How to make primers?

3Crows said:

Electronic/electric primers are just a gateway to electronic control of guns, chips and batteries and wifi with Bluetooth. NO!

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My biggest problem with electronics is reliably and longevity. I know there are people alive today because of electronics but there are so many failed devices historically.

A 1923 Ford model T, minimum electronics, pretty easy to find one running today. Chances of getting a 2021 Ford to run in 2119? Good luck, there are lot of cars from just the mid ‘80’s that are “obsolete” as far as electronics parts from OEM.

I have primers that old that still work though...

Rule 10 of the Farangi acquisition code

if it was that easy or worth the time somebody would have beaten you to it.

jmorris said:

I have never had to but I might some day as I always enjoy learning, I still have primers from before Clinton signed the AWB in 94 and have more primers now than I did then, so it’s not very high on my list.

I have made my own BP before and lab was the one part of chemistry I always enjoyed. If I ever go down that path the EPH20 here would be my first pick http://www.aardvarkreloading.com/resources/Homemade Primer Course 2019-06-28.pdf

I have always been of the mindset that people that say they can and people that say they can’t, often have one thing in common, they are both right.

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By "cannot" that means doing so in a cost/time effective manner. Till The time you spend on something like this is unlikely to be cheaper then even the highest price gougers. But if you do succeed, my hat is off to you. I Would love to see this. In the mean time, some of us have to work.

I can understand that. The list of things I haven’t done yet is pretty long and that one isn’t near the top.

If you just want to see it done...

https://aardvarkreloading.com/videos.html

Rembrandt said:

I'm contemplating something different than how the Etronx worked. It used a 9 volt battery to ignite the primer. I'm thinking of a primer that still requires a physical firing pin strike that would in turn generate its own electrical charge, thereby eliminating the battery. Piezo crystal type ignition.

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For sure your idea is possible.

And if you could figure out a way to reuse, you would have us reloaders as your buyers. For example, we take the de-capping pins out of our full length sizing dies because the life of the primer equals the life of the case - multiple firings and multiple reloadings.

Unfortunately however, it cannot be cost competitive (not even close) with the primer slurry compound currently used, so the ammunition manufacturers will never pursue it, nor will they by it from you.

But I would definitely spend extra for re-useable primers.

Good thread!

Oh boy


No, you dont need stamping machinery for survival level primers: you need a .223 lee load all or similar press, and a reactive compound that is sensitive to brass on brass friction when repressed with a new anvil and flattened reused cup


I can tell ya this: you are cruisin for a bruisin.


Its a fun weekend "what if", but cant be employed in a real production capacity in our current environment


Not only are priming devices remarkably volatile( search the records in the library.... promise i'm not talking out of my a-hole) they are incrediy sensitive to impact and shaping components during assembly.

Its cool. Ya, you can do it to prove it to your friends.

The reality is without proper proper FFL and explosive licensing, you cant get access to materials used in viable commercial compounds: its an explosive, believe it or not.


Don't do it repetitively until the goblins show up.

Use this as a reason to stock up: not start a federally regulated industry on your property without proper licensing and insurance.

I hate to be this guy... cuz i was the "you" guy not too long ago: dont.

Do it to see how it works, and prove you can do it for you if you needed to. And then stop, for the love of G@d.

Primers are serious business. If you're asking for advice here...im gonna go out on a limb and say its probably significantly dangerous to proceed at your skill level.


i do have pictures....

Between health and legal issues.

Dont.

#vegas

"Dont put all your primers in a glass jar"

-RC

Howa 9700 said:

The logical folks to do this are the Big 4......and they don't seem interested

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You want to know why they aren't interested. There are people paying $300+ per 1K for primers, there isn't a box of common ammo like 9mm,.38 special, .357, .223, etc etc that stays on the shelf of a lgs for more than an hour. Simple economics says that the prices for ammo and components will continue to increase, as to how much, as much as the manufacturers want.

Pretty soon people will have enough primers in their stash to hold them for a while. Then the GB prices will really start to drop and you'll start seeing them more often in the stores. Availability will come back eventually.
I went looking for powder last summer and it was pretty available, so I bought extra to 'get me through'. Then I found primers in October and bought some extra 'just in case'. Also bought some bullets, lead and molds last summer. I'm now out of the market and just watching from the sidelines. I'm sure there are more and more reloaders that are all stocked up, getting out of the market and are willing to let the scalpers fight it out.

