I hate Federal 45 small pistol primers

I found a sight that sells once fired brass...dont recall the name of it , but they had small primer .45 for sale $ 7.00 a 100.....claimed that the small primer pocket made it a better case for people wanting to make accuracy ammo......Hmmm.....I dont believe I buy into that but.....I had a 100 or so small pockets that I soeted out of my cases....thought about loading it for IDPA matches where the bays where grass and cant really pick up your case's....between shooters.....but I just threw it away.......

I have found these as well and the info I since discovered about them is..... the small pistol primer contains less lead and do not burn as hot, you may notice the flash hole is slightly larger than a LP case.

There are suppose to be "safer/cleaner" rounds?

Its a epa thing, lead free design, im sticking with starline, buy new, use for a very long time, every round consistent, thats part of what makes rounds accurate.

I had a bunch of SP brass (about 4-5 K) given to me so being free, I took it. I was thinking the same thing to use it in club matches as it gets lost in the grass. Well when I started testing it, the SP brass was doing a little better than the large primer stuff at 50 yards. I have been using it as my match loads now as I have more faith in it. If you think about it, it makes some sense. Remington for years used small primer pockets in its BR series of rounds and why would it take a large primer to light off less than 5 grains of powder in a .45?  YMMV.

I have been saving my spp brass. I have some federal spp so I am planning on using them in my S&W 625.  

If anyone is burdened with a pile of these I will gladly take them off their hands

DavidR wrote:Its a epa thing, lead free design, im sticking with starline, buy new, use for a very long time, every round consistent, thats part of what makes rounds accurate.

+1 this.

I also use ASYM brass....these are made by Starline for ASYM.

Jim

I have found the small primers in .45ACP w/ a Win head stamp. Range "talk" is also something about EPA/ lead.

An OSHA requirement for them being used by paid officers would make sense, especially where indoor ranges are used.

Ron

Aw, I think it's more a matter of resource conservation, maybe, and perhaps also commonality of components.

Brass usage is probably a wash, with what's saved in the primer itself instead put into the casehead. BUT there's a smaller primer anvil and most certainly less primer compound. 

Less primer compound not only saves money but reduces the toxic substances *produced* over each year, which may or may not be reportable by the ammo maker and/or primer maker under TSCA, RCRA, and/or various other environmental laws.

And there is the benchrest community finding that in general, the smallest spark to light the powder column reliably generally gives the best accuracy.

Count yourself lucky you don't find them on the primer stroke of a Star Reloader. THAT is a show-stopper.

I have about 4000 Federal Non-Toxic brass cases that are small primer pocket. The reading I did before purchasing the cases basically said as follows, makes since if the NT primers are hotter. Large NT primers were unseating from the brass and getting blown out of the back of the casings, do to the higher pressure. A change to smaller primer was made because less material was needed. This still did not fix the issue of the hotter NT primer unseating itself and backing out of the casing. The flash hole was enlarged to reduce the back pressure in the primer pocket so the primers were not blown out of the casings. Technically this makes since to me as long as a person believes the NT priming material is "HOTTER"

I dont think it will make any difference large or small as long as to accuracy once you get a accurate load worked up and your gun zeroed to it.

45 Small Primer Brass
 by saleen322 on Sun Sep 29, 2013 3:42 pm

"Well when I started testing it, the SP brass was doing a little better than the large primer stuff at 50 yards."

How did you test?  Machine rest?  Size of compared groups? 
Regards, John

How close are your SP and LP loads?

I used a mechanical rest, a Caldwell HAMMR (Below). There was not a big difference in small and large primer brass in what I seen. I have a stock Springfield 1911 and my best groups were in the 1.75" range @ 50 yards. With the small primer brass, I peaked out in the 1.5 - 1.6" range. I did not change my load. I am shooting WST in the 3.9 - 4.1 range w/200 and 185 SWCs.