Anyone heard of a primer shortage?

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Prices have really went up especially in the last 6 months. $18/K for primers is a good price now especially if you don't have to order from an internet dealer. Only $62 to $80 for bullets considering the last 3 years is also common. You might wish to do some price investigation then lay in more supplies before the club has to reorder components and raise prices (again).
 
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The handloading community needs some sort of resource where we can track trends in the industry. Wouldn't want to lay in a year's supply if we could forecast a drop in 6 months, and visa versa.
 
I don't know about tracking trends, but I've been reloading since 1963, and in all that time, I've never seen the prices come down. Maybe that's a trend, after all.

Anything that contains a metal is going up in price, driven by the world market. The only thing that hasn't suffered a large increase in price is gunpowder. The slight increases in the price of powder have been driven by the upsurge in the cost of oil, which affects the costs to deliver the product.

If you're waiting for the prices of components to go down, I hope you're really, really young....................

Fred
 
The handloading community needs some sort of resource where we can track trends in the industry.
Click to expand...

All you have to do is track copper futures. Also, I wouldn't worry about buying something at today's price, and watching the price fall substantially tomorrow. In today's global economy, it just ain't gonna happen.

Don
 
So here's my problem. The recipe I like for my .45 ACP calls for remington #2 1/2 primers. NO ONE seems to have them locally. I'm tempted to order a case from midway or some other online place, but I just dislike paying the hazmat fee (yes, I know it breaks down to $4/k, but I'm cheap that way). Any problems anyone can foresee with dropping my load 10% and trying w/ a different primer? CCI seems to be about the only brand I can find in the local stores here in Portland.
 
Try Sportsman's Warehouse. They carry CCI, Winchester, Federal and Remington, though their stock of Remington primers isn't always what it is in the other brands.

You'll notice very little variation by switching primers. There have been numerous tests done in the gun magazines, but the one I trust the most is the one done by Handloader Magazine several years ago. They found slight velocity variations, but nothing significant as far as accuracy or pressure from switching primers.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
At my closest Sportmans Warehouse they have had primer shortages for the last 4-5 months, every time I go in there they have little to no stock on primers except for CCI, and I'm not disparate enough to buy CCI primers yet. They rarely have any Federal primers, they haven't had my favorite Federal small pistol primers in a very long time, sometimes they have had some Remington, but the only selection they have consistently in stock is CCI.

I recently sent an email to Powder Valley about the availability of Federal primers, they replied that they expect it to be difficult to get Federals for the rest of 2007! :uhoh:

I finally got to the point that I had to have some primers so I just ordered a bunch of powder and 5,000 each of Winchester small pistol and small rifle primers. I have seen a lot of the primers going way up in price lately, the Winchester primers at Powder Valley haven't gone up....YET!
 
I have had a problem finding any primers for large or small pistol and the same for rifles. I called the local sporting goods stores and they said that they could not get any at all and did not know when they would become available. I called a store 120 miles away and they had what I was looking for and I had them pull all pistol and rifle primers from the shelf and secured the order with my credit card. Went and got them last Friday and ended up with 50,000 primers. No sooner than I got home and the phone was ringing off the hook. Everyone was wanting to purchase primers from me. I told them they are not for sale as the wife and I are Cowboy Action Shooters and the primers would just barely get us through the season for this year. Just my .02 cents.
 
3 weeks best

I was told today that we're going to see primers in about 3 weeks, in the warehouse, then another week to the retailers. Be pateint, they're comming. They may not be the brand you want, but at least we'll have some.

Sir Yarquest
 
I was told today that we're going to see primers in about 3 weeks, in the warehouse, then another week to the retailers. Be pateint, they're comming. They may not be the brand you want, but at least we'll have some.
Click to expand...

Was this something you were told in a gunshop or from one of the manufactors?
 
I'm having a devil of a time finding small pistol primers at all! Sportsman's Warehouse, Cabelas and Scheels in Reno are all out, smaller stores are out, and no luck on the internet. How annoying!

Did anybody else notice a 2 year gap in this thread between posts?
 
Did anybody else notice a 2 year gap in this thread between posts?
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Yes, I did! And I'm still laughing my butt off!!!:p

Two years later, and they're still belly aching about the shortage!
Only now they blame it on the Democrats.
 
