Primers..

[Rich/WIS]

One issue with primer availability haven't seen mentioned is the increase in the number of cartridges now being loaded. Looking at an old edition of Cartridges of the World versus the newest there has been a massive increase in numbers. The old edition from the late nineties had about 80 listed under currently loaded, the new one has about 140. That is a 75% increase, and the primers that were sold to reloaders are now going into factory ammo. To keep the primer flow going to both would have required a 75% increase in primer production. This is not a precise evaluation as production figures would have changed between quantities made by caliber since then as well as whether small or large primers were used but is indicative of a major change in primer and powder demand, and allocation by the ammo makers. Considering that the 2+ million guns sold to new gun owners were likely handguns, and probably mostly 9mm and 380, even if the new owners only bought one box of ammo that is roughly 100 million primers. Haven't seen anything to indicate that the major ammo manufacturers increased primer production by 100 million.

[LAH]

Plenty of primers on GB.

[ioon44]

Academy in my neck of the woods had WMSRL for $8.99/100…no limit so I bought the last 10 boxes.

[TXTad]

My last real primer purchase was pre covid, late 2019. For Win, $28/1000 delivered to me. We bought like 100K to thin out the HM&SH. I wish I would have bought more than the 10K small pistol though, who knew.

Same here. The last time I bought primers was right before the Obama panic. I had almost always bought locally, and would just grab a brick or two when I happened to be at one of the local stores. Then the small guys went out of business and Sportsman's Warehouse was the only walk-in place where I live in North Texas. I never went much, but I'd make a special trip every now and again to grab some stuff, but then the Obama panic hit and they simply quit having them.

When availability was good again before 2020, I wasn't focused on shooting. I was just starting to get back into things and was starting to buy again in late 2019 and then 2020 happened. Dangit.

The next time that primers are available at reasonable prices, if that ever happens again, I'm going to buy enough to last the rest of my life and a bit more. Someday somebody will get a good deal at my estate sale, but before that, I'll have what I need.

[nagantino]

I think that Eastern European manufacturers are going to become a major supplier in the coming years..Magtech are still making primers at a reasonable price.

[truckerdave397]

I could be the grumpy old man that sits here and says everyone should have bought when things were plentiful and cheap. I realize that not everyone could. I was lucky in this respect. So I will just be the grumpy old man that yells at the school kids to get the h off my yard.

[15meter]

The next time that primers are available at reasonable prices, if that ever happens again, I'm going to buy enough to last the rest of my life and a bit more. Someday somebody will get a good deal at my estate sale, but before that, I'll have what I need.

And this is a large part of the current inventory problem. There are people who are grabbing what ever they can, regardless of price to fill up their basement.

When it was a one or two sleeve per day limit, they were going to the gunshop every day. Didn't matter if they needed the primers.

Reasons were varied, use them as barter goods when the world collapsed, sell at a scalpers profit, convinced martial law was coming and the sale was going to be banned. I heard all those over the last 3 years.

Personally, I was lucky in the 3-4 years prior to election season 2020 I came across a half dozen dead guy sales on craigslist and garage sales and picked up more powder and primers than I will likely use in my lifetime.

And got them for cheaper than free, I've sold off the stuff I had no interest in or use for and made a profit along the way. 2020 and the deals disappeared.

Crazy kind of stuff, there was a flier at one of the gun clubs for a MEC 650 for $100. I ignored it for a couple of months because I didn't think I needed a 4th 12 gauge progressive press. I finally broke down and called the guy.
While I was looking at it, he pulled out 11 pounds of 700x, 50 pounds of 7-1/2's, a 1000 primers(Alcans!), a 1000 wads and a couple of grocery bags with AA once fired hulls.

Yeah, for $100 I bought it. Cleaned up and tuned up the press then put it on craigslist for $150.

Don't see that much anymore. Another 2-3 years and there'll be a fresh wave of dead guy/panic bought stuff coming back on the market.

And during the worst of it I was able to keep multiple buddies shooting, I've sold 10000-12000 primers in the last 12 months to buddies when they ran low at non-scalper prices.

Guys I'd offer a brick to and they only took a half so somebody else could have a some if they needed them.

Quality kind guys.

