The reason I’m spending so much time looking into this .223 Remington hunting load? Because it’s interesting.

Sure I could just pick a few things and go, but the way the market is right now I don’t have every possible option. I can only get what primers or powders some retailer happens to have in stock. I can’t just get any primer and powder I want and dial in some existing load recipe and be done with it. Because only so much stuff is out there I’m being forced to learn and explore a lot of things in the ammo reloading process. It’s kinda cool. As I uncover more things it changes any plans I may have laid. Frankly, I’m finding it all pretty darn interesting.

I mentioned some of my findings in the previous article, but now I want to talk about primers.

The only small rifle primers I could find were CCI #41 and Magtech PR-SR. I could find decent info on the CCI primers, but not much on the Magtech’s as Magtech isn’t touted in the marquee names of ammo (Federal, CCI, Winchester, Remington). However Magtech does make decent ammo; I’ve used some of their stuff for practice and it’s worked fine, and many others online echo similar experiences. I figure these are the same primers they use in their manufactured ammo, and what reports I can find about their primers are generally positive, so why not give them a try. Certainly, beggars can’t be choosers. The CCI #41 are considered the same as the CCI 450 magnum small rifle primers, but just a bit “harder” to combat possible slam-fires.

I’ve got both types of primers on order.

When I looked at the data in the Barnes reloading manual, of course many powders were available but the top performers appeared to be TAC, H-4895, and Varget. So I ordered some jugs of those and figured they’d be a reasonable place to start. They’re also reviewed well for .308 Winchester loads so if the powder doesn’t work out for the .223 loads maybe it will for the .308.

So what powders to pair with what primers?

I’m not aware of any hard-fast rule that says I must do this or I can’t do that. But I have learned that in general magnum primers are better with spherical powders. This article phrases it nicely:

To begin, the main difference between a standard-force and a magnum-force primer is in the length of its burning time. A magnum-force primer burns longer than a standard force and therefore tends to increase chamber heat variously depending upon the primer’s own power, the powder involved, and cartridge case size plus bullet weight. As a rule of thumb, standard-force primers have been recommended for all rifle situations except those employing ball-type powders and those using more than fifty grains of slow-rate extruded powder such as IMR-4350, H-4831, and IMR-7828. In handguns, it has been common to see recommendations for magnum primers in all ball-powder reloads and all magnum-length cases. A lot or reloaders follow these generalities solely for the “safe of ignition”, no thought being given to accuracy considerations.

I spent some time looking at the .223 Remington data in my Speer #14 manual. It’s recipes use CCI 400 or 450 primers, and even says the CCI #41 primer may be substituted for CCI 450. In the data tables, any powder marked to use the magnum primer is a spherical powder. So there you go. However, I’ve also read lots of reports of people mixing and matching, so I would gather it’s no hard rule. But it sounds like any load: start low and carefully work your way up. Your gun’s sweet spot may vary.

Then throw in things like from Ramshot’s own FAQ:

Q: It’s been my experience that I need to use a magnum primer with spherical powders. Do I need to use a magnum primer with Ramshot powders?
A: While this may have been true with spherical powders in the past, Ramshot powders employ a new technology of coatings which increase ease of ignition, cleanliness and in most cases decrease temperature sensitivity. You also have to take into account your firearm’s accuracy which may or may not perform better with magnum versus non-magnum primers.

So yeah… easy answers. 🙂

I also can’t help but wonder… given the rifle I’m working these loads up for is an AR-15 with a carbine-length gas system, might a (theoretically) faster-burning powder be better? perhaps even coupled with a magnum primer to get as much burn in before the gases start to cycle back? I don’t know, just ignorantly wondering aloud.

Then I have to consider it’s rather cold out right now, and I’d likely want to develop the load below max so come summertime the same load doesn’t become an over-max load.

Ultimately it points to one simple thing: start with minimum loads and slowly work your way up.

My current thinking (and this could change in an hour): as soon as I have all of my components in, I will load minimum loads (strictly following the Barnes #4 book data) varying on powder and primer combinations. Bullets will be the same, cases will be the same, C.O.L. will be the same, Lee Factory Crimp, so all that varies is powder and primers. I will load 5 rounds of each of the 3 powders with each of the 2 primers (yielding 30 rounds total). I’ll then take these to the gun range along with some factory loads. While the factory loads won’t provide apples-to-apples comparison, they’ll still provide some sort of reference point. Shoot things and see how they do. The main thing will be looking to see how the powder and primer combinations work out. Whatever combination appears to work best, continue with that combination of powder and primer and now bump up the powder charge (on a subsequent reload and range session) and see how things go. Granted this isn’t definitive… it’s always possible some powder-primer combo with a minimum charge may perform differently with a larger charge. But this sounds like a good way to start. If you more experienced reloaders reading this have suggestions otherwise, I’m all ears.