Which primer in lieu of Federal Match?

[Scarface26]

I can't find Federal large rifle match primers anywhere. They're supposed to be the gold standard for hand loading. In their absence, which primers do you all prefer?

I am loading for 300 win mag, .308, and 30-06. I've heard a great deal about foregoing the magnum primers on the 300wm and just using large rifle primers. Appreciate any comments on that.

God bless America

 

[Tazman308]

Federal Primers WERE difficult to find but supply has improved in the last 30 days. I just received two orders, backordered for EVER, in the last two weeks for Large Rifle Magmun Match. Cabelas, Bass Proshop, and others seemed to have supply in December. When I couldn’t get the GMM, I used CCI and Federal non match. Good luck.

 

[spife7980]

CCI 200 are always on the shelves.

 

[FatBoy]

it depends on the powder, but I have found Remington 9 1/2Ms to work great with both H4831SC and Retumbo. If you can find standard Federal 210s, buy them. They're exactly the same and the numbers and groups bore the out with Varget and H4350. I don't use many Federal magnums, though I always keep a couple thousand on hand.

As always, you'll need to test.

 

[300ATT]

Have had the same problem. Ran out of Fed 210m's after 5 years so replaced CCI BR-2's and have not seen much difference in velocity or group size.

 

[Maxduty]

^^^I'm with this. I'm using CCI BR-2s as well. They've been working great.

 

[MtnCreek]

Cci 250 for win mag and wolf/Tula for 308 & 06.

 

[Scarface26]

Gents,

Thanks a million for your help.

God bless America

 

[Rob01]

Can you find the standard 210 or 215s? They work the exact same as the Ms in my testing.

 

[Jaywelder82]

I switched to cci br2 for large rifle and have had great success. And they seem to burn a little cleaner.

I recommend these and John @ atterbury shooting complex in Indiana always has them on hand

 

[mustang-cars]

I get better sd/es with CCI BR-2's than I did with the Federal 210M's

 

[padom]

Standard 210's and 215's if you cant get Match primers

210's and 205M's are in stock at Powder Valley

 

[J!m]

CCI 200 are always on the shelves.

I've had good luck with these as well. They fire Varget as well as the Federals in my (last) gun.

 

[SND]

I’ve also done well on the CCI BR2 and some Winchester largest I bought several yrs back during a scare. FWIW - I do find the Federal 210Ms are coming back a bit in my region.

 

[DrainTheSwamp]

Sellier and Bellot worked very well for me. They are now impossible for me to find locally but Fed 210m’s are on the shelves

 

[mpk1996]

the CCIs are great. I have run all 3 of those is different cals. And I just did some testing in my 6xc and a proven load (with CCI #200) to see if there was any diff between the 200, 250, BR2. the BR2 ave about 2 fps better SD with the same velocity as the 200. the 250 and the 200 had about the same SD/ES numbes, but the 250 were about 40 fps faster. pretty interesting data. all ran single digit SD numbers, so its not like the 200s were "bad", in fact my SDs ave around 5 in my 6 creed with the 200s. since you have a bunch of bigger cases, I would run the #250 in all of them.

 

[308pirate]

CCI BR2 and Sellier & Bellot LR give very nice SDs and ES if you take basic care in reloading.

Good to know that all CCIs are very consistent.

 

[sig2009]

Federal GMM always on the shelf where I live.