[charlie b]

Won't be long before all the 'new' doomers will need some cash and admit they don't want to keep all that reloading stuff that's still in the boxes.

[jdgabbard]

And this is a large part of the current inventory problem. There are people who are grabbing what ever they can, regardless of price to fill up their basement.

When it was a one or two sleeve per day limit, they were going to the gunshop every day. Didn't matter if they needed the primers.

Reasons were varied, use them as barter goods when the world collapsed, sell at a scalpers profit, convinced martial law was coming and the sale was going to be banned. I heard all those over the last 3 years.

Personally, I was lucky in the 3-4 years prior to election season 2020 I came across a half dozen dead guy sales on craigslist and garage sales and picked up more powder and primers than I will likely use in my lifetime.

And got them for cheaper than free, I've sold off the stuff I had no interest in or use for and made a profit along the way. 2020 and the deals disappeared.

Crazy kind of stuff, there was a flier at one of the gun clubs for a MEC 650 for $100. I ignored it for a couple of months because I didn't think I needed a 4th 12 gauge progressive press. I finally broke down and called the guy.
While I was looking at it, he pulled out 11 pounds of 700x, 50 pounds of 7-1/2's, a 1000 primers(Alcans!), a 1000 wads and a couple of grocery bags with AA once fired hulls.

Yeah, for $100 I bought it. Cleaned up and tuned up the press then put it on craigslist for $150.

Don't see that much anymore. Another 2-3 years and there'll be a fresh wave of dead guy/panic bought stuff coming back on the market.

And during the worst of it I was able to keep multiple buddies shooting, I've sold 10000-12000 primers in the last 12 months to buddies when they ran low at non-scalper prices.

Guys I'd offer a brick to and they only took a half so somebody else could have a some if they needed them.

Quality kind guys.

Just the last three years? I remember back in the 2012 or 2013 scare when Fudds were literally lining up at Walmarts at 3am to buy the new stock as soon as it was put on shelves to turn around and sell to people that truly needed it for 5-6 times as much as they had paid for it. 50rd Boxes of 22lr going for $20-30. Etc...

Honestly, the problem isn't so much shortage as it is the people willing to pay the prices for it. Shortages happens. It's when people give in and pay those prices that we find ourselves in a situation where the price permanently goes up. Which is the reason we're paying $100 today for primers that were $12-25 (depending on Brand) 10 years ago. Ammo companies are still companies. They're there to squeeze every cent of profit they can out of their products. They're not your friends any more than the government is....

[P Flados]

https://22lrreloader.com/products/pr...iming-compound

The above is the easy way to get started, but you end up with corrosive primers and their stuff is not ideal for larger volumes.

A little over a year ago, I got started into non-corrosive primer reloading using EPH-2x as prompted by https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...st-100-primers.

At the time, lots of others were jumping in to the EPH-2x game due to very low availability of commercial primers. Many found it to be too tedious and/or they did not "do what it takes" to get a good product. With commercial primer availability improving, interest in using EPH-2x seems to be dropping off.

Even though it is a bunch of effort, it is not big deal for me as I am retired. I will probably continue using EPH-2x primers for most of my bulk target shooting. I am all set up, the per unit material cost is incredibly low, and my results are very good in guns with a strong firing pin hit.

My lowest stockpile of commercial primers is SPP. I will continue to have enough to us as needed (feed my guns that do not like reloaded primers) for probably another year or two.

I also have plenty of SRP/LPP to use for more serious applications and/or applications where I just want to use commercial stuff.

[1hole]

I believe plenty of primers ... and bullets and cases and powders too ... are being made. Our supply "problem" is how many people are buying everything they can find for any price they must pay; I'd bet many of them have a 5-10 year supply stashed on their shelves. And many of them are still buying everything they can, just as fast as they can find it before greedy hoarders can get it!

Meaning I believe the reloading market is experiencing the childish, "All this stored stuff I don't really need cost me a lot but I got mine!" syndrome. Thus, the current "shortages" will last as long as eager hoarders still have more money than common sense.

Moral: No one should ever underestimate the selfish purchasing effects of human greed.

