Found some loose primers

[Gobigred]

First let me say that I reload 40,45, for pistols, 30 carbine, and 223/556 for rifle. Doing some cleaning and sorting around the bench, I found some small primers of various makes, not knowing which is which, and I use the full spectrum of primers, will it be safe to just use for plinking pistol rounds, or safely dispose of them? The list of small primers I have available and use cci 41 rem 7.5, 6.5 , cci 400, wsr,wsp. Considering the tough times of today I hate to toss them but I haven't had any incidents as of yet and not wanting to!

ETA there was a total number of 16, and a mixture of finishes.

[wgj3]

You can def use them all in pistol rounds but some of the rifle primer cups (esp cci41) will be a bit harder and might not ignite with lighter primer strikes. Main difference between sp and sr is thickness of primer cup. Sr typically have thicker cups and "milspec" like the 41 has an even thicker cup to better handle higher pressures and prevent slamfires. So generally its ok to use sr in pistols but NOT sp in rifles. Some open shooters use sr primers exclusively in their open pistols.

This doesn't work with large primers as the rifle cups/primer pockets are deeper, so lr primers will not seat flush in a pistol pocket...

Edited July 11, 2013 by wgj3

[Gobigred]

Thanks, good to hear! Nice to have a resource of valuable such as this one!

[deerassassin22]

You can also look inside the cup of the primer most brands are color coated. For example CCI Large Rifle is gold and Federal Match Grade LR is Purple. Many brands are this way.

[noylj]

Since this is not .40 S&W specific, shouldn't it be in the general reloading section?

I have never even noticed any pressure differences between small standard and small magnum, though I have seen accuracy drop quite a bit with magnum primers.

How did you get a jar of mixed primers? This is unsafe storage.

[gandog56]

Should be OK as long as you aren't near a max pressure recipe. Like the guy said though, this won't work with LARGE primers, as the rifle and pistol primers are different heigths.