of nice brass, berdan primed 7.62x51 and 8x57. Jeez, now I have another rabbit hole to go down.

I have mucked with some berdan brass with some success, but it was basically a waste of time.
 
Well, I'll come up from the rabbit hole for a breather. I drilled out a 30-06 shell, countersunk it with a bigger bit. Looks good! Next, I tried drilling out an 8x57 berdan brass, no workee, drilled off to one side. Ok. Checked a CBC 7.51x51 berdan and found that there is a dimple centred on the inside, so I drilled that one from the inside to the outside, worked like a charm. Countersunk that one, looks good! Had to go out to buy some thread locker - WOW! Has the cost of that stuff ever shot up!

Drilled three CBC, care needs to be taken, when drilling from the inside to outside, to not drill too far. Just far enough so a LEE decapping tool can knock the primer cup out. Also, careful when drilling the countersink to try to get it square, else the primer will sit lopsided. Not too big a deal for these, but something to strive for.

I used blue thread locker, so I can get the old primer out after firing. I'll load these test rounds with a small charge of 700X and a light bullet for testing.

Ok, now to answer the "why". Several reasons. I have shotgun primers I will likely never use, bought at reasonable prices back in the day ($36.95/1000 marked on this box). A relatively simple way to make use of nice berdan primed brass. I like to fiddle with projects like this. Main reason - because I want to.
 
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Well, I managed to get two CBC done, loaded a .7cc LEE dipper of 700X under a 130gr LEE cast GC bullet and fired them off. Primers stick out into the case, so were sooty when I pushed them out.

A lot of fiddling around, but would work good for Berdan primed brass that was not readily available in Boxer primed, such as 7.65x53 Argentine. If a person had a drill press set up to center the brass and hold it steady for drilling out and countersinking, it would speed things up, plus make a nicer looking job.
 
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