Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns OK To Substitute Magnum Primers?

I have to ask this here as there is no handgun reloading section. I have a good quantity of CCI magnum small pistol primers on hand and far less of Winchester regular small pistol primers. If I use the magnum primers in place of the regular ones, do I need to reduce the amount of powder any and if so, by how much? I use Unique and Titegroup powders, of which I have a good quantity on hand. I load for .38 Spl, 9 MM, .380 ACP

Aren’t the Winchester primers magnum, I mean aren’t they equivalent to magnum primers? I know the large pistol primers are.

The Win LP are marked standard/magnum, but the small pistol are not.

Henry, if you're not working with max loads (I'm guessing not with Unique and Titegroup) in most cases you can substitute magnum pistol primers without any pressure problems. Velocity may jump up a little; the chronograph will tell you for sure what the change is with each load.

One potential issue to keep in mind is that pistols with light hammer/striker springs may have more difficulty igniting magnum primers. This can present as either failures to fire, or large ES in velocity.

This is your answer. I've never used Small Pistol magnums but routinely use Large Pistol Magnum primers (CCI) with reduced 44 mag loads when using Unique. I seem to get a cleaner burn. I did work up my loads using Magnum primers. Same is true for 44 Special.

They make a WSP and a WSPM.

👍🏻
Don’t load with small pistol primers and wasn’t sure.

Not meant as a bash, just a clarification. I hate unanswered questions, it's a failing of mine.

Never took it as a bash.

Thanks for the responses. I'm in good shape now on primers, but just looking towards the future. I have a lot more magnum primers on hand than regular and currently only use the magnums for .357s. I shoot a lot more .38, 9mm, and .380s than I do .357s. I probably have more than a lifetime supply of magnum primers if I only use them for .357s. Or, maybe I will live a lot longer than I expect to? ;-)

Back when primers were hard to find, I had an abundance of small magnum primers. I worked up loads and found very little difference in small magnum vs regular primers. Even in hot loads.

Yondering pretty much said it all.

I've even used small rifle primers in place of regular pistol primers on several occasions before. I've never noticed a darned bit of difference in the handgun rounds.