Whats with some 45acp having small primers?

OregonPlinker · Nov 15, 2012

Ive been scavenging around the range cleaning up brass some people leave behind and I got some 45 brass with small primers. Federals and Blazers. Im new to the world of 45 auto so fill me in if you would?

Ive scored in 3 trips to the range though. I got fifty some 45's, I dont know how many 9mms and 40's probably close to 500 if not more and 5-600 .223's. A few 270 and 308. They just sweep them up and throw them in the cans? If they bother to sweep...

RVTECH · Nov 15, 2012

Deprime them normally and reprime with small pistol primers. For whatever reason some of the mfgs. are making brass with small primer sockets. I encountered this several years ago when I scrounged some Blazer aluminum brass and realized it had the small primers. It reloaded and shot just fine.

Phrank · Nov 15, 2012

Been around for a while from what I can tell, much to the chagrine of 45 acp loaders. Scrounge it, separate it and trade it here in the classifieds. Some like pure large primers, some like pure small, others will take anything. I'm largely agnostic on the issue but prefer to focus on large primer as that's the lion's share of what I've got. I tend to trade my small primer 1:1 for large when I get any supply. No matter what you've got, reloaders (like me) will likely jump on what you've got, cash or trades.

PhysicsGuy · Nov 15, 2012

The small primer brass is due to manufactures making "clean" ammo. This is because the specially formulated primers were made in the small pistol primer size (for 9mm and .40), and apparently it was easier for them to make special brass than develop "clean" large pistol primers for use with .45acp.

AMProducts · Nov 15, 2012

Typically you will see this with CCI blazer, CCI lawman, Winchester Non-Toxic (WinNT headstamp). The reason for this... they only make lead free primers in one size. Since really only the big-4 cartridges are loaded with Lead Free primers (.223, 9mm, 40, 45) the 45 is something of an outlier in that it uses a large primer pocket, which means extra tooling for the MFGs.

Callidus98 · Dec 8, 2012

Have you guys seen much difference in load performance when reloading with small primers? Any difference in pressure or muzzle velocity? I plan to back my charge down a bit and work back up to be safe but any info you have is appreciated.

Grunwald · Dec 8, 2012

I have not noticed any difference, but find that having to deal with small and large primers in a signle caliber is a major pain. At first I did not realise they were doing it and it caused me some issues.
Now I have to check every piece of brass to sort.
To do that I bought a primer pocket deburring tool and if it fits it is large, if it does not fit then it's small.
Much easier than eye balling and trusting my perception.

oknow · Dec 9, 2012

Grunwald said:
I have not noticed any difference, but find that having to deal with small and large primers in a signle caliber is a major pain. At first I did not realise they were doing it and it caused me some issues.
Now I have to check every piece of brass to sort.
To do that I bought a primer pocket deburring tool and if it fits it is large, if it does not fit then it's small.
Much easier than eye balling and trusting my perception.

thats not a bad thing to do anyhow

hoody · Jan 4, 2013

I had 400 of "SPEER" .45 ACP with small primers mixed in with 1500 other large primer cases. I found sorting the cases easy with the primer still there...the dimple-to-primer size ratio jumps out at a glance. Sorting is not my favorite task.