Federal Primers

[Guninhand]

When a revolver is tweaked to fire on Federal primers only, will it still fire if small rifle/large rifle are substitued for small pistol/large pistol?

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[revchuck]

Nope.

Federal pistol primers are the softest available, which makes them the easiest to set off, which means that trigger pulls can be lighter. The rifle primers are harder, harder than the hardest pistol primers - they need to be that way to withstand the higher pressures in a rifle. Additionally, large rifle primers have slightly different dimensions than the large pistol versions.

Alot of auto shooters switch back and forth between small pistol and small rifle, but they don't have the same ignition system as revolvers, so they can get away with it.

The easiest thing to do, IMHO, is to stick to pistol primers for pistols.

[sargenv]

I can't answer the Federal rifle primer question, but instead of going to Federal rifle primers, why not resort to magnum small or magnum large pistol primers? I've used small pistol and small pistol magnum primers with equivalent loads and gotten good results and no issues with ignition. I think a lot of people forget that most manufacturers make a magnum primer as well as the standard ones. In my case it wasn't so much a neccesity rather it was all I had left before a primer order. With my last order of small pistol primers, I picked up 5k of the small pistol magnums since they were out of the regular small pistol primers.

Vince

[Guninhand]

Thanks for the answers. It's just that Federals can be hard to come by where I live and because of the threat of handgun bans and such I try to buy large quantities when I can, and if I could use the rifle stuff in my revolvers it would ease logistic problems.

[10mmdave]

I believe Large Rifle primers are taller than Large Pistol primers.

Yup...forgot I had a box of large rifle primers in the closet.

Federal Large Pistol: .210 dia. .120 tall

Federal Large Rifle: .210 dia. .130 tall

(and I just realized somebody already said this oh well)

[pmd]

For those interested ... here's intersting link on Primers and Pressure (rifle related) and a list Rifle Primer Dimensions for CCI, Federal, Remington and Winchester.

http://www.jamescalhoon.com/primers_and_pressure.php

[10mmdave]

For those interested ... here's intersting link on Primers and Pressure (rifle related) and a list Rifle Primer Dimensions for CCI, Federal, Remington and Winchester.

http://www.jamescalhoon.com/primers_and_pressure.php

Cool article/info, know anyone that did the dims for pistol primers ??