I don't generally read the primer shortages threads, but after recently opening my last carton of 1,000 CCI-300s, this situation is getting close to home. For those vigilant in the search, anyone have an idea how the primer types/sizes would rank in order of demand?

I can't find any large rifle primers. Those are all I've looked for though.

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That's just somebody talkin.

For SP would think that shooters of 9mm and 40 S&W would drive a big demand. With all the black rifles out there think the demand for SR would be high but given the large number of cartridges that use LR the demand for LR size might be as high or higher.

That's why I was wondering what's most in demand. I use far more (about ten to one) SP and LP than I do small SR and LR. Everyone's primer consumption type and rate is different. Overall, however, there is a ranking, perhaps best known by manufacturers and distributors.

SPP are the hardest to find right now. Second is SRP and LPP.

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Use should dictate gear!

I use lpp the most [.45colt and dash calibers in cas] but have fit a 45acp cylinder to a vaquero to use spp 45acp brass. Have swapped my bricks of spp for lpp. Have also built shims to allow me to use spp .455 Webley brass in my other vaqueros. Will use spp 45acp and .455 [primed with srp] in action pistol and cas shoots. I use lrp the least. Not too many 209s as I use a 25 rd box of 12 or 20 ga reloads a month.

For sure, it must be

Small pistol
Small rifle
Large pistol
Large rifle
Shotgun
50BMG

…in that order

When this all started, small pistol and small rifle were by far the hardest to find. Now it seems they are all difficult to find. Even Shotgun primers have disappeared. I don't think anyone expected it to last this long. I would have scooped up more Large Pistol, Large Rifle and shotgun had I known it was going to get bad for them also.

Rosewood

I can find them locally - pretty much all sizes - if I’m willing to pay the asking price, which I’m not…….

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"Your other right........."

We have been able to find primers thru allah this. Not as cheap as we used to pay, but the 2.5-3 cent primers are over. Targetsports has them, bought some from Brownells the other day for $211/2,000.

Shooting is what we do. Competition or recreation or hunting.

Powder is available, bought 2# of titegroup at a lgs last week for $27/lb.

Spp
Lpp
Lr
Sr

Shotgun, non existent.

.08 is going to be the new normal I’m afraid. I hope I’m wrong.

Regards,
Rick Gibbs

I'm sure small pistol in the most desired. There has recently also been a difficulty in getting shotgun primers.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Like said above, I feel SPP are the most in demand this time around. If you could score 10,000 you would be in great shape. Fortunately I'm not in need of any primers right now, I learned the lessons of the past few shortages although it one seems to be the worst of all. I won't say in the open forum what I do own but I will say I had to spread them out over several properties to be in compliance with the local fire regulations. (always remember to be in compliance with the laws, it keeps us safe)

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Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

SP & SR are the most "in demand" but they may not be the hardest to locate.

I would agree. Because they are most in demand, I believe they are the most often available, as it should be. Between AR-15’s and 9mm pistols, .223/5.56 and 9mm ammo also is produced in the greatest volumes, so it stands to reason factories strive to meet the ammo makers demands for those primers. Large pistol and large rifle primers are less in demand, so less is manufactured. Nobody does 30 round mag dumps with .270 Win, 30-06 or 7mm Remingtons. Or 15 round mag dumps with .44 Mags. I am still looking for large rifle primers at a reasonable price, for a year and a half. Reasonable used to be less than $50, now I would go $75 for CCI-200, 250 or Federal 210 or 215.

Reloading supplies was my business for 40 years. The order of sales for primers is mettallic.... SPPs SRPs LPPs LRPs. Where you're located matters on shotshell primers Nationwide I would say they come in 2nd overall... Awful lot of shotshell shooters out there. Mag primers pretty much follow the trend of regulars. Hardest primers to find in my area.... Wy/Mt area is large rifle primers. They are the least used mainly most rifle calibers that use LRPs are high intensity...3000 rounds really does a number on barrels. That is the rank of primers for sales over all the years in business. SRPs? I have a 222Rem 722 that has fired over 5000 rounds since I have had it and it still shoots better than me.

With a dealer at a gun show yesterday, I had an easy time swapping several thousand Federal large rifle primers for the same number of Federal large pistol primers. I think we both felt we came out well on the deal.

It would be a rational argument that Large Pistol Primers are in less (relative) demand today than they were 10-12 years ago, specifically due to the massive proliferation of .45 ACP brass that uses the small pistol primer. A somewhat recent development is 10mm Auto brass that also uses a small pistol primer.

When will we all just put a spark plug in the bolt face?

The small pistol primers here are the hardest to find. Some one in the gun club got a 200 of them for 7.99 per sleeve.

Most of these guys play the shoot fast miss, fast steel shooting games, at the club, and go through a lot of SP primers in 9mm.

I too am short on small pistol primers, and have switched from 38's to 45's to help relieve the demand.

For some reason I ended up with way more of the LP than anything else.

I have been using them in reduced cast lead loads in rifles, using light charges of medium burning pistol powders, where the pressures are back around 20,000.
I dont usually do things like this, but in desperate time, you do what you can. I've had no problems so far, and it is saving my LR for my normal L R loading.

Too bad there is not much of a market for once fired primers.....at least we know THEY worked......

Randy

I’m just glad I can substitute Small Rifle primers
for Small Pistol primers.

For some reason I ended up with way more of the
Small Rifle than anything else.

