#10MinuteTalk - Advantages to Using Small Rifle Primers? Maybe.

foreign what is up everybody Jim to my right Mr Ryan muckenhearn across from us right now gonna prime the pump a little bit Mark Ryan you've been uh what it's amazing I don't know where you come up with this stuff yes it comes to me uh you've been doing a little bit of thought thinking you've been doing a thought Ryan you had a thought one you've had some observations the truth as of late the two brain cells in my head currently competing for third place have come together and they ran into each other creating friction yeah yeah right I knew each other said hey a small world but uh we got a couple cartridges up here right now I guess the cartridge itself you know matters somewhat I guess that's where you've made this initial observation um reloading components can be a little bit challenging these days right yep and uh I think actually I brought this cartridge to your desk and you said well that's curious in fact is this enough priming of the pump we can we can start talking about your your observation oh Mark I'm primed you're ready to go yeah Ryan's got a sound check prime time baby we are ready what did what what did you notice uh so Mark brought some 100 or well I actually don't know the weight 130. terminal is there 130s yeah uh six five three more yeah I might ask he's like hey I want to use this on the hunt cool I flipped the case over and I noticed that the uh primer on the back was much smaller it's a small rifle primer is as opposed to the large rifle primer found conventionally on this case in hunting ammunition that's curious it was yeah I was like what the devil uh so this was really cool and something crossed my mind at that moment okay so let's back up a little bit small rifle primers in cases like this nothing new right this has been out for a while we look at things like 308 Palma brass or we look at Lapua and they're small rifle primed cases um something that was well rooted and well seated in the uh precision rifle Community the benchrest community the f-class community right yeah small rifle primers no sweat but you really never saw it in this class of uh case in the hunting scene like kind of like a commercial hunting cartridge is that kind of where you're getting that Bingo yeah I scoured the internet for any mention of this publicly nothing people had observed it but nobody like there was not any Grand Fanfare about now with small primers I thought well that's cool why so we came up with uh I think two or three hypotheses one either because these things are impossible to find I know it right yeah that's as good as money yeah some people who are listening on their you know home radios oh yeah wondering what you just pulled out oh that would be a brick of Federal Gold Medal home radios you know everybody gathers around at home in their living room around their ham radio yeah the radio and a fire and listening to the paper uh are we some sort of modern day fireside chat right now I hope so boy wouldn't that be neat yeah fun uh this is a brick of large rifle primer specifically gold medal match Magnum large rifle primers um can't find them they're hard to come by or if you do come by them they're generally very expensive so I've been looking for a new stash of large rifle primers now for several years and I have not been super successful in pinning any down so anyway back to the hypotheses a because of the component difficulties and complexities the ballastitions at Federal said hey let's build it around small rifle primers B which are easier to come by it seems to be so I've had no problem buying large or small rifle primers in the past couple of months okay I would be curious like what would the difference be well this is a great question let's get to the other okay hypotheses I bought the CC's um B they established some ballistic like a damage to running it of which some of the benchrest and precision Shooters have touted for decades or C it makes no difference and you can get the primers and put them in there they work so just like interchangeable whatever's available put it in off you go sure okay so critics of the small rifle primer in this class of case have said ah you'll have poor cold weather ignition um potentially this is the things I've read and have been told what is that just because you got a smaller spark yep smaller flame volume and in cold weather you might have an issue torching off you know 45 to 48 grains of powder okay potentially um and then I thought about that a little bit I was like okay first time I ever saw a small primed case of this class was a cartridge called 6.5 by 47 Lapua okay which originates in Finland and there's some interesting things about Finland is for a lot of months out of the year it's really cold sure and that cartridge excels in cold weather competitions I thought well heck maybe that might not be that true in this class of case interesting yes so mark that's where now you jump in and say the thing you're going to say wait I I forgot my lines why would they have done this could there be an advantage how do we find out oh okay we are getting there okay yeah we're there so