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I decided to use my old many times fired 454 cases for 45 Colt loads. But it didn't quite work out. I used 255 grn FP plated bullets, 2400 ~ 20grn and CCI 450 small rifle magnum primers for ~1150 fps. But so far I've had a bunch of misfires and no-goes ~1 / 7.

Is this likely a primer problem, powder problem or is this combination of of components bad?
I've had the primers for a long time, ~10 years, the powder ~5 years. But always stored in sealed containers with desiccant.

This looks like good strikes to me
560782-dc3f0934a69b66e1e88641ea1008be9e.jpg

I will be trying newer regular rifle primers, Unique and 2400 from another can romorrow.

Primer.Strikes.jpg
 
I see light firing pin strikes. Properly stored primers are good for decades. I still load form the hoard I laid up in the 70s and have never had a misfire. I would check your gun's mainspring, and make certain that no fouling or any other sludge is cushioning the firing pin strike. Got mike? Measure the rim thickness, as it may be different from your .45 Colt brass - even if it is only that particular lot.
 
Small rifle magnum primers? These are low pressure loads, and if a magnum primer is used, a pistol magnum primer would be best. Rifles have much more forceful firing pin strikes. What sort of handgun is involved here?
 
Are you shooting these in a 45 Colt revolver or a 454 revolver? the reason I ask is the hammer spring on a 454 is made to set off the small rifle primers while a 45 colt's spring is made to set off a much softer large pistol primer.
 
Mike - micrometer? Just a caliper. The rims are roughly the same thickness 0.054" for cases that fired and the ones that didn't with reservation for measuring inaccuracies.

Yes, small rifle. I'm shooting a Ruger Super Redhawk.

The weird thing that I forgot to mention was that in two cases the primer went off with the faintest little pop and didn't ignite the powder. It just pushed the bullet into the forcing cone.

I'm on my way out to the range, so hopefully I'll find out soon.
 
One more thing to think about is the bigger cases might need more powder to get up to pressure. So loading to 45 colt specs in a 454 case with a magnum powder you might not have enough powder in the case for reliable ignition. I see a starting load for the 255 swc in the 454 to be about 22 gr's and the max load being 27grs. You are way below that. I would up the charge to 22 grs of 2400 because I see that as the overlap point between the 45 colt Ruger only loads and the 454 loads in my 48th edition Lyman book. For lesser loads you might want to look at a different less than magnum powder like Unique or Bullseye.
 
Cut to the chase, prime up a few powderless, bulletless,, empty cases and try fire them in your pistol. let the primers speak for themselves.
When you do this there isn't enough back pressure to reseat the primer so the primer pushes out, the case dosen't move back to reseat it and that can cause the cylinder to lock up.
 
When you do this there isn't enough back pressure to reseat the primer so the primer pushes out, the case dosen't move back to reseat it and that can cause the cylinder to lock up.
That's a new one on me. I guess the adage "ignorance is bliss" holds true as that sort of lock up has never happened to me in over 40 years, though I have yet to buy or use small pistol primers so don't know if that makes a difference. I throw away the few 45ACp blazers that irritatingly come across my path that use the small primers..
I buy quite a bit of "others" stuff when I can get a deal. One of the first thing I do when I get a batch of unknown condition primers is to prime up come cases (a few primers from several packs) to make sure they are as claimed and still viable primers.
Bill Jordan used just primed cases as the only accelerant for self made cake paraffin wax bullets for practice, and fast draw showmanship (when he was in a crowd for safety) without issue. I suppose some back pressure is involved there albeit it must be small. As an aside, I do recall him saying though large pistol primers will work for wax bullets, small pistol primers work best, unfortunately do not recall why that's so.
I have read of primers causing a lockup from squibs with bullets but forgotten powder drop.
Nonetheless, I'll add the disclaimer that I do not recommend my personal experience to others based on your advice.
 
454 cases would have to be trimmed to chamber in a Ruger - unless it was a 454 chambering - sounds like it may be. In any event, the 454 cases are only .about .10 longer than 45 Colt, so the volume is not that much greater.

Either that lot of primers is bad, the 2400 is bad or both. As thorborg said, prime some empty cases and fire them. Listen for differences in report and examine the firing pin indentations. Also, switch to pistol primers if you are using lower pressure loads.
 
I had zero issues with 11grn Unique and 20grn 2400 together with new regular small rifle primers and 1/15 fail with the older 2400. I'm out of the older magnum primers. I will dump the rest of the old 2400.
I'm planning to stick with Unique for 45 Colt loads and bump the 2400 loads into light 454 loads.
The reason I want to use 454 cases for 45 colt loads is to get rid of the powder residue inside cylinder because of the shorter case length.
 
I've been using nothing but Magnum Primers for ALL of my reloading for about the last 15 years. I simply ran out of Standard but had Magnums on hand. I completed the project, keeping the different types of Primers used. I was loading .38 Special and found the Magnum Primer rounds provided tighter groups!!! Yureka!

Anyway I haven't purchased any Standard Primers since then. I've passed along the information to a number of other reloaders and several have come to the SAME conclusions I did.
 
I've been using nothing but Magnum Primers for ALL of my reloading for about the last 15 years. I simply ran out of Standard but had Magnums on hand. I completed the project, keeping the different types of Primers used. I was loading .38 Special and found the Magnum Primer rounds provided tighter groups!!! Yureka!

Anyway I haven't purchased any Standard Primers since then. I've passed along the information to a number of other reloaders and several have come to the SAME conclusions I did.
Thought he said he was using small rifle magnum primers, not pistol primers? Do you also use the magnum rifle primers?
 
Hard to say what your issue is, but I'll relate an issue I had with some bad primers a while back. I bought a stack of small rifle match primers at a gun show, for cheap. There were several boxes, and the cardboard was stained like they had been exposed to something. Some of the primers had a bit of corrosion and I chucked those, but the rest looked fine. The only reason I bought them was they were practically free, and I figured they'd be fine for plinking.

I used some in a box of .223 ammo I loaded, and had several that didn't go off. Odd, I thought. When I pulled them down I could see that the primer had popped but not ignited the powder. I primed some empty .38 special cases and popped them in a revolver. All the primers popped and sounded ok. They might have been a little weak; I didn't think to compare them directly to known good primers. I loaded a couple dozen 9mm plinking rounds with a Unique load I use- more misfires. Again, the primers popped but didn't ignite the powder.

By this time I was done and I just chucked them. I don't know what they had been exposed to that did that. It was the first time in 30 years that I'd seen primers go bad like that.
 
The reason I want to use 454 cases for 45 colt loads is to get rid of the powder residue inside cylinder because of the shorter case length.

I do exactly this in my personal 357 target loads for my GP-100. I load a +P 38 special load in 357 cases. No powder ring and less bullet jump works for me.
 
I've been using nothing but Magnum Primers for ALL of my reloading for about the last 15 years. I simply ran out of Standard but had Magnums on hand. I completed the project, keeping the different types of Primers used. I was loading .38 Special and found the Magnum Primer rounds provided tighter groups!!! Yureka!

Anyway I haven't purchased any Standard Primers since then. I've passed along the information to a number of other reloaders and several have come to the SAME conclusions I did.
Agreed. I use magnum primers for all my 45 Colt loads as well as all my rifle loads—25-06 up to .338
 

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