(Note: I heard there may soon be another massive shortage of toilet tissue paper. Be sure to fill your critical next 25 year supply of wiping paper right now, while it can still be found for less than a mere $10 per roll! )

[TXTad]

And this is a large part of the current inventory problem. There are people who are grabbing what ever they can, regardless of price to fill up their basement.

Not really. I used to shoot a lot and buy primers by the brick and even case. I gradually got ahead of my burn and got a supply. They consistently stayed the same reasonable price the entire time I was doing that.

The problem was that I quit replenishing them because I saw that my life was getting busy in other areas and I knew I wouldn't be shooting as much. When there was no place close to simply walk in and buy them, I got lazy. I was starting to get back into shooting and building my stash back up in 2019 but we know what happened next.

The next time primers are at some normalish price, I'll return to my 1990s pace of buying them, but not my 1990s pace of using them. I'm pretty sure that a normal market can handle me doing what I did normally 25 years ago.

If I'm lucky, I'm shooting for another 30 or so years. I won't need more supplies than I have life to use. It should be a relatively easy equation to figure out that that approximately is + 20 or 30%.

[LAH]

The next time that primers are available at reasonable prices, if that ever happens again, I'm going to buy enough to last the rest of my life and a bit more.

If you love doing something, this is the approach which works.

[Seeker]

The last time I bought primers I paid $39.00 a thousand. I'm glad I got stocked up on wsr and wlp, although I didn't use a lot of large rifle back then.

[Strummer]

I paid 7.99 a 100 Thursday. At a chain outdoor store .

[Four-Sixty]

I wonder as things get worse between Russia and Ukraine we'll ever see 'reasonable' component prices.

[dale2242]

I just read that we will be sending millions of rounds of ammo to Ukraine.
That much ammo is going to eat up a lot of primers.

[GRid.1569]

Good grief those prices are extortion 😱… Last time I bought primers (10K of Federal SPP) it was 2014 and I didn’t pay that much for a box of 5K… still haven’t opened the second shipping unit yet 😳

[David2011]

One issue with primer availability haven't seen mentioned is the increase in the number of cartridges now being loaded. Looking at an old edition of Cartridges of the World versus the newest there has been a massive increase in numbers. The old edition from the late nineties had about 80 listed under currently loaded, the new one has about 140. That is a 75% increase, and the primers that were sold to reloaders are now going into factory ammo. To keep the primer flow going to both would have required a 75% increase in primer production. This is not a precise evaluation as production figures would have changed between quantities made by caliber since then as well as whether small or large primers were used but is indicative of a major change in primer and powder demand, and allocation by the ammo makers. Considering that the 2+ million guns sold to new gun owners were likely handguns, and probably mostly 9mm and 380, even if the new owners only bought one box of ammo that is roughly 100 million primers. Haven't seen anything to indicate that the major ammo manufacturers increased primer production by 100 million.

An increase in the number of commercially produced cartridges will not translate 1:1 to a like increase in handloading or ammunition consumption. Sure, .32-20, .32-40 and many other older cartridges are still being produced in limited batches but those and other cartridges have fallen out of favor and other cartridges are being used for the most part instead. The .357 Sig and FN 5.7x28 are newer cartridges but how many are handloaded and how many are used in place of another cartridge versus being used in addition to the other previously existing cartridges? Several new rifle cartridges have been developed as well. Some are military. Some are benchrest or long range cartridges. Those, I will assume, are being used in place of other older cartridges. A shooter doesn’t take a 6.5mm Creedmoor and a 6mm Creedmoor both to a match. The 6.5 goes from bride status to bridesmaid status. A soldier or law enforcement officer is not going to use a 5.56mm rifle and a 6.8mm rifle. It’s either-or; not both.

Adding new cartridges to the list of those in current production doesn’t magically increase the overall amount of ammunition produced/consumed in direct proportion.

I was in Academy a few days ago. Ammunition was plentiful. The prices ranged from a little high to staggering. There were boxes of 9mm Luger of a brand that I had never heard of priced at $190 for 200 rounds.

[ioon44]

I went to a LGS this weekend and some dealers were still asking $250.00 per thousand for primers, as far as I know they still have them. Other dealers were asking $15.00 or more for 100 primers. Alot of powder was $60.00 per lb.