According to Eric R Snow :
Greetings Gundamentalists,
Roger's question about a primer only load has me wondering about
primer strength. In a .22 round there is not much primer. But it's job
is to ignite the powder. When using larger caliber rounds with larger
amounts of powder do primer loads increase at the same ratio? In other
words, if twice as much powder is used, is twice as much primer load
also used? Just curious really since I only shoot .22s

Well ... from my own reloading:

1) There are two sizes of primers (excluding Berdan) -- large
and small.

2) There are two groupings within those sizes -- pistol and rifle.
(Rifle has a harder metal cup to resist higher pressures so it
is less likely to perforate. The hammer and/or firing pin in a
rifle has more mass and a pistol is not likely to reliably fire
a rifle primer.

So far, this says nothing about the actual strength of the
primers. (Though there may be more oomph to the rifle primers.) I'm
also skipping the top-hat primers used with cap-and-ball weapons, as
they are not used in modern production equipment. However ...

3) There are regular and magnum primers. The magnums put out more
flame for a given size.

Obviously, if you let Berdan primers into the game there are
other things about which I know nothing.

Enjoy,
DoN.
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