Large Rifle Primers don't work in 45 Colt

With the recent scarcity of primers, I haven't been able to load any 45 colt, but I have lots of Large Rifle Primers around.

A few internet searches turned up conversations about it, but no mention of any results with some saying it won't work, others saying you will blow up and others saying their uncle did it all the time.
I decided to donate a few primers to the cause and try it.

I used 4 types of brass.
New Starline
Used Old lot Starline
Used RP brass
Used Winchester Brass.

I loaded the primers with a RCBS hand primer without problem. Nearly all the primers were a little proud of the brass. The old lot of starline were the best and nearly flush. While many felt like there was no protrusion, the edge of a metal ruler across the case head/primer revealed a sliver of light from the case head with the point of contact on the primer, often on one side. I figured this was enough to say this wasn't a good idea, but didn't address the other comments that folks, about thicker cups and lack of hammer force and potential binding.

I primed a total of 9 brass with no bullets or powder.

I took the primed brass out to the field and loaded them my 45 Colt/ACP in batches of 2 or 3 corresponding to the brass brand.

Only about ~50% of them went bang, the rest did not fire. If they didn't fire with the first impact, repeated trigger pulls did nothing.
The protruding primers did cause the revolver to bind on many of the cases.

The fired and unfired cases are soaking in soap water right now and i'll dry them off and deprime them shortly. A lot of folks talked about doing this by mistake and then depriming the wrongly primed brass to salvage the primers, but that was more then I was comfortable with.

In the end, not a viable option for a revolver and I would be scared do do this in a lever gun. I think it would likely work in a contender IF there was enough head space to safely close the barrel with out a slam fire which depends on the frame/barrel gap and and rim recess depth.

GREAT INFO, I WAS WONDERING ABOUT RIFLE PRIMERS IN REVOLVER ROUNDS.

Large Rifle Primers are are used for handgun rounds like the 500 S&W....even in my 445 Super Mag they won't properly seat in Starline brass. Just a bad idea for the wrong rounds. The 445 Super Mag uses large pistol magnum primers...and really that's all that should be used. Large pistol primers for the 500 S&W.

Many years ago [sillywet days] I used large rifle primers in a 44 mag Ruger SBH. Actually, they worked quite well. I was using Remington brass that was probably fired more than 5 times. I noticed if I hand primed them they protruded slightly but, if I used the press I could seat them flush. Now, I would not recommend using them and it has to raise pressures. I do not know if the gun was that strong or I was just lucky nothing happened.

John Linebaugh told me years ago that a rifle primer could raise pressure 10,000 PSI without a corresponding increase in velocity. The rifle primer is over lighting the powder effective increasing the burn rate

In a word "don't"!

The only handgun round that I use Rifle Primers in is the 357 Maximum (CVA and G2). I use Remington Bench Rest Small Rifle Primers in both exclusively. No pressure surprise as all loads are worked up with the same primers.

Looks like the Large Rifle Primers are not working in the revolver so far. I have a hard time believing that a Single Action Revolver would not light them off, unless the seating depth is an issue. With the jump in pressure using a large rifle primer, I would be careful working up loads if you do get reliable ignition after using a press to seat them flush and or cutting the primer pockets a little deeper on a few test rounds.

Finding Large Pistol Primers to use would be a much better path. With the change in the White House I would not expect components to get any easier to locate any time soon.

Bob R