Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Who has actually substituted a small rifle primer for a small pistol primer?

Not interested in any speculative opinions, advice or theories--just actual reports from those who've done it.

If you have loaded pistol rounds, substituting a small rifle primer in place of a small pistol primer, how did it work out? (All the reports I've read say they started low and worked up, but ended up where they were at with small pistol primers and the rounds shot just fine. But, I'd thought I'd check here too.)

In my particular case (no pun), small pistol primers flow just enough in an enlarged hammer mounted pin to tie up a revolver.

Small rifles need adequate whack to touch off. That's the main concern.
I dont redline, but if one does, it would prudent to work up.
I didnt, but everything was pretty much the same, other than no flow.

I've reloaded a few thousand 9mm with SRP. Around sandy hook that was all I had left in my stash. They worked fine.

Good info.

Thank you, gentlemen.

I bought a truckload of Remington 6 1/2's, for cheap, when so many discovered they'd not work for their 223's.

It's all I've been using in 38 special for years.

+1 in S&W M&P9 and 9mm Shield.

Found my 6 1/2's at Bass Pro when there were no other primers in town.

Use em in my 357 maximum

Have used them lots, never had a problem. Latest was 38 S&W for an old Lemon Squeezer, they work just fine.

Yep.

They didnt work in 17 Hornet (pierced at mid level loads) or even 22 Jet, where minor flow was the same as SPs;
Relegated to std. pistol application , they have worked fine.

in my old 357 blackhawk i use sr with 296 under 173 keith swc. works good. i had sr when i ran out of magnums and gave it a try.

I have used Remington 61/2 and CCI 400 primers in 9mm, 357 magnum, spp 45ACP and 22TCM.
Fired them in S&W M&P striker fired pistols, S&W 586 and a RIA 1911 with zero misfires.
I use the same powder loads I use with sp primers.

A couple of weeks ago I was down to only 250 CCI #500 small pistol primers. Bad timing as our gun club along with all of the sporting goods stores in town are completely out of SP primers.

I did have a good supply of Federal #205 small rifle primers, so after some research and a little testing, the last 1000 or so .38 Spl for my S&W Model 19 and 9 mm for my Kimber Micro 9 have shot just the same as they did with the CCI 500s.

Good real world info. I am short on SP primers, and flush with SR primers.

Ran low on SPP's so I ran mag full of Tula SRP's through my G17 and standard hardball load and found no difference. I will use SRP's if I run out of SPP's but I am not shooting 9mm for fun right now.

I used small rifle primers in .38Super Auto for USPSA, thousands of them. 124gr HAP @ 1350-1400fps, no problems.

I read somewhere that with the .38 Super, using SRP was a common practice. Did you find that to be the case?

When .38 Super first came into use in USPSA, or IPSC, the power factor to make major was higher. SRPs were used by most if not all in loads that were pushing 1500 fps. Then comps came along and even though the power factor was reduced, comps love pressure, so we still loaded .38 Super hot. I stopped shooting my race gun regularly, but when I do, I love the look on people's faces when a fully loaded .38 Super goes off with hot gas screaming out of the comp and steel targets going down most emphatically.

Just try to use srp with softer cups so your pistol can set them off reliably. Avoid cci Nato41s and rem 7.5s because they both have harder cups. Save them for your AR loads.

Bb

I have loaded a few test rounds with CCI SRP's. 2 of 21 .38 Special +P rounds required a second strike when fired from a S&W 686. The revolver has never previously failed to ignite a primer on the first try. The duds all went bang on the second try and were accurate. For practice ammo, it's fine.

I use small rifle primers in my .32-20 revolver loads. That's probably not a "substitution" as they are generally recommended for .32-20 revolver loads. Hasn't been a problem, though.