I was visiting an older friend of mine this weekend who I had not seen in a long time. He quit reloading years ago and has a bunch of CCI 109 Winchester and CCI 157 Remington primers he gave me. Have not seen 109 and 157 primers in at least twenty years. Are these usable in today's full plastic hulls? My understanding is that the 109 and 209 are.
Thanks for your replys

One way to find out.....

Thanks Gary....I definitely plan to on the 109's anyway. From what I can find out, Remington quit making hulls for the 157's around 1980.
Don't think I have any hulls left from then for these smaller primers.

yep should be fine

If the primers look to be in good shape and not corroded, you shouldn't have any issues. I used some Alcan primers with no problems. I believe they were last manufactured around 1970. I've used even older rifle and pistol primers.

The 157s will be too small of diameter for today's primer pockets but some have cut a drinking straw to fit over the cup portion. This is said to make up the size difference. If I were to try this I would probably put a little nail polish over the primer to further help the primer stay in. Lucky for me I still have a few hundred old Remington hulls to go with the 1000+ primers I still have.

Like woodmaster81 posted, the Rem 157s are too small of diameter for modern plastic hulls. I still have a 1000 or so of them and they have been just sitting on a shelf for the last 40 or so years, but they will work in my Traditions in-line BP rifle. At the rate that I shoot that rifle, I should be good on primers for the next 700 to 800 years.

“Watch this!”……

I appreciate all of your responses!
Thanks
Mickey

they are a different diameter than a 209 primer, they are smaller.
I don't remember by how much but it was about .030 best as I remember.

both 109 and 157s are smaller OD and will fall out of modern hulls.
but...if you press them thru 4 layers of napkin, and then remove the extra paper on a grinding wheel brush, you can make a gasket that will hold it and they will work.

btw...they also lack flash hole covers. dont use them in fine grain ball powders. flake only.

Looked for hulls that would work from Ballistic Products, but no cigar. Did find this though, and one reviewer said it made hulls fit 57s. Might be worth a phone call anyway.

https://www.ballisticproducts.com/Universal-Primer-Pocket-Conditioner-10ga-410/productinfo/0740010/

I'm suppose to meet my friend again next weekend and will pick up those primers then.
You guys have provided a lot of good info. Thanks again

Those primers were used in Remington All American hulls (maybe others) but that is what I had and used them in. I have approx. 1500-1800 of them and they are not much more than paper weights to me. I did think about using them in a muzzleloader that uses shotgun primers but I sold my ML before I ever tried them.

FYI, the ball powder warning due to lack of flash hole cover on 57 and 109's, applies to them being used in the correct hulls designed for them. and most were magnum field loads using flake powder. but technically, when you press the 57 primer thru 4 napkin layers, it creates a flash hole cover. youll see it when you look down inside the hull. pretty slick. it allows you to use them with ball powder now.
the 4 is an estimate since some napkins are thin/thicker than others. keep doing it until it seats tight and remember how many folds it took! after i rip off the excess paper, sometimes itll back out a little. just press it back in with your reloader station. the napkin will look like swiss cheese after while. make sure you got a bunch of napkins! dont worry, the round will burn right thru those layers when it fires. its a lotta work, but i just hate to hear of good primers going to waste!

A small section of the appropriate size plastic drinking straw makes a great shim for the smaller diameter primers.

The 1980's CCI 109's and CCI 209's use the same data, and are sealed can be used with ball powders. The CCI 109 primers were plated to resist corrosion for hunting loads. The 209 primers were intended for target loads and were not plated.

The current CCI 209's are not the same primer as the originals. They are Fed 209's in disguise.

CCI 157's are sealed and the same smaller diameter as the unsealed Remington 57 primers.
CCI 157's can be used with ball powders.

Some folks like to use CCI 157's for in-inline muzzle loaders as the are easier to remove after firing.

Michael

If you're going to use the 57/157 primers in modern 209 size hulls just insert them by hand and put a piece of scotch tape over the primer to hold it in place.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. As an added surprise to my gift, he also gave me approximately 500 old Remington shot shells....the ones with the fiber wads in the bases which are what the 157 primers were made for. Using a flashlight, it appears all the bases are in great shape. I have not loaded any of these in several decades but still have my Lyman book from the early 70's and was even able to find my notes and info from then which surprised the hell out of me! So, I now have a use for these 157's! Amazing what we forget sometimes.

Due to waterfowl shells being practically nonexistent last yr I dusted off the MEC and got back into loading steel again...Primers were also nowhere to be had so went to the bone yard and found a K of old Alcan 220 's stashed away since the mid 70's I guess.

After load testing via chrono and no issues I used them to load several cases of 12ga both 2-3/4 and 3" with excellent results no misfires..

Being they're over size a tad I'll use the primer pocket tool to restore fired cases back to spec when 209's are again available..

That's great! Gotta use what you have. It worked once, no reason not to again using same recipe you used then. And my wife wonders why I hang onto so much "stuff"!

Yes Sir, with the uncertainty of the times it's a good idea to hang onto components of any kind old or new...Little did I know back then those would come in handy some 40+ years in the future..

A few years ago I was gifted a couple hundred old Remington SP hulls and decided to use up the Rem 57's in my stash. Took a bit of trial and error to prevent damaging the fibre base wads during depriming on a MEC loader. Most of them lost all or part of the basewad upon first firing. Did not try for a second loading.

Should worst come to worst and all I have left was 57 size primers I will try Labman95's trick with the tape, should work fine in an O/U.

Michael

Being gifted these older primers and shells made me check my reloading notes from 47 yrs ago. The guy who gifted me these supplies was also my mentor who got me started reloading shot shells. We both had Mec 600's. He showed me how to adjust station one to pop the primer but not imprint the fiber wad on Remington SP(green), field loads(black), and Federal(maroon) beyond making them unusable after a second firing, but still resize the brass...low or high wall. This position also was accurate for the Winchester full plastic shell. Without making any adjustments to the Mec from 47 yrs ago, I found this setting still worked!. I'm now set probably for life with shells and primers using this old stuff! My double barrel and Savage 720 semi cant tell the difference. Now I've got to see if the rabbits and birds can!

youll get blowback with just tape. avoid.
theyre tight for a reason. a charge goes forward, not backward. tape? lol. i can see that powder sifting down around the primer OD now.

just squish em in a bit harder until they fill the primer pocket....

right. lol.

This +10

The small size primers are useful if you have some 3 inch 20 gauge or older Remington 410 hulls to fill.
The soda straw trick, while tedious, does work.

I have a good quantity of these, PM if interested.

HM