209 Primers?

[rickk]

I hate wasting expensive primers when I don't need to, especially with the current state of primer prices.

I'm about to order 5000 of the "Cheapest 209 primers in stock" from the local distributor for BP shotgun and BP 37 mm. 

Cheapest would probably be Rio or Cheddite or Fiocchi, which are half the price of Remingtons.

Does anyone have an bad experiences with any brand of 209's for BP?

Rick

[Montana Slim]

Rickk,

I've been using Cheddite shotshell primers for 10-12 years. Started using them only with BP, but they are the only ones I use for all my shotshell loading these days. No problems with the 6,000 or so I've popped.

Regards,
Slim

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Work great for me.

[rickk]

That is what I was hoping to hear... thanks guys !

Rick

[Mako]

Rickk,
They all work and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend using them for BP when it comes to general reliability.  But in the discussion we were having with Noz about reliability under extreme moisture conditions it is a different matter.

Some of those primers fit tight or loose in the pockets depending upon the primer/hull combo.  All European primers I have ever used are larger in diameter than the American 209s.  Fiocchi, Cheddite, Nobelsport, Rio and others are basically Ø.242, most American primers are Ø.238, with the exception of Remington STS primers which run Ø.240.  The Remington Primers are easily deformed and fit in the STS and AA hulls without deforming the pocket.  You can easily go back to Win, Federal or CCI after using them.  The same is not true for European primers, they enlarge the pockets.  The same diameter issue is also true for Tula (Wolf) as well.

The inverse is true when using Fiocchi or Cheddite hulls, the pockets are loose and the only American brand I have found that will even stay in place is the Rem STS.  You could use a primer pocket reconditioning tool that you can get from BPI but it's too much trouble to deal with.  Some stalwart souls actually recondition the pockets to make them tighter after they have used European primers.  At one time I wanted to use the Cheddite primers for sealed shells because they actually have a lacquer sealer on the primer unlike most non-military primers.  I was using Remington Green STS hulls and we went through all kinds of machinations.  I finally used STS and standard primer sealing lacquer at assembly,


A separate note:
What I didn't tell you on the other thread Noz started was that I have experience with small arms ammunition manufacturing and other ordnance.  I didn't think it was right to totally hijack his thread with our back and forth discussion.  Since this is your thread I will add a couple of things to what I would have said on his thread.

Either you misspoke, or you are mistaken about the pressure exerted by water at 3 meters.  It's not 3 psi,  it's almost 2 atmospheres. The Delta P at that depth for ammunition loaded at ambient is 15 psi positive.  I assumed you misspoke and meant  to say 30 psi.  I also think your statements about the MIL810 and speaking of electronics encapsulation issues could be a bit misleading for the average reader as it relates to munitions.  

You are aware of course that 85/85 is not a prescribed test condition for the 507 method.  It's not in the guidance for procedure 1 or the aggravated procedure 2. It's also not a STANAG spec.

If I had a test plan with 85/85 submitted to me by one of my engineers I would have rejected it because it is not a standardized test prescribed by the standard.  For instance, the natural cycles run at 75° in the constant temp test, the High Humidity cycle from 91-145° and RH of 22-75% and the Hot Humid natural cycle goes from 95-160° at RH 33-80%.  The aggravated cycle runs at a constant 95% RH.   I'm not sure where your reference to 85/85 came from for munitions.  Are you confusing it with some ASTM or JEDEC standard for electronics or semi-conductors?

Regards,
Mako

[Pony Racer]

One word of caution with the cheaper 209's.

When shooting them out of brass hulls you will want to hand deprime them and use constant but not sudden pressure.

They are made out of weaker materials and I have had to get the sleeve of the 209 out of brass case hole with a special tool more than a few times.

Not so bad that I don't use them at all if I need them but something to keep in mind if depriming brass hulls using them.

I have no idea if this happens in the plastic shells.

PR

[rickk]

Mako, I'm pretty sure I typed 2 meters, not 3 meters. ... which is roughly about 6 feet, which is roughly about 3 psi.

Here's the math:

Water = 62.4 pounds per cubic foot.

62.4 # per cubic foot for a 12x12x12" box-O-water exerts 62.4 pounds of force across 144 square inches, or .433 pounds per square inch.  Stack 6 of them boxes-O-water on top of each other and you get 6 * .433, which is actually 2.6 psi, not 3.  For 2 meters rather than 6 feet it's something like 2.86 psi differential, not quite 3 psi.

It's just been easier for me to walk around all my life remembering 1/2 psi differential per foot rather than .433 psi differential per foot.


Not sure how to come up with 2 atm  2 meters.  It's about 30 foot for 1 atm (about 15 psi), which is why a pump can only suck water up about 30 feet.