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SD social distanc'n since 1889

I just added to my stash of HP38 to the point where I’m set for life (since I’m pretty old). I’ve got at least 2-3 years of small pistol primers, then I’ll have to start shooting my large primer 44s and 45s. Small Rifle? I need some for my bench gun, but I only need it for a few events a year, so I should be OK for a while. I could go through a bunch of 209s if I went back to shooting at flying pottery with shotguns or wax bullets in Cowboy Fast Draw, but that seems unlikely. Fortunately I only use LRPs in single shot rifles so I don’t use them up very quickly. Highest demand? For me at least, Small Pistol primers are used the most, hands down.

Froggie

Shotgun, aka 209 primers are unobtanium right now

There are two sides to the shortage of primers:
Supply
Demand

We're discussing the demand side here for the most part. But, consider the supply side. There are only two sources for primers in the USA: Olin and Vista Outdoor. Olin makes Winchester primers. Vista Outdoor is the holding company that owns CCI, Remington, and Federal (amongst others). Unlike guys like Vernon Speer and Joyce Hornady, Vista Outdoor doesn't really care about reloading. They care about money. Doesn't matter if it comes from mountain bikes or gas grills (more of their subsidiary holdings) or plastic lawn chairs. So, Vista Outdoors will make absolutely sure that their three primer manufacturing companies don't start undercutting each other.

Vista Outdoors is playing us for suckers, milking us for every dollar for the sake of their shareholders. Vista Outdoors stock trades on the NYSE under the name VSTO. It is, by blue chip standards, a fairly volatile stock. Attached is a screenshot plotting the stock value over the last five years. The price has varied from less than $10 a share to over $50 a share. Their value looks like a rollercoaster, just over the last five years.
You might notice another thing: Look at the parallel between the stock prices and Federal landscape regarding gun control. When things look bad for American gun owners, they look great for VSTO stockholders, and vice versa. Your pain is their pleasure.

Look closely at a primer. There's not .10-.15 cents of materials or technology in making one. They're similar to, though more sophisticated than, a pack of matches. They legitimately should be priced $20-30/1000.
Maybe soon we will have another primer manufacturer in the USA? The laws of supply and demand in a free market strongly point to somebody stepping in to meet the demand and still make a profit. Supposedly, this is in the works somewhere in Texas.

Right now, the price per share is around $36. Market speculators think it might go as high as $70 within the year. That won't happen by selling primers for less money!
Maybe instead of buying primers, we should buy VSTO stock, then dump it when things look better?

Attached Images

vista.jpg (40.3 KB, 8 views)

I imagine that SPP and SRP are equally difficult to find at present because many reloaders who would normally use SPPs have been forced to use SRPs instead, as SPPs have become unobtainable. I have used SRPs for loading most of my handgun calibers for many years, and long ago laid in an ample supply of SRPs for use in loading both handgun and rifle calibers.

Indeed they are. I seldom load shot shells today, but I still have a hoard of about 2000 209 primers I would not part with for less than $200/M simply because that they do not seem to be available anywhere.

I was talking with a shop owner friend back east.. He told me shotshell primers are almost un obtainium right now. Saw some locally that were selling for 150 per M. I sold a fellow 1M Nobel Sport 209s not long ago for 70 dollars. When he came into the vault he wanted to buy all my 209s...even offered me 100 per M to sell 'em to him. I told him I could sell them for as much as he could when he sold some. I actually have about 15,000 Rem 209s(for loading 410s only) and a whole load of Win CCI and maybe 20-30 M Fiocchi, Nobel Sport, Rios and Cheddite. Even have 2000 Alcan 220 Maxfire from more than 40 years ago. They are the same primers sold today by Fiocchi as number 616. Have way more shotshell primers than metallic. But I have always been a shotgun shooter primarily

Cheddite 209's are showing up around here some..around $60/thousand....no SPP..none

Nearly all available primers are going into factory ammo it seems.
Here is my unobtainium list:

SPP
SRP
LRP
LPP
209

Buy some.. They work fine. Expand P Pockets a little but you can continue to use 'em. Or get a Primer Pocket Peener tool. Yes they did make them...for paper shells back in the day. I have used them on the original AAs and Rems though

Any person that likes shooting a shotgun and might do trap, skeet or the other "Games" knows............
that it is very easy to go through 250 primers in a day of shooting, with friends or even "foe's" .

Plus maybe a little practice, after a turnament ?
I have gone throuh a case or two flats in a day, many a time,
which is 500 primers.

Scatter guns are fun if they fit and the recoil is managable.

After spending a weekend at a gun show, it seems to me that the demand for every primer size is about the same. Depending on who you talk to and what they are looking for, it evens out.

At the height of my "career" shooting skeet I was shooting 1500 or more shells a week. but not very many 12 ga. I shot so many 410s in practice I bought a Spolar machine dedicated to just 410 shells. I have a Spolar 12 ga die set that has never been out of the factory box. Unfortunately I was involved in an auto accident where I lost about 80% of the sight in my right eye. Had to learn to shoot all over again. I bought primers for shotshell loading in 100 thousand batches for myself plus 1/4 and 1/2 million batches for the business. But my reloading/gun business was paying for my obsession...luckily. I had a powder magazine on the farm too. Glad that I am not shooting like that now. Tough to shoot that much out here in flyover country anyway. I was talking to a Briley rep not long ago and he was looking for Win 540 powder. I let him have most of my HS-6 supply(same powder) but he said one of the harder things to find now is wads. Only two suppliers really left in the US now. All reloading components are becoming unobtainable. And prices when you find them are really high. But reloading is still cheaper than factory ammo for almost anything... Then think of this...percussion caps are almost not to be found anywhere. And black powder supplies are at an all time low