Honestly, I didn't even have any idea of a shortage two years ago! And two years before that I was in reloading hog heaven, lead shot was $17 a bag, everything was cheap.
 
Was this something you were told in a gunshop or from one of the manufactors?

I was told by one of our largest suppliers. There are Wolf Primers held up in customs, expect them to release within weeks. Magtech should be shipping in 3 weeks to major suppliers in 3 weeks. We never stocked Magtech nor have any of us used them, so any info, good or bad, would be great. We have some on order. The price will be in the 33.50 range. Same as Winchesters right now. But they have been much cheaper in the past. I guess they're taking advantage of the "demand" thing. I'm not knocking it. Just thought I would mention it.

And to the guy that's having problems finding Small Pistol Primers. Sorry I didn't get the name. We got in 30,000 yesterday in Winchester (we ordered 250,000). So if we got some, I'm sure others have or will be also. Just hang in there, keep looking. We have 3000 left and I'm sure they will be gone by morning. Sorry. Wish I could hold them for you, but out of respect for this forum, it's best I don't self promote our website. I will tell you that we are one of the websites listed as one of the best on the web for reloading supplies here on this forum. Again, thanks, we really appreciate the free press.

Sir Yarquest
 
My local pawn/gun shop got about 30,000 small pistol primers, 10,000 large magnum pistol, and some untold amount of small and large rifle primers in this past week (All CCI). So, maybe the primer shortage is easing a bit.
 
I searched the internet and finally found a site that had Winchester Large Pistol primers - and didn't say "out of stock". I order 2 boxes of 5K each and my credit card was charged, so I will assume they will be shipped. This will put me at 25K WLP primers - which will keep me comfortable for a while. That's not to say I won't buy more if the opportunity presents itself. Now, how about bullets. I finally found a good source for 200g LSWC and have 8K on hand. Powder doesn't seem to be as hard to find. I have about 24lbs of W231. Brass for me is easy - all I can sweep from the floor of my neighborhood indoor range.
 
Local shooting range...

Hey primerinmyshoe, are you speaking of Bullseye LLC? (I too live in St. Louis) They said something once to me about letting anyone come in there and clean the joint up, but that was a while ago, and I figured that with brass prices nowadays, they probably would not still be up for letting some random guy come sweep away their brass. More on topic, Graf's out in St. Charles has no small rifle primers on the shelves, and will only let 200 of the CCI #400 go at a time. :cuss: I heard a nasty little rumor that the feds were buying up the primers just to be jerks... Or something along those lines...
 
Prototypeperson, yep, that's the place. The brass is collect by Mike, the man that supplies Bull's Eye with reloaded ammo. A couple of us employees do scoop up a couple of the calibers of brass that we reload. Not just anybody can come in and take the brass. I used to get all my reloading supplies from Graf's. I remember when Mike Graf used to be there all the time. But now I've found internet suppliers. I don't believe the feds are buying primers. It's us. A lot of us are buying a lot of primers just in case Obama gets his way and really screws with us.

Oh, I did get my primers from T&T Reloading that I ordered from their site. One week shipping, pretty quick. They are out of stock right now - according to another poster on another forum.
 
I don't know about tracking trends, but I've been reloading since 1963, and in all that time, I've never seen the prices come down. Maybe that's a trend, after all.
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Damn Fred I was hoping to not hear anything like that. I made a couple of primer buys before everybody started hording and am in decent shape but was hoping when everybody is at their limit and nobody is buying the prices would come down and I might be ready by then. Well at least the dream lasted a little while.:D
Rusty
 
I have not seen a single primer at the gun show in 2 months, Bass Pro is out of almost everything, and I'm not paying $22.50 in extra shipping from Midsouth or the like.
Besides they dont have any anyways. So to all you guys hoarding primers thanks a lot I cant get a single one and I'm down to my last 150 large pistol primers.
 
Bought 1k CCI SR today at a small store in the middle of nowhere for $24.99. He had 3k more but said he ordered primers months ago and hasn't gotten anything in. Why these were still there I haven't the slightest clue!

Craig
 
I'm thinking that when the manufacturers DO get caught up, maybe the price will come down again, like lead shot has. Bass Pro wanted like $55/25 lbs here a while back. It's dropped a little since then.

I've stocked up, but not going to pay a lot, incase the price goes down later.

I saw a box of 1k CCI rifle primers go for $99 + shipping recently on gunbroker.
 
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