.....

Thanks for the heads up about the primer sizes btw... good to know.

Rick

[Mako]

Rickk,
You're right about the water pressure.  I apologize, I am wrong.

The problem may be that I read your post the other day and your new one about the 209s this morning.  I was trying to find the reference materials I had for shotgun primers to help you out and I found some of my old reports from the 90s.  In my haste I looked at a report before I came into work and must have done a a double transposition. You're right, you said 2 meters (which is transposition number 1) and I need to double check, but the report probably said 33 feet (10 meters). That equates to 2 Bar or roughly 2 atmospheres.  I have to convert back and fourth because the reporting had to all be done in MKS, maybe I got the 3 in my mind from the  33 feet.  I, like you keep some constants in mind when making quick calculations, I just majorly goofed this time.

We had an immersion requirement from the Navy for our pengun flares which is what the report was about.  Among the many tests we also conducted both procedure 1 and 2 tests as outlined by the 507.5 method. 

Even though I seem unable to do simple math today I know the standards.  As you probably know, but the readers of your post probably don't, the Mil 810 isn't a "humidity test," it is the basic grouping for all of the standardized Environmental Tests, it includes all of the methods.  Which other ones were you doing?  There are a slew of them, acidic atmosphere, leakage, salt fog, rain, humidity and submersion are just a few (there are more) concerning moisture or contamination/leakage involving liquids.  That doesn't even touch the other "shake, rattle and roll" tests.

I currently have a department whose sole purpose is reliability, moisture contamination is one of our primary tests for three product lines.  Interestingly enough at a previous company we did independent testing for a legal firm pursuing a huge electronics company who makes consumer goods (BIG). The claim was that LSIs could be triggered by humidity (RH) above 90% and temperatures above 32°C.  Care to guess the results?

I did electronics packaging for 9 years, encapsulation was a requisite for well over half of what we did.  Before that I was in the Defense and Firearms industry.  I directed  a pyrotechnics division among other groups which manufactured defensive flares, chaff packages and an assortment of initiators.  Another of my groups produced artillery, mortar and guided projectile fusing. These included Multi Option fuses, all were paired with the pyrotechnic initiators.  45% of the work went to the Navy which had the most rigorous wet environmental testing requirements.  The Air Force had the most "obtuse" because they wanted things capable of operating in vacuum or close orbit conditions.  I say obtuse because they applied re-entry heat conditions for testing on some products that would and couldn't ever be used in that environment.

We produced small arms ammunition as well and up to 30mm projectiles for rotary cannons.  Sealant on the bullet is a requirement for small arms ammunition,  after reading your post it piqued my curiosity.  From the standpoint of someone who had to deal with the requirements of military ammunition I was wondering as to the hoops you had to jump through to use a proprietary sealant, how did you get past the second source requirements?  Did you use an equivalency declaration and  how long did the qualification take?  Which group granted the homologation and how many years did it take to get it approved?

There are sealers on all military .45 ammo, including any shot cartridges whether crimped, having a nose cone or of the capsule variety.  We made the majority of the pengun flare cartridges used by all services until 1996 which had incredibly rigorous environmental requirements. We also manufactured the projectors including the single lightweight aluminum units and the ridiculous steel double barreled monstrosities the Army ordered.

Some may be asking, how does all of this relate to BP?  I guess I could say the majority of our initiators for ordnance were BP.  This goes back to Noz's original post.  I am duly impressed that an unsealed and uncrimped primer on a twice used shotshell survived 16 days.  The primer crimps that reloaders of military brass curse require a sealer to maintain the integrity of the seal in the requisite submersion tests.  We tested them with and without crimps, crimped primers actually had a higher failure rate unless sealed.  This testing is an ongoing part of small arms ammunition manufacturing.

Vapor requires a path, as does water.  Humidity is an issue with hygroscopic polymers, sealants and hydrocarbon based films.  Noz's shell had none of the above involving his primer.  The same is true for all small arms interfaces at the primer, bullet or wad.  It is a matter of interference or line to line fits with relatively low hardness and ductile metals.

This is all to the question of reliability of shotshells under the conditions Noz related.

One last little tidbit, did you know the Navy has a requirement for a shot shell that resists immersion to 100 meters in sea water?  There is also a civilian/military  underwater requirement for another application on a Bang Stick or power head.  The Navy application wasn't a Bang Stick and they had another even more interesting shell which was self contained and didn't release any of the propellant gases, besides being super quiet could be shot without rupturing barrels in some interesting scenarios. 

This is why I was intrigued by Noz's test since he was using old shells with "contaminated" pockets and no special preparation.  I've wrestled with that one before in another llife.

