Remington 209 Primers

[Scorpion8]

All the loading info contains loads using "Remington 209P" primers, but the only thing on Remington's website and those that I find in stores are the STS 209 primers. Just checking to be sure they are the same thing, and not "magnum" primers or somesuch. The product number is 209PSTS, and are listed as "Premier" (is this where the P comes from?).

https://www.remington.com/ammunition/co ... ts-primers

Are these the same, one-and-only Remington 209 primer?

[John A.]

The Rem 209P and STS primers are the same to my knowledge.

At the risk of getting seriously flamed, I'm not going to say that all shotgun primers are nearly all the same, but ....

as long as I'm not loading to sheer max and trying to push everything I can out of it, based on my experience, it's probably not going to make a colossal difference.

OK, with that said, here are some caveats.

Not all shell types and wad combinations could possibly have the same outcome either, so I caution that could make a difference.

Also make note that my humble advice is for standard 2-3/4" shells with average 1-1/4 oz loads or less. You know, just like most of the hunting shells that you'll find on the shelf at the store and the published load data.

Obviously, if you're loading 3 inch or 3-1/2" shells with the heaviest payloads possible and at the max load data you can find, the outcome could matter a lot where pressures are concerned.

But for the 2-3/4" high and low brass loads that I have worked up for my guns, I see no appreciable difference between using either Federal or Winchester or even CCI 209 primers. But to err on the side of caution, it wouldn't hurt to load up a shell with up to 1.0 gr less than the published data and see how it reacts. If you have a chrony, check to see where your velocity is at.

While velocity won't necessarily relate to how much pressure you have in the chamber, you can still get a good idea of about where you're at and based on how it feels to your shoulder if you can compare it side by side to a factory shell.

If all is well with how the primer looks and how it reacts, it's likely that you can safely bump up the charge another .3 the next session if you are wanting to try to work it up some more until you get it about where you want it to be. Like I said a chrony is very useful because otherwise you're only guessing at the velocity. And I don't like to guess. Also, keep good notes. Buy a notebook.

If you notice on hogdons load data on their website, the pressures/velocity are very similar between the primers they have listed, with only minor changes in how much powder charge you have. And sometimes only a couple tenths of grain powder difference between them.

As with all things in moderation, and as I have mentioned about not pushing them too hard and going straight for the max charges, the odds of blowing up a modern chamber simply by swapping 209 primers alone with all else being equal are very slim.

Old Damascus barrels, I tend to load pretty sparingly for anyway. But is not the subject at hand in the first place.

With that said it is my belief, if a recipe calls for a different primer, it's for one of two reasons.

1. Because that's what's safe for that load and they've already put forth the effort and tested it already to make sure it didn't blow up in their face.

Or

2. Because they have a vested interest in promoting their products over their competition.

And for reason number 2 is why I can't recall ever seeing a load manual that had every possible combination that is available all in one place.

[Scorpion8]

Remington 209P's are some of the few shot shell primers widely available here. Winchester 209, and Federal comprise the others. Rio 1000's are available in brick quantities, but once you go Rio, you can't go back..... Finding bricks of 209's is very difficult otherwise, so my hunts for quantity 209's is left to buying the 100's in 2-3 packages at a time. Thankfully that's more than I'm reloading right now.

[John A.]

My stockpile consists mainly of Winchester and federal (where shotgun primers are concerned).

If you can get Winchester, there are certainly nearly unlimited load data using them.

[Synchronizor]

All the loading info contains loads using "Remington 209P" primers, but the only thing on Remington's website and those that I find in stores are the STS 209 primers. Just checking to be sure they are the same thing, and not "magnum" primers or somesuch.

From Remington's website:

"Premier STS primers can be substituted for Remington's previous 209 primers without changes in published reloading formulas"

My stockpile consists mainly of Winchester and federal (where shotgun primers are concerned).

If you can get Winchester, there are certainly nearly unlimited load data using them.

I mostly use Winchester and Federal shotshell primers too. Tons of load data, and they're different enough to be meaningful if you're looking to keep pressures down and get higher velocities, or save a little powder.

At the risk of getting seriously flamed, I'm not going to say that all shotgun primers are nearly all the same, but ....

as long as I'm not loading to sheer max and trying to push everything I can out of it, based on my experience, it's probably not going to make a colossal difference.

It's true that interchanging primers usually doesn't make a huge difference, but in some cases it can change a load's pressure by several thousand PSI, which is often enough of a difference to put you over safe limits, or bring you low enough to have "bloopers". Shotshells can be touchy, and certain combinations of hulls, propellants, wads, charge weights, and primers do not respond well to substitutions. It's not even completely accurate to say one primer is "hotter" than another; while some will tend to run hotter, a lot depends on other components as well. Primer "A" may show a higher pressure than Primer "B" with one combination of hull, wad, powder, shot charge, and so on; while primer "B" may generate higher pressures with another combo. Just look through a load manual or powder company website, and you'll see examples of this.

Also keep in mind that the listed pressures for a given shotshell recipe is the average peak pressure. There will be variation from that down to a minimum and up to a maximum for a given sample size (due to ambient temperature, variations in primer & propellant lots, crimp depth, etc), and if it seems like a powder company stopped well short of the limit for a given chambering, it may very well be because there was a fair bit of spread in their test data, and the maximums were edging up toward the limits of the pressure spec.

Thinking "this is only a target load, so it's fine" can be problematic. Light-to-midrange loads like 1 1/8-ounce target loads often use very fast-burning propellants that can be more sensitive to component changes than magnum loads that use slower propellants.

Now, you can make substitutions in some cases, such as for a fixed combination of other components where you have enough data to show that you won't jump too high or too low (though usually good load data will give velocities and pressures for several different primers anyway), but that's something that takes experience to work out; it's defiantly not recommended for newcomers. And even for experienced folks, if a custom load is straying too far from established data, it's a real good idea to have it professionally tested to be sure it's safe before you go shoot several hundred of them at a match, or especially hand them off to friends with shotguns that aren't as robust as an 870.

[John A.]

^ All good advice.

[Scorpion8]

^ All good advice.

^^ Very good advice as always.

I'm surprised how delicate shot shell recipes are. After loading metallic rifle cartridges for many year, swapping this large rifle primer for that large rifle primer was rarely an issue as long as the two were close on the "primer hotness" chart. I've even known folks to substitute in a magnum primer with no excessive pressure signs, although I'd never recommend that. But in metallic reloading, I usually just developed a favorite large rifle primer and used that for everything except the magnums.

[John A.]

I've noticed a lot of my shotgun loads, and I'll give one example, you can load 17.2 gr of clays and get 1145 fps and then turn around and load 18.8 gr of clays and get 1200 fps.

That's a lot more powder for ~50 fps

[Synchronizor]

I've noticed a lot of my shotgun loads, and I'll give one example, you can load 17.2 gr of clays and get 1145 fps and then turn around and load 18.8 gr of clays and get 1200 fps.

That's a lot more powder for ~50 fps

If you do the math, that's 9.3% more powder for 9.8% more muzzle energy. Sounds pretty reasonable, actually!