Well as I prepare for this election year, I need to bulk up my small pistol primer supply. I've been patiently waiting/hoping for the prices to drop down into the $40 per 1k realm. I don't think we are going to get there. The cheapest I've found is the Argentinian Servicios y Adventuras small pistol primers for $50 per 1k. So I ordered 5k to evaluate if they function reliably. I've loaded 1k of them thus far but haven't shot all of those yet.
Initial impressions:
The anvil is already seated fully into the cup at the manufacturer. All other primers I've ever used leave the anvil slightly proud above the rim of the primer cup such that when you seat them into the case the anvil gets pushed into the cup and "activates" it. This has couple of implications. First this makes it very difficult to have them flip anvil side up in a flip tray. They will not easily flip over when using a flip tray. I usually end up manually flipping over the offending primers that don't flip in the tray. Secondly I think because they seat the anvil fully flush with the cup at the factory, I think that causes the primer compound to squish out from under the anvil (I assume they seat the anvil before the primer compound dries out and becomes impact sensitive). This has the effect of making the primer less sensitive to impacts.
The primer cup is harder than Fiocchi, Winchester, Federal and possibly CCI. I don't have any CCI to directly compare at the moment but have loaded those in the past. I will say that I'm seating these much deeper than normal. I'm seating these about 6 thousandths deep on average. If you look at the dimple post firing, the dimple is very shallow. I loaded some federal small rifle AR primers to compare and they went bang no problem (actually lost velocity with those primers interestingly though). The dimples were deeper with the small rifle primers vs the Servicios primers.
The cups are hard and the sensitivity is (potentially) less. A recipe for light strikes. In my Accushadow 2 with extended firing pin, lighter main spring I've had two light strikes in ~400 rounds fired. The first light strike may have been my fault as it was load development rounds that I loaded directly after converting my press from 5.56 to 9mm. It took a few rounds to set the proper primer seating depth on my S1050 and I may have not seated that primer deep enough. The second light strike was just that, a light strike. When I pulled the trigger again, they both went bang. I will continue to run them and see if my failure rate grows or not. As it stands now, I can't reliably run them for major matches or self defense loads. I will run them in practice and my local matches for now. I have been running Fiocchi without issue lately.
Dimensionally they feel right. They seat into the cup with proper resistance. My S1050 ensures the primer pocket is ready to accept them as it swages on the fly. I don't have issues with them deforming or otherwise not making it into the case properly. The priming system doesn't choke on them, and the vibraprime handles them great loading them into the tube.
I'm able to achieve single digit standard deviations with my loads using sport pistol powder. I was just out today testing a load and I shot several sub 3 inch groups at 20yds freestyle (standing two handed unrested). One group shot 1.5 inches. They seem to be fairly consistent when they go bang.
I'm keeping my eye on prices but will most likely pass on these for a bulk purchase going forward. The next cheapest option are Ginex and I've read that they also have harder cups. I may just bite the bullet and pay for Fiocchi (about 0.02 cents more per). Fiocchi seems to be the most available main stream option at the moment and I haven't had any issues with them to date. Remington is also approaching the same price as the Fiocchi but still is slightly more. We'll see what happens in the next month or so.
Cheers,
Toby
