Henry Rifle Forums

For some reason Small rifle primers are hard to find in my part of the country. I don't think there is a shortage, but they are just a bit rare in South Texas.
I use them in loading my .25-20. I don't load hot (brass is too expensive to burn it up). How much difference will I see if I use Small Pistol primers in place of Small Rifle primers? Loading Hornady 60gr over 7.2-7.5gr of LilGun.

Michael

its my understanding that in construction rifle primers of both types generally have thicker cups than pistol primers to withstand the higher pressures they're usually exposed to .... as for primer compound, rifle primers are said to have more/hotter primer compound in order to consistently ignite larger charges of slower burning powders. The same goes for the Magnum variations of any primer size .... if you want to use rifle primers for your pistol loads, you could have issues with pressure due to the increased ignition power and you could have problems with some pistols not being able to strike the thicker rifle primer cups hard enough for consistent ignition (light strikes).

I would not use a small pistol primer at all for a small rifle primer application.

That 25-20 is no doubt a pretty low pressure cartridge and you didn’t mention what kind of rifle you are shooting but I suspect it does not have a very heavy firing pin strike where pierced primers would be a problem.
Load one case, pop it off and make sure the firing pin dent looks normal (I’ll wager it will) .
As far as Rifle primers having a hotter compound I have never heard that (other than with magnum primers) but the bottom line is they will do just fine with the low powder charges you are using.