.308 Winchester Small rifle Primer Expereince

  • 305 Views
  • Last Post 05 March 2024
  • Topic Is Solved
Bud Hyett posted this 03 March 2024

The current shortage of large Rifle Primes has brought up a thought of using .308 Winchester brass with the Small Rifle Primer primer pocket. 

Background: Many years ago I shot a Savage 110S with R-P Basic Brass in competition. This was an experiment with Small Rifle Primers for possible accuracy gains. I experienced hangfires, noticeable hangfires in time delay. This was with Reloder #7 powder, Winchester Small Rifle primers, and cooler weather. 

 This could be due to:

  • Light primer strike
  • Bad lot of primers 
  • This powder choice needing more ignition.

Has anyone experienced this?

Any expereince or thoughts will be appreciated.

Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest

hangfire

Attached Files

Order By: Standard | Newest | Votes
Aaron posted this 03 March 2024

Bud,

My Starline 308 Win brass is inbound. Due tomorrow.

You probably know this, but if you don't, you can order the Starline brass indicated as "backordered". They put your order in the hopper and when it is available, they email you. If you wait for the indicator to turn green, you will most likely never get your brass from Starline now. You need to be in the hopper when they run the brass. The 32-20 brass at Starline sold out in 4 hours. Fortunately, I was in the hopper and got the email to confirm the order.

Their 308 brass is now indicated as "backordered" so if you really want some, get on that backorder list. I'm still waiting for 45-90 brass and my order shows "processing" for 6 months now. You can bet that run of brass will sell out fast if they even make more than the backlog.

 

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

Attached Files

  • Liked by
  • RicinYakima
  • Bud Hyett
MP1886 posted this 03 March 2024

The current shortage of large Rifle Primes has brought up a thought of using .308 Winchester brass with the Small Rifle Primer primer pocket. 

Background: Many years ago I shot a Savage 110S with R-P Basic Brass in competition. This was an experiment with Small Rifle Primers for possible accuracy gains. I experienced hangfires, noticeable hangfires in time delay. This was with Reloder #7 powder, Winchester Small Rifle primers, and cooler weather. 

 This could be due to:

  • Light primer strike
  • Bad lot of primers 
  • This powder choice needing more ignition.

Has anyone experienced this?

Any expereince or thoughts will be appreciated.

 

 

Bud I have two cartridges I'm having trouble with small rifle primers and those are the 450 Bushmaster and the 6.5 Creedmore.  Basically this happens with slow ball powder. One hang fire after another. This is nothing but not enough primer for the volume of powder. 

Attached Files

  • Liked by
  • RicinYakima
  • Bud Hyett
Mike H posted this 04 March 2024

I am assuming you are thinking of cast bullet loads in the .308,I have no experience with that endeavour.

I have used them for FTR loads,there are a lot of people in Australia using them for long range target shooting in .308 Winchester,mainly for longer case life,however they wouldn’t be using them if they didn’t perform.You do need a primer with a thick cup and well fitted firing pin in the bolt face,preferably a reduced diameter firing pin,to stop blanking of the primers.

Attached Files

  • Liked by
  • Bud Hyett
Clod Hopper posted this 04 March 2024

Small rifle primers do not work in the .308.  Why do you think Winchester designed it that way?  Bench resters figured out in the 70's that you can only light so much powder with a Small Rifle Primer.  Cases much bigger than 7.62x39 just require a LRP.  Even then most 7.62x39 is LR.

Benchresters use SRP because they are slightly more accurage than LRP.  Those of us who want to hit a coyote in the next zip code use LR.  Benchresters taught us a lot of other things in the 70's.  

Dale M. Lock

Attached Files

  • Liked by
  • RicinYakima
  • Bud Hyett
Clod Hopper posted this 04 March 2024

I should add that I know that really advanced reloaders fool with these kinds of things.  I think it was Lane Pierce who wrote about a wildcat .22 bigger than the .220 Swift that used SR primers.   He had a lot of trouble with ignition.  It seem pointless to me to try to shave a tenth of an inch off of a high velocity varmint cartridge.    IMO, the reason there are .308 cases with SRP is to allow much smaller cartridges like the 7mm BR and .30 BR to be made from them.

 

Of course, here the problem is lack of LR primers.  Maybe a faster powder like IMR 4198 would do the trick.  

Dale M. Lock

Attached Files

  • Liked by
  • Bud Hyett
Mike H posted this 04 March 2024

You may believe that small rifle primers don’t work in the .308 Winchester,so don’t use them,however having used them personally and knowing others having success with them,I am not backing down and would encourage others to try them.

Attached Files

  • Liked by
  • Waleone
  • Bud Hyett
DanLH posted this 05 March 2024

All my 30BR brass uses small primers and I have never had any problems with ignition.

Attached Files

  • Liked by
  • MarkinEllensburg
Clod Hopper posted this 05 March 2024

Mike H. would you write an article about this for TFS?  Now you have me interested.  Do SR give better accuracy than LR?  What powders do you use?  Any difference in velocity?  Does it work better for cast bullets?

 

I see that Starline and Lapua make SR brass in .308.  And it's available at Midway.    Lapua SR is $1.20 to $1.40 each.  Starline LR .308 is $0.58 for LR and $.70 for SR.  Somebody is buying this SR brass.

Dale M. Lock

Attached Files

Mike H posted this 05 March 2024

Dale,Rather than me try and put something together,I will refer you a series of articles in the UK Target Shooter Magazine by Laurie Holland.Reloading Bench,June 2 -2015,Large Rifle Performance.Then there is Small Rifle Performance in 308 Parma Case,part 2.

The final article is Small Rifle Performance,Pt.3,November 19-2017.

I used Lapua Palma small rifle primer brass with H4895,Varget and Reloader 17,projectiles from 185 to 215 grains for FTR,today I am too old to be competitive and am using up my mixed lots of components locally.My cast bullet loads in 308 are either using berdan primers in Ex-military brass or scrapped Winchester cases that have looser primer pockets.

Mike.

Attached Files

Mike H posted this 05 March 2024

I missed the first article on small rifle primers.it is Small Rifle Primer Performance in the 308 Palma Case.(Part 1)By Laurie Holland. September 22-2017.

Attached Files

Categories
Search
Popular Tags
This Weeks High Earners
Hot Topics
Close