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Winchester 45acp N T brass? Small Primer?????

2K views 7 replies 3 participants last post by  t-star 
#1 ·
I've recently switched my 550b over to pistol calibers and just went through a situation that made my head spin. I thought all my 45acp brass used large primers until I noticed I had Winchester NT brass in the mix.

What's the reason for the small primer? I'm not familiar with this ammo, but somebody at Gunstock was shooting it (that's where I picked up the brass).

Are there advantages of the small primer over the larger?
 
#2 ·
This has been discussed at length in the gunzines so I'm surprised you missed it. The short version:

The "NT" stands for non- toxic and it uses a lead free primer. This primer behaves very differently than the normal stuff and the manufacturers have had some problems with them. The solutions have been to use a larger flash hole (earlier Winchester NT) and now both Winchester and Federal use a small pistol primer. The Federal is also crimped in.

While they can be reloaded it is such a pain that I say just to throw it away.
 
#6 ·
just use your standard small pistol primers but use your 45 shellholder- i got one of the lee autoprimes and stuck the 2 shellholder on the small pistol set-up- don't bother changing your press- there's lots of standard large primer style out there too- we've got an indoor range and they use winclean et al to reduce airborne lead pollution
 
#7 ·
I don't like that idea for a couple of reasons:

1. you must still sort the brass
2. some of the small primers are crimped and the pocket must be swaged first
3. If you seat small primers with the large punch you will never be able to seat the primer below flush and will always have the risk of a high primer

If you must reload the cases then sort them and use the proper primer seater. Most of the time that isn't worth the trouble.
 
#8 ·
it's only the shellholder that changes- not the punch-you must use the small primer set-up- but, yes the brass must be sorted and the crimp either swaged or removed- i contacted lee some months ago on this matter and that's what they said to do- it's just a slip-in with the lee auto-prime,
 
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