I purchased the variflame adaptor because it gave me the ability to switch back to 209 primers without altering anything, and that's just what happened!
Using CCI small rifle primers in two different HR muzzleloaders we had probably 10 of 20 snap with no ignition. These are regular primers and they may be harder than some, but it has ruined my faith in the variflame. In one rifle we just put the primers in, made sure of a full trigger pull and every one snapped! (about 5 of them).
It seems that the plastic carrier is flexing just enough to not give consistent ignition. The primers seem struck deep enough to ignite, they just don't. Even bought a box of new CCI to test, same problem. I wish I would have spent the 40 bucks on the 25acp breech plug, (40 bucks because I bought the kit and 10 extra variflame adaptors).
Both guns are centerfire frames with no problems. Triple 7 209's work great, still a little dirty.
Ya live and learn!
Bobby