If you are completely out of primers go get some, but don't let that happen again, so you don't encourage the current high prices. You could have bought three bricks, a couple of years ago for less than you are paying for one brick during this shortage. Does that make sense to you??
That's getting a little bit too preachy for my blood ... and I'm one of those guys who had 80k primers on hand two years ago and am now down-to around 40k and still looking for more.
I trust that you will not mind if I preach back atcha?
Shouldn't we simply let a man buy what he wants when he wants it for however much the market will bear and he's willing to pay? Should we not allow a man to pick and choose what lessons he wishes to glean from his own life's experiences?
His wallet, his choices. He's spending his hard-earned money on something that brings him joy, perhaps more range time and maybe-even more security in the face of possible tough times.
Why berate him friend? Why tell him what to-do? Hindsight is 20/20 and none of us can go back in time, so why type what you typed ... I don't get it and, again, I am one of those guys who has learned my lessons when it comes to ammo and reloading components; first in '94 and then again in 2001 and then had it reinforced again in 2008. I was at different financial stations, in life, each time.
If you believe that primer prices, or any prices for that matter, are going to drop drastically anytime soon ... then I beg-to-differ Sir. Primers will never be lower than $50 a box of 1000 again and we'll be lucky to get there at this rate. Right now this country is in a state of hyperinflation in three or four major sectors .... food, fuel and firearms-food (sic Ammo and Reloading Components) and nothing is going to change for the better where those are concerned for awhile.
You and I can compare reloading rooms and our current individual inventories all day long ... I'll win by a longshot. Yet I still choose to buy what I want when it is available because, for now at least, I'm still a free man in this country and I reload and shoot A LOT ... plus I share with friends and family.
I need more #41s, #34s and CCI #500s.
#MyMoneyMyChoice
Prices will begin to drop once supply far outweighs demand and retailers are sitting-on more inventory than they can move at these inflated prices. And that's not going-to happen for awhile because there are four million new gun owners in this country (who do-not remember nor do they care about what prices were two years ago) and, according to industry numbers, over 250k new reloaders ... that's a 300% jump over just ten years ago. RCBS, Hornaday, Lee, Redding, Lyman, Dillon will all tell you that they cannot keep-up with demand for dies, presses, accessories, etc. And YouTubers who offer video inventory and content to the reloading masses, such as Johnny's Reloading Bench, Gavin Toobe, Elvis Ammo, et al., they're all raking-in so many page views and impressions ... it just tells you how many new reloaders there are out there right now, in this country especially. (Would love some feedback from the European members of this community on THR.)
So now, to put it into perspective, how many rounds of ammo will it take to meets the needs of new firearms owners if each bought only 100 rounds for each of their new firearms? (The number is staggering and we all know 100 rounds per piece is a bare minimum.) Now each of those rounds requires a primer correct .... so the ammo manufacturers must-have primers first and foremost, they are the industry priority amirite? Agreed? CCI, Federal, Remington and Winchester are going-to service their ammo manufacturing divisions, with their primers, before they service we reloaders ... agreed? The number of primers needed is mind boggling if we stop right there but ...
... given the fact that there are also all of these tens of thousands of new reloaders out there - how many more primers are needed? Let's say for each new reloader they simply want a 1000 ct sleeve each-of, LRPs, SRPs and SPPs (just to keep it simple) so that's 3k x 250k ...... omg !?!?!?!?!?!?! That's almost twice the number of primers needed to fill the needs of just the newbie reloaders than what is needed by the newbie gun buyers even by the very conservative metric we are using. (We could probably double those numbers and be justified to-do-so.)
And here's the kicker friend. None of the above is counting the demand-pressures us ole silver-haired decades-old reloaders, gun owners and shooters are placing on the primer market which is x C² what the newbies are placing on the market ... so we're talking literally trillions and trillions of primers being needed right now before we'll ever begin to see prices falling drastically ... and, even then, they'll never go back to where they were.
These occasional shows of primer-product back on the shelves ... they're just keeping us hungry, wetting our beaks, teasing-us, getting our hopes-up and making us think it might soon be over. It's a very smart marketing tactic if we'll all stop and think about it. Humans always want what they cannot have. The suppliers dribble-it-out there to us to keep us satiated for awhile, all the while they struggle to meet demand. The distribution strategy is incredible. Ask anyone in the industry ... they are absolutely doing everything they can do to half-way keep-up while trying to bring newbies into the marketplace at the same time .... all the while trying to keep us old timers from blowing our smoke stacks.
It's almost like what drug pushers do. Think about it. The only difference is that outside forces are driving these market pressures and making it tough on the addicted to get our fixes.
It's a bonanza for the firearms, ammo and reloading industry while being a frustratingly-annoying and reoccurring nightmare for many of us.
Rockirish, you probably berated people for buying digital currency too I bet huh?
We're living in far different times. Far more volatile times and the good old days are not coming-back anytime soon. People are feeling far far less secure than they were ten or fifteen or even twenty years ago. So, therefore, we must assume that ..... smart, prudent, sane, capable, hard-working Americans are going to buy what they feel they need to buy and can afford to buy. For many it is a conscious decision, a choice.
#OurMoneyOurChoice
THAT'S what "makes sense" to some of us - since you asked.
Now, my editor would never allow me go to press with this piece using the exact same phraseology I've used above ... but we're allowed to-be a bit more straight-forward and honest out here than over there so ... take it fwiw.
Those pics are just pre-covid pics while my new reloading room was still under construction and few of us ever imagined that we'd find ourselves where we are today. Even my peers have questioned, in the past, why I continued to keep my stocks up so high. I'll update with finished pics soon. I'm down to roughly 40k primers and my powder selections has changed somewhat but still, I feel comfortable where I am at the moment.
Ammo is the new precious metal. I've been writing about it and preaching-it for almost 25 years now. And it takes primer, powder and pills to produce ammo.
I'll finish with this. A guy called me the other day, friend of mine, owns a local gun store and he tells me about this young guy who has a bunch of primers to sell but my lgs-owning friend cannot buy them because, you know, liability reasons. So I call the guy and agree to buy them ... 28 years old, wife is expecting, he's asking $50 per 1000 count sleeve and he had four sleeves of 41s and two sleeves of Federal #100s ... I gave him $60 cash per sleeve because I felt that was fair, and he was happy. Made a friend for life and I needed what he had. My point being ... a lot of these newbies are going to-be short of cash soon. I suspect there there are going to be some deals to be had over the next two or three years.
Beware the gunshow price gougers. They are the ones really doing harm to the market. Out work them, out smart them and shame them, ftf, at every turn.