yeah so how do we test these hypotheses Ryan yeah you're gonna need some sort of weather machine well bye guys uh we have that we have a device that we use for for testing Optics here that we can change the temperature within this chamber really quickly and we can go to extraordinarily cold temperatures very fast so basically that'll save us a lot of time versus you know actually either waiting for the weather or or creating uh weather right the government can do um tinfoil hat honestly comment below I mean anybody who's living in Wisconsin to Michigan right now at the time of this recording is probably in agreement with that they're they're trying to bake us out of here uh right so you've uh you've I guess uh developed a um an experiment or or we've we've set a scientific process for testing we're gonna do our best with the equipment that we have so got a hold of some top tier brass Smalls small primer pocket and large primer primer pocket from the alpha Munitions company they make the phenomenal rifle brass right so I have some small and some large in six five Creedmoor and in 308 for this test we're gonna do six five Creedmoor oh can I ask one question fire away this hypothesis is based mostly on cartridges of though I guess it would fall within the kind of like that six five Creed three three bracket yeah ish like you know probably not going to do the small rifle primer experiment in like a 300 Win Mag or something like that no because now we have a tremendous amount of powder volume that we have to ignite but in this class of case um so we've got this awesome Alpha brass um small rifle primer pocketed uh six five and 308 and large six five and 308. and we're gonna set them up I've got a whole bunch of primers ranging from CCI 400 CCI 41s CCI 450s so that's their small rifle their military primer their small rifle Magnum and then I have just large rifle standard and large rifle Magnum I forgot the numbers now in the large rifle category and what I plan to do is test them at room temperature 31 degrees Fahrenheit so just a tick below freezing and zero degrees Fahrenheit and what I want to see is one do I notice immediately any ignition issues once we get to the Colder Weather stuff do I see any massive discrepancy in velocity do I see any degradation or Improvement in accuracy um and try to keep things as consistent and even Steven as possible to do this because Mark I have a lot of small rifle primers I don't have a lot of large rifle primers and if if a brass change is all I need to do to get to a small primer pocket and then I can use the components I have into the future well golly do you think that temperature is really the only variable here like is there anything else that would come into play with small versus large rifle primers even just that let's you know you're shooting it and it's between 60 and 80 degrees powder type speed of of burn so like a fast versus a slow absolutely can be affected uh are you going to want to select a powder with a specific burn rate so I'm going to pick at random h4350 because I've loaded a lot of h4350 I have a lot of h4350 and it's appropriate in this case with the bullets that I'm going to be testing it with and you're going to do the same powder and the same volume basically the same reloading procedure literally all across the board the only thing that's going to change is the primer size primer size and then temperature and the temperature correct so it's going to be the same recipe and this might not be optimal either right like there could be a situation in which we tune the load a little bit differently and we have a dramatically different outcome right that's what I was wondering because it seems like you can almost with a with with reloading and cartridges and things like that like it it seems as though there's almost always something you can change to make something else work 100 there's so much oh I don't know leeway or something like that or variability yep I mean we've seen it before where somebody just you know two different guns in two different locations in the country and you give your preferred loading for six five creedmo we're talking about a lot here to another reloading Enthusiast is just starting out and they try it it doesn't work at all but it works great for you in your gun and so they have to go in and they have to tweak things from neck tension to powder charge to powder type to I mean all kinds of stuff how much they seat the bullet how much it's jumping versus jamming and so like it it it makes me wonder I get the test that we're going to do you have to start somewhere but it's almost like there's just there's infinitely many tests one can do on bullets that's probably why entire bullet companies with entire ballastition departments and uh testing research and development testing departments exist in fact don't you think so I'm going to take the architecture and that's that's one hypothesis Jim they're speaking of hypotheses I'm going to take the architecture of one load that I have that I already know shoots good that's what I was going to say you've got you've got a known entity here with the rifle and yep yeah and I'm going to