I have been digging through the campfire archives for threads on the necessity for hot primers being used in ball powders. Without any kind of consensus.
Speer reloading manuals over the years have always recommended mag primers or at least Winchester primers for ball propellants. I have an old Winchester pamphlet, pre Hodgdon, that suggests the use of an old primer no longer produced, WLR (for standard or magnum loads)
So what say ye, consumers of older surplus ball powders like H414, H380, BLC-2 etc. ????
flinlocke ol buddy. I'm sure you realize the WLR primers are hotter than most standard primers, like the CCI200's for example. With that being said, I generally don't use magnum primers just because I'm using ball powders. I do use magnum primers when the amount of powder is larger than about 60 grains. This means any cartridge case bigger than the good ol 30-06 (300wm, 338wm, 7mm rem mag, 375H&H, just to name a few), gets a magnum primer.
I know some guys push using a magnum primer for some applications like the 7mm-08 running big game powder. I will admit, the performance difference was marginally better when switching from CCI200 to CCI250's. Not really enough difference to write home about though, if you really want to know the truth..
With this being said, if I were forced to use a small rifle primer in a larger case, like what was the fad with the 6.5 creedmoor, I'd run a magnum small rifle primer, for better/more consistent ignition.
Also, if you ever notice an anomaly like detonation (hangfires), when running ball powders, you could try switching to a magnum primer and see if that fixes the issue. Otherwise, I'm just running a standard primer. Especially in small cases like 22-250, 243, 6.5 creedmoor, 308 etc..
