I just discovered this article (Ammunition plant to open near Texarkana) about Expansion Industries and their plan to resurrect Line G at the old Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant. Their intention is apparently to be fully online by 2023 employing over 400 people manufacturing primers!

Not immediate relief, but a glimmer of hope on the horizon!

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First I have heard of this. In order:

1) thank you for sharing this!

2) I cannot find the words for how much I HOPE that this happens

3) I am not a negative person by nature, I can with my whole heart say that I will be cautiously optimistic about this, and specifically for the “red tape” mentioned in the article. The hazards and requirements and licensing would make my head spin and is probably an unfathomable volume of lawyers/MONEY to wade through. I would suggest that being in Texas is a massive help in this regard.


4) Xtreme/Freedom Munitions made a similar announcement back in 2016 and it never happened, but I’ll be frank, as much as I like the Xtreme product, I’ve not once been impressed with their business practices and customer relations, so again, I’m far more hopeful this time.

As a long time, high volume handloader (like many who will read this), anything these guys add in volume to the ammo/primer situation is a net win even for those of us who never buy ammunition.

This is fantastic news and I’m smiling.

Now I know how long my supply has to last.
Thanks
Jim

In all likelihood it’s ( your supply ) going to have to last a lot longer than you think.
I wouldn’t be going out and burning thru your current supply too soon.
Better plan on 2024 or 2025 for any significant improvement in the supply primers at reasonable prices, if ever.
10 cents apiece will be the new normal price. Maybe 15 cents.
And shipments to your house will no longer be an option.

Well, this would be very good news: might be a good investment in that with 400(?) people making primers they ought to be able to make a LOT!

Cheers!

P.S. My personal experiences with %Xtreme have been fine: bought a bunch of fully reprocessed, primed 45acp (small primer) brass years ago for about $0.04 more each than what SPPs were going for, way back then! Still had to size and expand them but...

Now, THAT was SWEET!

Why? Why do you predict that? 2024 could be a whole new deal!

Have never heard of that company. I also couldn't find much about them. Their state business registration just says that they incorporated in 2017 and are located in Carrolton TX. It doesn't list any company officers, just a registered agent who is some attorney.

I would love to see this happen. Competition in the marketplace could help with pricing and supply. At my age I can't wait more than a year or too before the rifle and pistol gives way to the scatter gun due to shaky hands

I still can't beleive there is a primer shortage and the length of time that we pulled out troups out of Europe and no wars going on right now that
I know of so.............

All the ammo now using primers is for LE and Military war games , here in the states ?? !!

That should be a 50% reduction in ammo needed, at least............
so whats the problem ?

I still don't understand why there is a primer shortage.
Even hoarders have to fill the space up in their homes by now.

Well, sometimes a product doesn't have to be online before the prices drop. Sometimes just the fact they are in the works can lower prices. Of course that is not always the case but I can hope lol.

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And still none flooding in from overseas. That's the odd thing.

I must then make every shot count.

Jim

I expect my suppiies will last a long while.
I can not reload now due to losing almost all use of my hands.
Lyme disease and a stroke badly disabled me.
I am thankful that I can still shoot my rifles. Hand gunning days are all but over.
Jim
ps
cant shoot matches as before but I can run pin and rifle shoots for my club. Thankfully There are friends that help at the reloading press.
Jim

Walked into a local sporting goods store and the shelves were stocked with Winchester pistol and rifle primes. $75/1000, which seems to be the mew normal. I was shocked. Didn't really need any so I passed on buy. Maybe I should have bought it and put it one Gunbroker.

What?!? Only 7-1/2 cents apiece? Not 10 cents? Or 15 cents?
So much for all the Eyeore predictions about the "new normal".

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The article didn't say where the $100,000,000 came from. Maybe Vista is going from owning 3 of the 4 US primer manufacturers to owning 4 of the 5 US primer manufacturers.

