moxie
Member
The primer "shortage" seems to be abating with shelves filling up in gun shops and "in stock" appearing on the various websites. This is good news. The bad news is that the big price jumps we hoped might be temporary...aren't. I bought a 1000 each CCI large and small pistol the other day at a local gun shop. They were $33.95 apiece plus 8.25% Texas sales tax. Pretty good price compared to the internet. As an example, Natchez, which is usually pretty reasonable on most things, wants $34.68 for Winchester LP and $33.43 for CCI SP. To those prices, of course, one must add the big hazmat fee plus shipping. So no joy on the internet. The kicker came when I was putting the primers away. I found two boxes of primers I bought in 2003 at a local shop in Virginia. They were Winchester LP and SP, at $13.95 each. So there you have it, over 150% increase in price in 7 years. You'll hear lots of yada about higher fuel prices and lead prices blah blah. A 150%+ increase in 7 years on any product pure and simple shows gouging at one or more points along the line. I hope that people in the ammo business don't kill their golden goose. When reloading becomes nearly as expensive as the ridiculously overpriced (often 300%+ compared to 3-4 years ago) factory ammo we find today, it might be time to take up a new hobby.