Primers, primers my kingdom for some primers!

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Prof Young

New member
I see that a lot has been posted about the primer shortage already. I didn't realize how acute it was until I looked on line at Midway, Natchez and Grafs. Only primers available anywhere were for 50 cal. Wow. Any one out there in the primer business who can give knowledgeable commentary on the primer shortage.

Life is good.
Prof Young
 
Prof Young,

I am assuming you are new to the reloading game. This happens every 4 years according to the political calendar. This year it arrived a bit early due to the pandemic and rioting/looting. If you are a new reloader, I feel for you. However, if you are not, you have no one to blame but yourself for not preparing yourself for the inevitable.

Don
 
Not in the business, but two things have happened in the past shortages: Hoarding and the increased demand for loaded ammunition. Loaded ammunition is more profitable than components so primers go first to ammunition production, and the loading component market gets second consideration. This time around, what is different has been the millions of first-time-gun-buyers created by the violent unrest, and these newbies are not yet ready to handload. So they just buy and hoard all the ammo they fear drives them to buy and put it aside, making the loaded ammunition market even bigger than in a normal panic buying time.

Primers don't go bad, so a reasonable approach is to assume there will be panic buying periods every few years. So, buy several slips of 5,000 when the prices aren't at panic-buyer levels, then replenish during the next buying lull.
 
So this is similar to the recent toilet paper shortage. I reckon it is. I’m Ok on primers and powder, but short on favorite 223 bullets. I recently bought an AR which shot to milspec but no better. I tried a bunch of powders, with no joy. Bought a match grade barrel finally, and now it’ll shoot. All is well other than I depleted my supply of 65 gr Sierra GKs. No telling how long I’ll be backordered. It had not occurred to me that the bullets I need are being used for loaded ammo.
 
people are hoarding, on the reloading discord channel people are bragging about scorin 30, 50, 100 K of primers. I probably have darn near 100K myself but that was by accumulating a few K here a few K there over there course of years like UN suggested.

On the bullets, no commercial ammo that I know of uses a 30 cal 115gn flat base , but as of two weeks ago none of the major players had any in stock. I lucked out and found a small mom and pop and got their last box of 500

Just have to be diligent and patient, primers are coming in, just getting sold out almost immediately. Get on some waiting lists, stay up to 2 am refreshing the Bass Pro site every five minutes etc etc.
 
Like hounddawg, I have been accumulating primers between the end of the Obama presidency and now at reasonable prices. Kinda reminds me of the ant and the grasshopper fable.

Don
 
We added HOW many million new gun owners this year alone? And all of them want ammo. Ammo makers, if not vertically integrated, buy them from companies who make them. Those guys get first priority over folks like us, since they are buying entire production runs, not just a few thousand at a time.
 
Last year I gave up reloading and sold all my equipment and supplies. If I Only Knew.

I sold 50,000 primers at $35 for 1000. Now they are up to $125. Oh well. My friends were happy and I didn't lose any money on the deals. I also gave about 10 K to my son. He hasn't used them up yet but will soon.

Now I'm shooting .22s. I stocked up. Good thing because they are as hard to find now as primers.
 
Unclenick said:
This time around, what is different has been the millions of first-time-gun-buyers created by the violent unrest, and these newbies are not yet ready to handload. So they just buy and hoard all the ammo they fear drives them to buy and put it aside, making the loaded ammunition market even bigger than in a normal panic buying time.
Click to expand...

^^True. Another difference from last time is that there isn't any primers being imported from Wolf, Tula, MagTech, S&B etc. they went missing from the shelves long before the hoarding started.
Will we see the importation of primers again? I actually liked Wolf primers.
 
lll Otto lll said:
^^True. Another difference from last time is that there isn't any primers being imported from Wolf, Tula, MagTech, S&B etc. they went missing from the shelves long before the hoarding started.
Will we see the importation of primers again? I actually liked Wolf primers.
Click to expand...

I’d guess the imports will show up before too long. Of course that’s assuming COVID hasn’t shut down any excess capacity those manufacturers have. There’s lots of money to by made if retailers can get their hands on some primers.
 
My understanding was the Russian primers got locked out by sanctions encacted against Russia in retaliation for the invasion of Crimea, and in 2015 Powder Valley announced they wouldn't be getting them any longer. Some sort license deal ABC News referred to as probably right on the edge of legality allowed the loaded ammunition to keep coming in, and TulAmmo USA was still in business in 2018 when that news organization attempted an NRA collaboration with Russia story all because TulAmmo had an exhibit booth at the NRA's Dallas annual meeting that year. The story includes a link to the TulAmmousa.com site. That site is gone now. I don't know what that means. Optics Planet appears to have a lot of the loaded ammo for sale, but most places seem to be out.

The other side of this coin is that the Wolf brand is still around, including primers. If they are here, why isn't TulAmmo? And what import workaround does Wolf have if the sanctions really are responsible and still in place?

If someone knows more about these factors, please enlighten us.
 
Nick,

Tula Cartridge Works is a Russian owned company using Russian components manufactured in Tula, Russia, whereas Wolf Performance Ammunition is not, and has some of their products made in various European countries in addition to Russia, and even Taiwan.

Don
 
Primer inventories have a way of being problematic. It would seem your LGS is last in line for primer supplies.

Primers continued to be problematic at my LGS's since the big shortage of 2013 - it never truly fully recovered. I'm in California - if that means anything (it probably does). However, I managed to stock up pretty good through Midway - 5K at a time.

I recently posted in another thread that I was low on CCI 300's. Well a couple days ago, I was doing some organizing and found 3K CCI 300's :-) 3/5 of a "slip" (? is that was a case of 5000 is called? A "slip?"). I don't store all my primers in one place (for safety - not sure if it's actually necessary); I guess I loss track of these.
 
Don,

Thanks. The Wolf site only mentioned the Tula plant. Hence the confusion.


Nick,

Yes, a slip. No idea why. Maybe because once you start buying primers that way you are on a slippery slope toward handloading addiction. I don't know, but it is how I buy primers.
 
I started shooting for accuracy mostly, so no mag dumps, etc, and I did get a little bit put back. I also horse trade here and there. I have enough to get through the election and what I will need after that will be determined by the results.
 
Usually I agree that my fellow reloaders are to blame for the shortage because of hoarding. This time I think it is the ammo producers keeping everything for themselves. No proof, just a feeling.
 
Usually I agree that my fellow reloaders are to blame for the shortage because of hoarding. This time I think it is the ammo producers keeping everything for themselves. No proof, just a feeling.
Click to expand...

go on the reloading discord and see how many people are bragging about scoring 50 - 100 K primers at 1 am from Bass Pro and you might reconsider. One guy was bragging that Midway sold over 250K SRP's on a half hour after he posted in the Discord channel last week

if you need a culprit look at the guy selling them for $10 a hundred at the gun show snd on Gunbroker

I 'll buy a air rifle before I would give one of those guys my business
 
It must be my lucky day (even though I did have 4 teeth pulled this morning) since I was sorting through some stuff and found 13,000 pistol primers I had forgotten I had. There are 8,000 large pistol and 5,000 small pistol.

Buy them when they are available for a fair price and keep a stock of them for when these periodic shortages occur. Buy them at least 5,000 at a time and never get below about 5,000. These shortages will happen again. Hopefully this one will not become permanent as some people want it to be.

There is a big difference between hoarding and being prepared. I like to stay prepared and have never suffered during shortages.
 
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