change the primer yeah yep and the temperatures yeah and then see what happens my hope is that it still works and that we can see some sort of uh you know tangible result right out of there either way or the other either same yep or Improvement or boy wouldn't that be nice that'd be cool yeah before you even funnel with the temperature I'm interested just to see if there's any change when we just go in zero them and shoot groups of them yes because I guess the the primer size is just one of those things that unless you're some you know enthusiasts like yourself Ryan who would flip it over and be like wow I'm astounded by the difference in millimeters or whatever it is of these primer sizes I mean I never would even thought anything of it that ammo one year to go hunting with and the previous year I'd bought something else and I never noticed the difference in primer size it's not like when you go and buy the saml this werewolf ammo here I don't even remember what it is that's what I call it though um sure uh it works yeah well it's not like when you look at the box it's not like no with a small rifle burners like they don't even no mention it no right so it's kind of one of those under the radar things are we actually potentially exposing one of their greatest secrets to making I don't think so uh not a reading on this on the various depths of the internet I've seen a lot of people conduct this test in different iteration different cartridges same cartridge different powders etc etc sure and have found results that are sometimes compelling sometimes inconclusive sometimes I mean just out there it seems it seems that there's not a definitive answer necessarily as you noted um individual Firearms individual loading practices or components used end up with different results and it was difficult to pin something down I have heard people say oh a small primer is going to guarantee you better accuracy I've read through one very very good test we're actually the gentleman found that that was not the case it was in fact the opposite he saw wider SDS wider es's in a general reduction of accuracy by switching to the small do you know how extensive his testing was it was very good it was yeah he was pretty robust he was he was doing everything in 10 and 20 round Lots he was trying to keep his brass once fired he ended up getting into some twice fired brass for some of it not that I think that's that huge deal um nonetheless it was a very good test I was I was riveted the whole time I read it you know I don't like to read good so it was it was very good it was it was very well thought out and well done and I'm hoping to you know scratch the surface on that and see if there's any compelling reason why I should or shouldn't use large or small in this class of cartridge can we do some more bar room hypotheses here oh please what would the what would one think whether it's just sort of uh intuitive thinking or guesstimation or whatever what would make one think that a certain primer size would cause your performance to be better or worse in terms of like let's just say accuracy sure are people thinking that I mean like right off the bat I'm trying to go through my head like what would make a difference and I'm thinking okay so if you have a large primer and you ignite that and you have basically a larger amount of spark or flame coming out of that into the case you would potentially be igniting more powder at once upon ignition and therefore potentially more uniform burning of the powder than if you had a smaller spark or flame coming into the the powder charge that would light a little bit of it and then cause it to you know what I mean like more of a longer Chain Reaction than with a large primer which would maybe ignite it more all at once this is just stuff that you know me not knowing a whole lot about all this like yeah things that I've been told and things that I've read a large primer may have too much flame volume relative to the the powder column or powder capacity space of the case and then the powder in there it may actually begin to push your bullet out of the case prior to the like detonation of the powder that's actually that's kind of as Jim was talking through that I was like well maybe with the small rifle primer less spark you know gets it going and then it's like potentially even like a more of a controlled burn you're letting the powder do what it was supposed to do alone without any assistance of the spark from the large primer right it's almost like a large primer could be interrupting some of what the powder is supposed to be doing or something like that as well too much too fast yeah yeah so we've seen this in muzzle loaders specifically in lines where when those came out uh it came on scene in the the 209 primer became kind of the gold standard of ignition um sometimes depending on the propellant used or the projectile used and how much bore seal or bullet tension there was inside of that Barrel you'd start scooting that Barrel or that bullet along in the bore and then the powder would detonate so they created like reduced power primers remember those yeah the Muzzleloader primers yeah yep