Remington Small Pistol 5 1/2 Primers

Namerifrats

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Figured I would make a post about these Remington 5 1/2 small pistol primers. I bought some a while back. I was loading some 9mm early last week and used some of the 5 1/2s I bought to test out. I didn't get to load them that day so they went in with other primed cases I had ready....pretty much all CCI SP. I usually keep around 600-700 9mm cases size and primed and ready for loading at any given time. So after I loaded up 200 rounds, I came across some Remington small pistol 1 1/2 primers in a store. So I wondered what the difference was. The general consensus online was the 5 1/2 primers are magnum. Well, they don't say magnum on the box. I do use SP magnum, and have plenty in CCI and Win...but use them in 357 Mag. So now I get aggravated as I'm thinking I'll gonna have to pull all those rounds apart to find those "magnum" primers somehow. I did go through all my primed cases, very time consuming. I'm pretty sure I found over half of them from what I could see through the flash hole, comlared to the color and appearance of the anvil of new primers in the box. Did some more online research, searched Remington's site, no additional info on the differences. Just says not to use the 1 1/2 primers in higher pressure rounds like 357 Mag, 357 Sig, 40 S&W. I found where others stated the 5 1/2 primers were not magnum, but just a thicker cup. So I ended up just calling Remington today myself. They told me they are NOT magnum primers, but just a thicker cup for higher pressures. Just standard small pistol, same amount and mix of priming compound used in the 1 1/2. A lot of people believe they are magnum, just wanted to put it out there that they are NOT per Remington.
 
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Thanks for the info!
 
Interesting. I had assumed they were magnum. I've used them in small-primer 45acp, and they seemed hotter than the regular Winchester small primers.
 
The 9mm rounds I loaded are not max, but mid range. Still wanted to make sure. I know some people use magnums in low end loads. Not sure I would want to risk it at 60-70% of a max charge though.
 
I use Federal Small Pistol Magnum in all of my handgun loads and have so for a long time. Started when I couldn't find any standard Federal. I can't tell the difference. Before my chronograph got stolen I ran a lot of target and mid range 38 special just to see if there was any noticeable difference. Actually very little. The one I do remember most is the standard 2.7gr Bullseye with a 148gr wadcutter. It made about 15fps difference on average. For the record, when primers were hard to find, I used small rifle primers in handgun loads with no difference as well except the rifle are harder and will not shoot with a real light action in a revolver.
 
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