I was just reading my Oct. 2012 issue of Dillon's Blue Press magazine (page 19 - bottom) and saw a letter to Dillon.  The condensed version is that some ammo manufactures are now loading 45 acp ammo with SMALL pistol primers instead of the traditional large pistol primers.  The author states the large pistol primer went off and exploded all the the other primers in the tube.  Damage to his RL 550 but no damage to him.  Due to legalities, Dillon had to edit out the names of the reported manufactures of this altered ammo.  Has anyone heard about this and if so what ammo manufactures are loading with small pistol primers instead of large pistol primers?  Would be good to check all your brass prior to reloading. 

Small primer .45acp is nothing new! I ran into'um the first time about 5 years ago with the Federal N/T cases.. I have no idea why DUE TO LEGALITIES, Dillion couldn't
release the names of the mfgers that make the small primer cases. After all, It's not thier resposability to hold the reloaders hand!

I put a thread on here last year about that same issue. I was resizing and de-capping some Fiochi.45 ACP brass I had shot earlier in the day, several of the once fired cases were small primers and the rest of the box was large primers. I kept the odd cases as a reminder to check the primer pockets before resizing.

I didn't know about this until I got my copy of Dillon's Blue press this week. I clipped the thing out and put it in my reloading stuff.

It makes sense, a little bit, about why they did this. The .45ACP cartridge was a Military round, and if you have noticed, it uses the same shell holder as a 30-06 Springfield, So it used the same primer size and all just to help out in manufacturing during the war.

Nowdays, considering the mamoth .454 Casull uses a small primer size, why on earth should a small case like the .45ACP need a large primer? Downsizing is about all it means, maybe a bit of economizing, and the confusion at the loading bench are just problems we need to watch for.

i just picked up about 500 45acp range brass. It was a mix of about 50/50 small primer. All of the sp was Blazer brass.

I thought the Blazer brass was intended to be non-reloadable, in which case, primer size would be immaterial.

Posted By abranch on 21 Sep 2012 03:24 PM
I thought the Blazer brass was intended to be non-reloadable, in which case, primer size would be immaterial.

Blazer makes two brands now.   the none re-loadable (aluminum ) and the Blazer Brass that i believe is made by Federal. It is marked on the box as re-loadable brass.

New information for me, thanks.

I'm glad I read this thread.  I didn't have any idea about this.  Now I'll start paying attention to the brass I pick up

All the small-primer 45ACP Brass I've run across has been Federal. While I haven't seen any difference in the performance of 45ACP reloads , I have discovered that there is a significant improvement in accuracy with the small primer-ed brass when I reform it into 400CorBon. As a result, I've designated my modest supply of small-primer brass for conversion.