Cratered Primers

[jsthntn247]

I just switched to Lapua Palma small rifle primer brass in my 308 from regular Lapua. My load was 42 grains of varget with the regular brass with no pressure so I started at 41.2 and worked up to 42.9 in .3gr increments just to be on the safe side. While at the range, I saw no hard bolt lift, sticky bolt, ejector marks, clicks at top of extraction on any of the loads. When I got back home I looked at the higher powder charges a little closer just to make sure there was no pressure and noticed cratered primers. I got a little worried but when I looked at the lightest charges, they also had cratered primers. No brass showed any other pressure signs. Is it common to see cratered primers when shooting small primer brass in a .308. Stiller action and cci 450 primers.

 

[milo 2.0]

With Lapua brass a crated primer or pierced primer may be the only sign of pressure you'll ever see.
Lose the mag primer and try again????

 

[jsthntn247]

Action is a Stiller predator.

 

[bigedp51]

Large rifle primers have cups .027 thick, some small rifle primers have cups only .019 thick, switch to the thicker .025 cups and see what happens.