Softest Small Pistol Primer?

Thanks guys. Gent at my local gun store said the federals were a hard primer, I've been pretty much a CCI guy but since I swapped out the springs in my Shadow 2 I've been getting a few misfires, thinking a softer primer would help until I get a lighter firing pin spring. Glad I don't have any wheels on my chair at the reloading bench, LOL's I'll take the WSP primer back and pickup the Federals.
 
Maybe let them know that in fact the CCIs are the hardest, followed by Winchester and as stated above, the Federals are the softest by far. They may want to know that in future :) It also tells me that they (or at least that one person) may not be considered as a reliable source for reloading information in future.
Cheers
dB
 
All of the guns I use for CAS shooting are tuned to set off Federal small pistol primers but wouldn't reliably set off Winchester and the CCI were worse. Because the Federals are hard to find in my area I've had to replace the hammer springs in my revolvers to be sure the Winchester go bang each time. So based on my experience from softest to hardest they are Federal, Winchester and then CCI.
 
Federal doesn't package its primers in much larger packaging than the competition for nothing.
It is to meet federal transportation regulations since they are more sensitive than the competition.
 
Ganderite said:
Federal, by a wide margin. Also more sensitive priming compound.

Federal primers are the only one that fire when I run over them with the wheels on my chair in the loading room.
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How close are the rifles vs pistols? Guys down south substitute rifle for pistol when they cannot get anything else.

NB Rifles said:
Thanks guys. Gent at my local gun store said the federals were a hard primer, I've been pretty much a CCI guy but since I swapped out the springs in my Shadow 2 I've been getting a few misfires, thinking a softer primer would help until I get a lighter firing pin spring. Glad I don't have any wheels on my chair at the reloading bench, LOL's I'll take the WSP primer back and pickup the Federals.
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I have a 13lb main spring on my shadow 1, it was fairly horrible at igniting CCI (10% failure to fire on first hit) or winchester (5% failure on first hit). But them federals go bang everytime.
 
bsand said:
How close are the rifles vs pistols? Guys down south substitute rifle for pistol when they cannot get anything else.



I have a 13lb main spring on my shadow 1, it was fairly horrible at igniting CCI (10% failure to fire on first hit) or winchester (5% failure on first hit). But them federals go bang everytime.
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Thanks for that info, sounds like a brick of federals is in order.
 
thump_rrr said:
Federal doesn't package its primers in much larger packaging than the competition for nothing.
It is to meet federal transportation regulations since they are more sensitive than the competition.
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This does not agree with what I have read.

Federal uses oversize packaging because they were early adopters of packaging they believed was going to become a new standard. When the new standard fell through they weren't going to bother changing back again.
 
Anyone using the Remington # 5-1/2 pistol primers? If so where do they rank on the hardness scale compared to the others mentioned here.
 
I did some testing when I first set up my S&W 929. Tested Federal, Dominion and CCI small primers. I could tune down my trigger pull almost a full pound lower than with CCI primers. Dominion SPP were slightly harder than CCI,

My testing method was loading the primers into deprimed & resized 9mm cases (no powder or bullet), and loading them into moon clips. I would start off low, and increase the trigger pull 1/4 turn on the strain screw until I could get 2 full moon clips (16 rounds) to fire off. I would then go and measure what that trigger pull ended up being.

SPP Testing 20160106.JPG

I picked up a few more brands of SPP and will repeat this test along with Dominion SPP and SRP. Just haven't gotten around to it yet :)
IMG_2042a.jpg
 

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VanMan said:
I did some testing when I first set up my S&W 929. Tested Federal, Dominion and CCI small primers. I could tune down my trigger pull almost a full pound lower than with CCI primers. Dominion SPP were slightly harder than CCI,

My testing method was loading the primers into deprimed & resized 9mm cases (no powder or bullet), and loading them into moon clips. I would start off low, and increase the trigger pull 1/4 turn on the strain screw until I could get 2 full moon clips (16 rounds) to fire off. I would then go and measure what that trigger pull ended up being.

View attachment 86906

I picked up a few more brands of SPP and will repeat this test along with Dominion SPP and SRP. Just haven't gotten around to it yet :)
View attachment 86907
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Good stuff there VanMan, tnx for sharing :)
 
Chuck McCann said:
All of the guns I use for CAS shooting are tuned to set off Federal small pistol primers but wouldn't reliably set off Winchester and the CCI were worse. Because the Federals are hard to find in my area I've had to replace the hammer springs in my revolvers to be sure the Winchester go bang each time. So based on my experience from softest to hardest they are Federal, Winchester and then CCI.
Click to expand...

Have you tried Magtech primers? I've used Federal or Winchester for a long time and now there is an availability problem. I was asking because I haven't had any problems with factory cowboy loads from Magtech.
 
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