CCI Magnum Primers-Primers in General
 

I know everyone has there own brand they prefer. It's hard to find Primers especially large rifle and even magnums. Is CCI good quality? Seems all the reviews are hit or miss. I know I want federal 215 and the match grade. Every shop I ask they sort of laugh when I ask about federal Primers. I do have a lot of cci as they were 30 bucks for 1000. Found the Winchester brand in Magnum so I'm getting a couple hundred. What would I use when reloading 223, small or large primers?

Winchester is by far the best primer for small and consistant deviation across the chrony. For 223, small rifle primers.

CCI primers will certainly get the job done for you...I have and use CCI 200's in several loads...I also use Winchester, Remington and Federal Primers for several loads...some loads caliber/rifles/brass/powder combos are more picky than others...

For 223, as redgreen stated you'd use small rifle primers...I prefer Remington 7 1/2's (small rifle bench rest) primers for most all of my 223 loads.

I found a load that works well for me and it uses CCI primers, as they are more consistent, as far as speed than the Federal primers. Same every thing but primers, Federal had greater velocity differences, for the load I use.

You can get a lot of information on the internet, some good, some bad. If you do any reloading, you should have your own current edition(s) of reloading manuals. I have current editions of manuals from each of the manufacturers of the bullets that I reload. The answers to almost all of your reloading questions can be found in those manuals.

I've used CCI primers for most of my reloading for many years -- over 200,000 CCI 209s for shotguns, CCI 250s for my magnum rifles, CCI 200s for my non magnum rifles and reduced practice loads for magnum rifles, CCI 300 and 350s for my .44 mag loads, CCI 300s for .45 acp, and CCI 500s for my .38 spl and .357 mag loads.

It's only been the last few years when components have been hard to get that I've started using other brands of primers, such as Fiocchi and Winchester. All primers will work, some guns might like some brands of primers better than others.

The important thing to remember is that if you have a load with one primer, then switch to another brand, back off your powder charge a grain or so and work up the load with the new primer.

Around me CCI is usually always in Stock with Magnum Primers seem hard to find. I did find Winchester LR Magnum primers yesterday and picked up 2 packs of 100. Have a 1100 CCI Magnums and considering if I should return or exchange the 1000 count I got and get small primers since I don't have any of those or maybe just stash it. All the load data I read in the manuals used Winchester or federal primers.

There are a lot of variables to be controlled in reloading, the brand of primer is just one, and it's not generally the one at fault when a load is going astray. I've even done some experiments using different primers in the same load, anticipating primer shortages, and I generally find very little difference downrange between CCI, Remington, and Winchester (haven't tried Federal). For the most part, none of the loads I've developed reflect "maximums" listed in the manuals, in many cases I'm at least a grain under. But these loads are through MY rifles, under MY conditions, and using MY trigger finger. Your results may differ.

Yeah I understand all that. I found some Remington 9 1/2 M so I picked up 2 100 count. I have a nice sample of things to try so far. 3 different primers, 3 different powders, 1 type of bullet so far. I also do have 100 grain Spitzers from Weatherby. If the 115s don't produce I am going to try and find something around 90 grains. I'm pretty excited to start.

I find fed 215 match to be my best mag primer. Win Mag second best. I like remington match for small rifle.

I use CCI in all my pistols, but thats it. They have a hard cup and makes them ideal for progressive presses. I also use CCI for my M1 garand.

That's a lot more load development work than I'll generally take on. Testing what I consider the minimum number of rounds per step (10), and a minimum number of steps (5) for a given powder, that's 30 rounds per step with three different primers, for 150 rounds per powder. You have three different powders to try? That's 450 rounds JUST in load development - at least the way I work loads up.

To compare apples to apples, your wind and other environmentals need to stay the same, you can't let your eyes get tired, you can't let your barrel heat up or become any more fouled for the next shot than it was for the last, ...

I suggest you develop a load one powder/primer combination at a time. Once you know what your rifle likes in that powder, switch to another powder and do the same thing. Once you settle on a load in each powder - or maybe even eliminate a powder or two, then test different primers.

There's a limit to how much time and attention should be paid your reloading versus time and attention spent sending your reloads downrange, unless you're a dedicated BR shooter. You probably don't have enough measuring equipment yet to really tell much difference from one to the other. I easily have more money tied up in instrumentation than I do the basic press and tools that I use for reloading.

At this point, I think you need to get to reloading and not worry so much about splitting any more hairs than are absolutely necessary with primers.