Regards,
Mako

[rickk]

Mako,

The stuff we were making (BBM Hardcap) was intended primarily for an Air Force contract. They had their own specific requirements for ammo, and we worked to those. Sad for us, by the time that we figured out how to make it right, the countries that we were mad at changed and the need for a pilot's "jungle survival round" went away. There were hopes of civilian sales but the market just wasn't there. We even got a review written up in Guns and Ammo, but back in the 80's we were asking about a buck a round. Who but the military has that kinda dough to spend?  Then "Mike" (as in "Big Bad Mike"... BBM) died. There were questions about ownership of patents. The whole thing simply fell apart.


Back to primers, I took what you and the others posted and looked around on the web a bit, looking specifically at primer diameter. I found a chart put out by the US trap shooting association. According to them, and as you pointed out,  the RIO's and the Fiocchi's are several thousandths bigger than what is common in the US. Their chart says Cheddite is pretty much interchangable with Winchester 209's, which Montana Slim and Sir Charles deMouton-Black said they had good luck with.

So, I called by FFL buddy tonight to have him pick me up a couple thousand Cheddites at the local distributor, figuring they would run about 25 bucks a thousand wholesale. He told me he had 5000 CCI 209'ssitting in his basement that he bought a few years ago when he was shooting shotgun a lot and that he had no need for them any more. He said I could have them for whatever he paid for them in 2005. He is going to check when he gets home. My guess it is probably under 20 bucks a thousand, so that makes the search for cheap primers a moot point for now ;-)  I'll probably take the whole case off his hands at that price.

Rick

[Mako]

Rickk,
I think you should get the cheapest primers that are available.  I was just letting you know once you have used them in an American Hull you had pretty much gone down a path where those hulls need to be dedicated to European primers.  That's not really a problem with BP hulls because you will make them unusable after about 3 uses.

As  I said the European and Russian (I don't know if the Tula arsenal that makes the primers is in Europe or Asia) primers are interchangeable from all of my measurements and what I have been told. I'm not familiar with the chart you are talking about, but even the Cheddite aren't interchangeable.  You can only go one way with them (Cheddite primers in American Hulls), the American primers don't fit correctly in the Cheddite hulls.  When you seat them they just slip in, there is no interference. 

I know that American primers won't fit in Cheddite hulls tightly because I had to buy European primers after I tried to reload them.  Not knowing what I know these years later I wasn't sure about the Fiocchi hulls and I was told that you had to have Fiocchi primers, I think I was told that because they are that weird 616 designation.  When it got to the Rio hulls I had figured it out after measuring Fiocchi primers thinking they were a totally different size. I'm not sure why the European sizes are larger because they should be "smaller" if you use the logic they would go with a "friendly" metric round number like 6mm.

I have used Fiocchi and Cheddite primers for reloading because I was buying virgin hulls from BPI and reloading them after first use.  I have used Rio hulls with Rio primers already installed but never used Rio primers for reloading them.  I have friends that have used Nobelsport and Wolf primers.  I know the Cheddite and Fiocchi primers fit STS hulls because I used what I had left last year.  For smokeless loads you're at the mercy of the load combination to allow their use.  Once I realized it didn't matter for BP a few years back I literally load anything I find in my magazines or old storage boxes.

The primer shortage a couple of years ago was driving everyone to try alternate sources and we have tried things we never would have considered a few years ago.  In my case I have used the European hulls because I wanted either virgin hulls or in the case of Cheddite you could get paper hulls when I was trying to figure out what the ultimate BP load would be.  I was using vegetable wads and roll crimping at the time.  I liked the Fiocchi hulls because you could get them in clear for non CAS loads and you could tell the sabot slugs or slugs from the buck shot or buck and slug (buck and ball).  We also loaded with Rio hulls because we could get them in "Tactical Black."

I have come full circle now with BP shotshell loads.  I load brass shells infrequently and  I mainly use STS gold hulls, but I will use any one piece Remington or Peters hull or AA.  I use plastic wads, any kind of shot in almost any condition, any grain size of BP I have in abundance and any and all primers. 

Lately I have instructed my wife who has started a vintage furniture business to buy (or in some cases they give them away) any a primers she finds at any estate sale.  I don't want smokeless powder, it goes bad.  She's also supposed to get any shot that is around.  If the owners of the property were reloaders they often have a partial bag of shot or odds and end primers.  I got a full case of remington small pistol primers for free last year.  People will sell a flat of primers for a dollar and think they are making a fortune.  She used to get odds and ends loading dies, or bullets but I really don't have any use for them.  I only want those if they are free and I give them to friends.  I don't get them very often but she's always excited when she finds something I will use.

So I agree with Sir Charles and Montana, use anything that you get your hands on.  Magnum, regular, anything...

~Mako