Lets hope Winchester stays independent. Or if they get bought out someone beside Vista buys them. Mergers and buyouts can get blocked by the FTC for being anti-competitive. And owning all the major ammo companies in the US would definitely qualify.

If anyone in .gov cared to actually do their jobs in that regard.

sure would be nice to see primers again on the shelves...

They mostly sell for around 8 cents a piece around here in North Texas and they are starting to show up more often.

While inflation is obviously an issue the high prices are more about supply and demand. Even at two years of 10% inflation price would be more like 6 cents apiece given an equal supply/demand profile.

I think you're forecast is too pessimistic. As too when...well...maybe not.

This is great news! If they can get through the red tape and pull it off I’m sure they will be very successful.
As reloaders competition in components will help us all.

As I have previously stated, there are lots of primer manufacturers all over the world. But for some reason primers don't seem to be being imported, and I can't understand why. Same is true for loaded ammo. I did see something in the latest AR about 5.56 ammo now being imported from India. Some years back, I got my hands on a sizeable quantity of Indian 7.62 NATO military ammo. I had no complaints about it.

Winchester ammunition is owned by General Dynamics, a MASSIVE defense contractor. No way they will divest themselves of their small arms ammunition division.

Since when? Winchester has for a great many years been a division of the Olin Corporation, which is not owned by any other company and trades on the New York Stock Exchange. Olin has two major divisions, Winchester Ammunition and Chemicals.

I used to work at at General Dynamics plant in Arkansas that made air to air missiles back in the 80s. They didn't hesitate to lay us all off when the Sparrow missiles we made were obsoleted by the AMRAAM and sell what was left to Hughes. I don't blame them, it was the right thing to do from a business perspective. If they think selling off Winchester makes sense they will.

I'm sorry, you are 100% right. I worked for Olin, then my division got sold off to General Dynamics.

And Winchester Repeating Arms has nothing to do with Winchester ammo. Different owners.

Olin Brass provides the brass, and there is a chemical division for the propellants and primer compound constituents, and then the small ammo division. Medium and large ammo got spun off into GD-OTS. That's the above .50 cal stuff, like 20mm cannon ammo and tank rounds.

I believe Olin sold a Winchester ball propellant plant to the General Dynamics subsidiary St. Marks Powder. Hence the confusion.

Yes, Winchester did sell off the St. Marks powder business to GD. And Olin also sold off their brass business to some other company, but I don't remember who the buyer was. The Olin brass complex used to be (and maybe still is) located fairly close to the ammo plant in East Alton IL.

At one time around 15-20 years ago I was a fairly regular visitor to the East Alton ammo plant. I am not sure that Winchester is still making ammo there. I know much of the ammo production moved from East Alton to Mississippi some years ago, partially because of labor problems in Illinois. And Olin did get the contract to operate the Army's Lake City ammunition plant several years ago.

Primers at the gun show in Huntsville, Alabama yesterday were $75/k. Ammo was still crazy high, especially rifle stuff (other than . 223, which has come down but still high). Went by Larry's Pistol and Pawn on the way home and they had more ammo AND better prices. I bought a thousand CCI standard velocity . 22 LR at $39/500.

I know of several companies looking to expand into primer manufacturing. We’ll see what this will do for availability and pricing. Some are ammo manufacturers that want to primarily insure consistent availability for their ammo as well as supporting the reloading community.

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It sure would be nice to see another domestic manufacture of primers. Would also be nice if some of the over seas makers would export them to the US.

It could be that Expansion Industries made the announcement to entice venture capital investors to put up some money. Dunno about permits, but insurance on such a facility would be very costly. Decades ago I had a buddy working at Aberdeen Proving Grounds and he mentioned once that it was a rare year (month?) at the Frankford primer plant when they didn't kill at least one person. That was before OSHA.

Considering what I don't see on grocery shelves and in other stores, the primer shortage isn't all that surprising. Supply chain issues and those involved in it are taking care of the large customers first.

How do you mean or to put it bluntly, what are you saying?

