Fiocchi Large Rifle Primer

Fiocchi Big Shot Rifle Quite some time ago, the nice folks at LuckyGunner.com asked if I’d be open to reviewing some Fiocchi large rifle primers. They offered to send me a pack if I would review them, good, bad, or otherwise. I replied that I would be delighted to, but that it might be a while before I actually got to put them to use. I promised to shoot them with my favorite load in my Remington 700 5R.
So, it seems the time has come for that. Mammalian Fiocchi Big Gun

If you’re looking for primers, Fiocchi sells them in sleeves of 1,500 rather than the normal 1,000.

You get ten packs of 150 rather than 100. The packaging is compact and fairly handy.

Large-rifle primers may be purchased for $41 for 1,500 of them, or 2.73 cents per primer (not including shipping or HazMat costs) as of this writing. When compared to this, the CCI BR-2 Benchrest primers I typically use can be obtained locally for $50 for 1000 primers, or 5 cents apiece before taxes. Mammalian Fiocchi Big Gun

So that I could be as well-prepared as possible for this exam, I determined that I would like complete uniformity. It was Black Hills brass that I possessed, and it had been 168-grain moly-coated match loads when it was first made (not remanufactured). This would be the third time the brass had been loaded, the first two times with factory ammunition, and the third time with 175 grain Sierra Match Kings that I had reloaded. All forty cases were decapped and trimmed to 1.950″; the mouths were chamfered on the inside and outside, and a quick spin in the tumbler brought out their brilliant shine. Then, to get the right size, I passed each one through my RCBS small-base X-die. Mammalian Fiocchi Big Gun

Fiocchi Large Rifle Primer

There was prior experience with firing these through the 5R. I could tell since they all fit into my case gauge already, albeit just a little tightly. After being properly measured, they slip in and out with ease and have just enough room to move at the case’s front to prevent damage. This is what I have to do to get my reloads to feed in my M25 gas gun. While I was at it, I figured I’d give the small-base sizer for the 5R a go instead of just neck-sizing the bullets like I do when reloading for my bolt-guns and see if it makes a difference in accuracy. The Fiocchi Big Gun

I primed forty cases with CCI BR-2’s and forty cases with Fiocchi Large Rifle NIK primers by hand using my Lee Auto-Prime after decapping, cutting, chamfering, and resizing the brass. The all seated firmly and consistently, so dimensionally the Fiocchi primers are very uniform. Then, using my modified RCBS ChargeMaster (my technique with that particular device has been thoroughly revised since that post), I threw forty identical 46.4 (± 0.05) grain loads of Alliant Reloder-15 powder (Caution: use load data you find on strange web sites at your own risk!), and seated forty Lapua 155 grain Scenar hollow-point boattail bullets to a cartridge overall length of 2.80″ using my Dillon RL-450 press and an RCBS seating die. The Fiocchi Big Gun.

Please take note that Hulster Firearms has generously provided me with 1,500 Fiocchi primers in exchange for my honest review. I bought the rest of the stuff I mentioned in this post as well.

Fiocchi Large Rifle Primer

Anyway, after accumulating forty.308 cartridges that were identical except for the primer used to fire them, it was finally time to hit the range. I recently replaced my Leupold scope with a Nightforce I had purchased, and after some fiddling around, I believe I have found the optimal eye relief for my needs. I sat down and fired the last eight of my Black Hills 175-grain rounds through the rifle at 100 yards to make sure the sight was set properly. You can find that set of people here. The Fiocchi Big Gun

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The cold-bore shot is the low-center hole. Ignoring the error, the grouping is only slightly wider than the inch I’ve learned to expect from that ammunition. After that, I chronographed ten repetitions of each test load with rest intervals in between. Here’s the data:

CCI BR-2 Load
Average Velocity: 2876fps
Extreme Spread: 58.40fps
Standard Deviation: 16.52fps

Fiocchi Load
Average Velocity: 2917fps
Extreme Spread: 42.96fps
Standard Deviation: 14.83fps

But they are still darn good statistics, considering I’ve reduced this load down to under 10 fps SD with neck-sized Lapua cases. The Fiocchi is noticeably hotter than the BR-2, but otherwise it’s on par with or even more reliable. The Fiocchi Big Gun