Primer hardness - 11/03/04
I 've been having trouble getting a certain non bolt action to consistantly fire. Prior questions on this board led me to measure all sorts of things, and never find the problem. Eventually I decided the gun was faulty until a lever shooting friend told me to try large pistol primers instead of large rifle, and the problem went away. I've not had problems with Federal factory ammo (30-30), but approximatly 50% of my CCI #200 handloads won't fire on the first try. With the pistol primers I get 100% fires. Which leads me to believe that I should try using a "softer" primer, whether that be large pistol or something other than CCI #200s. I seem to remember reading somewhere that CCI primers were "harder" than others, while Federal were the "softest," if this is true, it would account for what I have observed. Does anyone have any information regarding the hardness of various primers?