209 primer suggestions for Blackhorn powder

[northwoodsPT]

My buddy and I drew a limited entry muzzleloader tag for Colorado this fall. We have bow hunted the last few years, so this will be our first experience using muzzleloaders. We each have a CVA optima V2 and plan on using Blackhorn 209 powder.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what type of 209 shotgun primers to use? There is some confusing information floating around online on this topic.
Any insight is appreciated!

 

[Southwind]

I have used both Federal and Winchester 209's with BH209 with very good results. I think they say on their site even though I haven't been there in a while to stay away from the "special" like 777 209's and just use standard.

I'll be firing some off later today.

 

[Muskeez]

Agree, we use Winchester 209 shotgun shell primers. A couple people I know tried some special primers, 777 (Triple 7) and they had several hang fires. Another friend has used them with success but he is now so nervous about them that he will likely throw the box away and go back to Winchesters.

 

[Umpqua Hunter]

Make sure you buy the Blackhorn 209 breech plugs for those Optimas to shoot Blackhorn powder. They are especially designed for that powder.

Blackhorn needs to be ignited without the powder charge being pushed free by the "pressure" of the primer going off. Fiocchi primers have one of the lowest pressures of the 209 primers available. I have had good success with the Fiocchi primers both in the area of consistent ignition and accuracy.

Here is a good article for the Accura, which is very similar to the Optima:

http://blog.cva.com/muzzleloader-cva-accura/


Here is a quote from that article:

"I read an article by Russell Lynch where he reported that primers can develop a lot of pressure when they’re fired and push the load forward before the powder ignites, which can affect your accuracy. Since I like to try to shoot as accurately as I can, I decided to conduct my own primer test. I put the ramrod in the barrel without a bullet or a powder charge and placed some packing behind the rod in the barrel. I wanted to measure how far the primer would push that ramrod up, which would tell me how far the primer could push the powder before the powder ignited. The Fiocchi primer only pushed the rod out of the barrel about 3 inches. The Winchester primer pushed the rod out of the barrel 10 inches. The Remington primers pushed the rod out 13 inches out of the barrel. No other primer I tested pushed the rod any less than the Fiocchi primer. So, through my primer test, I learned that the Fiocchi primer had enough fire to light the powder without pushing the powder charge too far out of the barrel before the powder ignited. I also learned that I could shoot much-tighter patterns with the Fiocchi primer than I could with other primers and that by using the Fiocchi primer, I could shoot consistent patterns shot after shot. That’s the reason I now exclusively shoot the Fiocchi primer."

 

[JohnCushman]

I use CCI shotgun primers with good results

 

[Rooster52]

The Winchester W209 primer works great for me in my CVA rifles.

 

[northwoodsPT]

Great information guys, we are going to be sighting in our guns next weekend, and will report back on what we found to work the best.

 

[schmalts]

The muzz specific primers are ones you want to shy away from if you are using Blackhorn. Here is why, those primers are designed to have a lighter bang so the bullet is not pushed out at all by the primer blast before the main charge ignites. With blackhorn you will need that extra flame. As far as Shotgun primers go, I tried a few and seen no difference in my accuracy when using blackhorn.