Companies that make primers don't just make primers.

They make primers to support their ammunition manufacturing operations.

That's where they make their real money and that's the revenue stream that justifies the cost of setting up to make primers.

Primer compound is the only "explosive" component that goes into any modern ammunition, and that adds a lot of complexity to the undertaking due to the regulatory requirements (environmental, safty, security, etc...) associated with handling and manufacturing explosives.

SSN Vet said:

Companies that make primers don't just make primers.

They make primers to support their ammunition manufacturing operations.

That's where they make their real money and that's the revenue stream that justifies the cost of setting up to make primers.

Primer compound is the only "explosive" component that goes into any modern ammunition, and that adds a lot of complexity to the undertaking due to the regulatory requirements (environmental, safty, security, etc...) associated with handling and manufacturing explosives.

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This is important. Of all the primer manufacturing operations worldwide, I am unaware of a single one that doesn't support the in-house ammunition manufacturer. Primers make these companies hardly any money in and of themselves (at $20-40 per thousand normally how can they). The market for primers (reloaders) is tiny in the greater scheme of things and hardly worth supporting. What you see on the local shelf is merely the scraps after the ammo companies have what they need.

Havok7416 said:

This is important. Of all the primer manufacturing operations worldwide, I am unaware of a single one that doesn't support the in-house ammunition manufacturer. Primers make these companies hardly any money in and of themselves (at $20-40 per thousand normally how can they). The market for primers (reloaders) is tiny in the greater scheme of things and hardly worth supporting. What you see on the local shelf is merely the scraps after the ammo companies have what they need.

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The retail sale price from manufacturer to wholesaler is less than than 1c per primer

You buy their overrruns, albeit gold metal match, and a few others.

If they are putting em in ammo at 30c a cartridge: you arent getting them.

Anyone notice the sudden absence of availabity of Tula? Wonder why?

These are domestic ammunition producers that consign a significant amount of their capacity to military use. Even lake city/federal/the new gameit doesnt have spare capacity because we are going through military stockpiling replenishment.

Just chill. This wave will pass.

You dont need 15k rds of rifle , pistol, or shotgun unless you are shooting VERY competitively or in defensive training. Seriously. Just chill. They'll come back.

Gives you time to focus on other areas of reloading that are just as important.

Howa 9700 said:

Assuming someone wanted to go into the business of making new primers, what would be involved? I'm talking from just the physical aspect of it. Legal aspect is another issue

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It seems some of folks replying to this thread didn't bother to read the OPs post. The question is around starting a business producing primers, presumably in extremely large volumes. Reloading existing primers is just too time consuming with the current tools available and just not practical. Even paying GB prices of 30c+ per primer would probably be more economical.

As far as primers go, based on the recent info coming out of VISTA, there will not be many, if ANY, primers sold to the secondary market for the next 3-4 years. In fact as time goes on, it will be less and less. As Remington's plant starts firing up, all of VISTAs primers will eventually be allocated to producing ammo. If they stopped taking ammo orders right now, it would take them 2 years to fill the existing orders.

This situation isn't going away anytime soon. There is definitely room for a new entity to start manufacturing and selling primers and make a profit at it. Considering I haven't seen a primer drop either from my own monitoring or from the discord group in over 2 weeks and that last one lasted less than 1 minute, I'd guess that even if 10M SPP suddenly dropped, they would be scooped up in less than an hour.

Howa 9700 said:

I didn't think CCI, Federal or Remington were selling for those prices? I was of the opinion it was guys selling out of private stash or others sweeping the retail shelves, and then reselling. If the latter, the VISTA kids are not the one's making the windfall. But if they are, it would be good to know.

As I understand Vista's position, they are using all primer production to make factory ammo. Most likely the factory capacity is setup to have a balanced production. In normal times, there may be excess capacity and its during those times they make the excess available as reloading components. Apparently no excess exists now. And apparently, looking down the road, they are content to leave capacity as it is, out of belief this shortage will blow over eventually and things will return to normal. And that seems to be the consensus here........current shortages are temp and do not justify the expense of expansion.

