As most of you know, it has been difficult getting low pressure shells to use in our old Elsies. Late last year I was given a shell reloader by an old friend and with the generous help of a few of you, I have been learning to load and enjoying it. In fact, I am now set-up to reload shells for caliber .410 and gauges 28 through 10. The challenge has been getting the loading supplies to do it correctly. The most difficult piece has been getting 209 primers, which have been very scarce at my local Cabelas, Bass Pro, Scheels and Sportsman’s Warehouse locations here in Colorado.

More to the point, you will find below a picture of the 8 different types of 209 primers I have been able to cobble together from a local outdoorsman’s consignment store and a generous friend during the last 9 months.



The Cheddite, CCI and Rio primers on the right are modern, recently purchased from a friend. I know that these are safe to use in low pressure shells, based on the appropriate loading recipe. These are the only primers I have used to date.

The remaining primers (Remington, Federal, Winchester and Herter’s) are decades old and I have heard that some of them can be “too hot” to use in low pressure shells. (By the way, I have not found any shotgun recipes that use Herter’s Model Perfect H209 primers? I can get several hundred more of them, but need to know where they fit into the standard loading recipes. Perhaps they are equivalent to another modern brand with a different name?)

My ask is if any of you brothers can help me avoid making mistakes here with these older 209 primers as I start using them to reload shells?

Please feel free to respond here on the forum or if you want to talk, please text me at 720-610-5993 and I’ll call you back when free.
Thanks in advance and very best regards,
-Doug