“Looking to” as in “boy that’d be nice, eh? Okay, back to work, enough with the daydreaming.” -OR- “we’ve broken ground on a facility with the intent of manufacturing primers and we will be live by Fall-2023.”

That is so true these days. The primer is the slowest part of a cartridge to manufacture. Plus they can only work with a limited amount of priming compound at any one time. There is a lot of hand work that can't really be automated. They are not like bullets or brass where a guy loads 10 machines and flips a switch. No one is working these days so I'm guessing that the ammo companies have the same problem that everyone else does getting help. Add to that a 2 year backlog on NATO orders that I'm sure has priority and everything pretty much grinds to a halt. We will see things loosen up. I bet that by the fall, we will see a regular supply of primers and my non expert opinion is that the price will stabilize at about $50 per M. That brings the pre COVID price up to the present inflation level. Then again, I could be wrong and we might never see another brick of primers ever again.

"...we might never see another brick of primers ever again."

NEVER, EVER, AGAIN...?

I was going to ask where you are coming from until I saw where you are at... (I, too, can slaughter almost any communication: imagine trying to diagram my sentence?)

You must REALLY not be seeing ANY primers over in your neck-o'-the-woods if it is truly that bad! Is that something unique to the Baked Bean State? (I know there are some weird firearm rules, regulations, policies & procedures?)

Hope things improve for you. I have been able to find a brick (or two) online, occasionally, this last 6 months or so: not enough to reload at my normal volume but enough to not have to delve into my supply.

Cheers!

P.S. Those cci #41s will also work for small magnum loads if your revolver has a good strong hammer spring...

Of course that was sarcasm. There are primers at every LGS where I am if you want to spend $125 to $150 per M. I'm not at a point where I have to do that and I think I can hold out with what I have for about another 8 months before I have to bend over and buy some to keep shooting. Hopefully by then things will have settled. As far as laws preventing me from buying, I don't think anything much like that will be happening anytime soon. Even here. With the huge rush of new gun owners, there just seems not to be a lot of political will for more restriction. Of course that could change instantly. If it does, I can tell you that just about every gun owner I know is going to become a criminal. It's a short drive to the Free State of New Hampshire.

That's Great !!!
I live in " ana" Louisiana and can make an over night road trip and buy what I need there and avoid the shipping / hazmat fee !
Just tell me when they open for business !
Gary

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Fall of what year?

You may well be right on the prices. Some pre-shortage years back I visited a big box outdoor store in search of primers (I happened to be going past and decided I might save a separate trip to my LGS.). At that time they were selling them for $5 a tray. When I asked how much for a brick, the reply was "$50" and noted no one had ever asked him for a whole brick (Gee, wonder why Ace?). When told that was robbery, the guy asked how much I'd been paying I told him $35.

Even though many believe when everything shakes out the new price will be $50/M but I hope not. $35/M wouldn't be too bad but anything over $40/M would make me sick.

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I wonder since the Plant they’re going to occupy
manufactured ammo at one time if they use
their primers for making in house brand of ammo?

Lucrative Government contacts to come later on?

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SD social distanc'n since 1889

Don’t forget to factor future periods of social unrest and really bad inflation.
I will adjust my predicted future new normal price to $75 per thousand. With supply sporadic.

Dark times ahead. Won’t be fun.
Don’t pass up opportunities to resupply a little at a time if you can.

I recon it may take a looooooooooooooooong time to make up for that 80 Billllllllllllllllllion$ worth of ammo left back east.

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"Don't Give Up the Ship"

It pisses me off no one will be held accountable for throwing away all that US property. It could have been brought back, or at least moved out of country. That BS about an orderly withdrawal should be investigated as well.

If all the equipment was too expensive to remove (which I doubt) they could have at least blew it all up so the enemy can't use it against our troops. It bothers me arms bought with our tax dollars will be used against our brave boys and girls fighting for our freedom. God bless our troops...

As for the primers, we can only hope they are successful and are able to supply repossess with a necessary component not to mention all the jobs for Americans.

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SWCA #3437