BTW, prices seem to be dropping. Now down to $120 to $150 for 1K on GB.......and sagging lower.

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I check GB every day scanning 20+ pages and don't see prices dropping. I do see 500 qty going for those prices though.

packetloss said:

It seems some of folks replying to this thread didn't bother to read the OPs post. The question is around starting a business producing primers, presumably in extremely large volumes. Reloading existing primers is just too time consuming with the current tools available and just not practical. Even paying GB prices of 30c+ per primer would probably be more economical.

As far as primers go, based on the recent info coming out of VISTA, there will not be many, if ANY, primers sold to the secondary market for the next 3-4 years. In fact as time goes on, it will be less and less. As Remington's plant starts firing up, all of VISTAs primers will eventually be allocated to producing ammo. If they stopped taking ammo orders right now, it would take them 2 years to fill the existing orders.

This situation isn't going away anytime soon. There is definitely room for a new entity to start manufacturing and selling primers and make a profit at it. Considering I haven't seen a primer drop either from my own monitoring or from the discord group in over 2 weeks and that last one lasted less than 1 minute, I'd guess that even if 10M SPP suddenly dropped, they would be scooped up in less than an hour.

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That may be true, but i think some of the more seasoned folks read it for what it was.

Without an FFL and a federal explosives license, you cant fix this problem.

You certainly cant fix it in your garage.

Thats it!

ballman6711 said:

Are you thinking something similar to the ignition system on a propane grill? That could be very interesting!

chris

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Rembrandt said:

That could be a starting point......I'm sure Nicola Tesla could have found a way to make it work.

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"How Does Electronic Ignition Work on a Gas Grill?

Once the gas has been turned on, the ignition must be activated to light the flame. Some electronic ignitions rely on a push button that fires the piezo electric starter. Others rely on a knob that is spring-loaded and turned all the way left or right to activate either the piezo starter or the spark generator. In the case of a piezo starter, a small hammer inside of the ignitor will forcefully contact a quartz crystal. This action causes a spark to jump off off of the ignition electrode rod onto a ground plate. When the rod is placed into a gas flow and sparks, the gas ignites."

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/electronic-ignition-work-gas-grill-80341.html

So, if hammer or striker hits piezo crystal instead of firing pin, and pin hits primer, or striker with pin hits primer, it should work. And primer is not needed at all. When reloading, just size case, dump powder and insert bullet. The only problem is to keep away water and moisture.

blarby said:

That may be true, but i think some of the more seasoned folks read it for what it was.

Without an FFL and a federal explosives license, you cant fix this problem.

You certainly cant fix it in your garage.

Thats it!

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For sure you can't do this at home and without licenses and insurance. I took his post to mean starting up a reasonably large sized commercial operation to produce primers.

At Olin corp. in the primer shacks they have anti static floors, the workers wear anti static shoes and once they get the mix into the mixer they leave and do the mixing by remote control watching it by camera. When they transport the primers thru the plant red lights flash and all traffic stops. They are stored in thick concrete walled huts with light wood roofs with heavy steel cyclone fencing over the top to contain the debris if it blows up and all the force rises. I don't know it sounds like something I want to do in my garage.

Another point to consider is the proprietary nature of the manufacturing processes that are used to make primers.

You can just log into Amazon and buy a primer making machine.

This type of manufacturing automation (assembly of small detailed components) is quite tricky and the machines are typically custom designed in house by an engineering and machine shop crew that are highly experienced and specialized and have been improving the equipment incrementally over decades.

Your not going to find the plans for a primer assembly machine on-line. This type of manufacturing know how and expertise is usualy very closely guarded, as they may not have patent protection to prevent their competitors from knocking it off.

As someone with 20 years in industrial packaging I've been inside 75% of the factories in northern New England and many of them require signing a non-disclosure agreement before you can walk in their doors, and they don't allow cameras or even cell phones. One aerospace customer has cell phone blocking equipment on site, so you can't even get a signal once you pull into their parking lot. Even their scrap parts are serialized, tracked and destroyed to ensure no competitor examines them. Industrial espionage is a real thing (just ask China) and stealing technical secrets is a lot easier than paying the hefty price tag of developing them for yourself.

As was once said, "Necessity is the mother of invention".