it says like four Muzzleloader on it right and then when propellants like Blackhorn 209 came on scene they definitely do not recommend them because they need more oomph right and so we've seen before on the Range somebody shows up with black horn 209 and Muzzleloader of their choice and they've got Muzzleloader primers it says right on it sense and they get like a Hang Fire like Click Boom or they get no ignition and so kind of the inverse of that just say it on the box [Laughter] so possibly that that too much flame in a case this size with a powder capacity of that amount could be pushing our bullet out of the case prior to the ignition sequence which could lead to inconsistency degradation of accuracy expanding of es and SD figures I've heard that small primer Pockets because there's just simply more material at the case head and web result in a stronger case and you can get away with more pressure I mean is that incorrect more material in theory should be stronger right I'm not looking to make a load in a 6'5 Creedmoor that emulates that of a 6.5 PRC I just want reliable ignition good accuracy flat SDS and es's and the ability to use primers that I have a quantity of when it's hard to find a quantity of those that I do not not into really snoozing it up all right not not really no and it was perfect 308 65 Creedmoor these two cases they kind of stand on their own sure just fine with the minimum 13 pieces of flare that's hey minimum required amount I get it light and fast I mean Jim you have 37 pieces of flare but uh the fact of the matter is we don't know we don't we're gonna find out yeah I'm excited to use I've never had fancy brass and this is nice brass I'm excited to use the weather machine yeah that's pretty neat never use that thing it sat down there for a long time and it's like oh cool we're gonna put ammo in there and see what happens when it gets colder hot or otherwise and um yeah no way to do it we put the ammo in there and test it cold test it hot we're gonna get a lot of requests to use this thing for all kinds of other stuff I can just imagine yeah you want to take on a hot day for instance you want a cool drink but you don't want to water it down with ice put it in there got it yeah so there's that for sure um we're just thinking other tests oh right right yeah yeah I'm sure there could be some good I've always wanted to see how much temperature affects your zero yes always want to see it yes the product development team is going to be like why is my rifle scope covered in pina colada there's a mixer there's a classic mix-up started out as a test you know with a weather machine and then it turned into not when we were making the ammo it was after like it's called the weather machine it's cool I have no idea how to run it kellen's going to give me a 4-1-1 on it I'll figure it out plug it in press the button let's see what it doesn't just have a cold button and a hot button uh I think that you can pre-program it to to do so I gave them the temperatures in which I'm gonna Target and so he's gonna he's gonna help me along I guess I keep picturing like a industrial microwave that cools yeah we'll see when we go look at it all it's like that uh that Mitch Hedberg bit where he's talking about how the name appliances you just add ER to the end of whatever it needs to do toaster refrigerator oven yeah correct Governor um what kind of microwaves you have to shoot into something to make it colder I don't know something that stops the movement to the molecules it's a freeze ray yes there you go we're off topic again slightly well I'm excited this is gonna be fun yeah and uh hopefully we'll uh no more indeed after we do this we'll have chronograph results um we're gonna have accuracy results best to our ability to shoot very subjective ignition results it either went bang or it didn't yeah um I should say went bang in the appropriate amount of time expected or was delayed uh yeah that's true I mean I guess it is possible that yep something goes awry so well I'm excited we've uh We've primed the pump we've laid the groundwork for this experiment I like these ones where we kind of uh you know hypothesize or talk about it and then we have to uh sorted out afterwards I believe this first time that word has been used on this podcast maybe did we pontificate though I thought that's what exactly what we just did maybe I could be wrong excuse me again I couldn't tell you the last English class that I took or when or what we learned well keep getting through life all right everybody thanks for listening what do you think what do you think the results are going to be are you excited for the results like we are I don't like fiddling around with the stuff so uh Ryan thank you for the observation like Jim said without looking at these things side by side not something easy to glaze over so cool until next time everybody happy hunting and shooting and uh we'll be back at some point with some results cool bye [Music]

Channel: Vortex Nation

Views: 29,348

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Id: lZ15xhtjx-c

Length: 22min 42sec (1362 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 25 2023