Federal regulation is one factor many of us fail to consider. No telling what is required to add capacity. Especially depending on what state you are in.

Rosewood

I haven't looked since pre-Covid, so I'm sure you're right. The last 38s I bought were Precision One remanufactured stuff in an ammo can.

Walked into my LGS today where they have always had primers but a limit of 100 sold at MSRP. Looked today at the website and no mention of a limit? I get there at lunch and wait 20 minutes till some one tells a young man coming off his lunch to help me. I tell him 1000 BR2 (which show in their book and online for $159 a K) please and he comes back with only 500, so I take them along with a Hornady Dial Caliper. He checks me out and tells me my total is $107. I don't question, pay and walk out out. He sold me the primers for $59 for 500, still expensive but at least it wasn't $79.95

So the take away thought from all of this discussion is what steps are you going to take when you start buying primers and powder again?

The lesson I learned during The Great Obama 22 Ammunition Panic was to never be caught short of .22 ammunition again. Actually I don’t have much interest in shooting .22 guns so I didn’t get caught up in it but after things settled down there wasn’t any excuse to not stock up. I now have around 10k - 11k of different brands of .22 on hand. (.22 firearms are well know to be ammo sensitive). Even though I still don’t have much interest in shooting .22 firearms I have brought several pistols. So during this panic I have switched to shooting my .22 firearms without worry of running short.

After prices reach a point that I am willing to pay restocking my primer supply will be at the top of the list along with getting some different rifle powders for more flexibility working up loads.

I am not sure what my buy price for primers will be. If it gets below five cents each I will be thinking hard about how much longer do I want to wait.

Can't you buy on line in Penn?

Sure I can. It’s just with hazmat and shipping buying online is usually not such a great deal. I just checked Cabelas and bass pro. Everything says in store only and only $25 to ship if it’s available online. $80 for 1000 plus shipping and tax! Yeah, everything is back to normal!

I ordered 2 bricks of those Argentinian primers and they’ll be here tomorrow. $130 shipped for the two. $70 more than I used to buy right up the block from me.

Welcome to 2023. I think the only options we have at this point is to pay the ransom or stop shooting. Cabela's and BP are not always the best deal. I've found myself using Target Sports and Midway quite a bit. They always seem to have primers and if they don't, it's usually not long before they come back in stock. The other problem I have is that not all of them will ship to Mass. Price wise they're all close but if you watch, some, especially Midway, will have free shipping if you spend 100 bucks so you can save there. I'm not ready to quit the hobby so as long as I can afford it and I think that hording in an attempt to save money is a bit of a fools errand right now. I try to keep enough stuff on hand to carry me through for a while if the supply is interrupted but I don't stock up as a hedge against inflation.

Man, that would be like a dream come true. Federal SPP is my favorite primer. I heard we are getting a Sportsman's Warehouse about 10 miles from my house, but the development is just starting to break ground so no idea how long it will be before that store is built and open.

Rosewood

Shop products in Primers today | CCI Ammunition
What is amazing is the MSRP difference in primers small rifle $59 a 1000, BR 2 $169 a 1000

When I click on the link it says boldly right on top, Not Available Online. And even if they were, 130 bucks for a brick of small rifle primers, then add tax, shipping, and hazmat.

I’ve never said you can’t get them. I said they are hard to get, double the old price(at least), and when you add hazmat and tax, they are way overpriced.

It’s not demand. Ammo is on the shelf. The covid panic buying is over, and all those new shooters bought a box or two in 2020 and probably never even shot the gun. It’s not Ukraine. We’re not using more ammo to supply Ukraine then We do our own military, especially between 2001 and say 2015 when we were in the thick of it over there, and I was buying cases shipped to my door and seeing shelves full of primers at Gander Mountain, for less than $30 a brick. It’s two companies controlling the entire market who discovered that people are happy to pay way more for their product then they used to charge, and they’re taking advantage of that, and hoping we’re too stupid to believe it’s Ukraine’s fault.

I am buying now, and I suggest everyone do the same.
We are in a lull between panic events right now.

Now to be clear, I am not hording at these prices. I shoot less than I used to, and I suspect that will be part of the "new normal" from now on. I have an ok supply of the basics, and I buy enough to cover what I consume plus a little more. Now my focus is on buying the things I don't have and haven't seen in a long time. LPM's are at the top of that list currently.

Primers I think are manufactured in a smaller facility than ammo What they are making is an actual explosive unlike ammo. Sellier & Bellots primer plant blew up or burned a year or three ago.

I don't know if they rebuilt a facility to produce primers for sale or not...I suspect not as I have not seen any available. Prior to that I bought and sold quite a few 100 thousand of their primers. Still have a few 1000

I believe you would be correct about the size of the manufacturing facilities. Just the fact that a primer is so much smaller and requires so much less materials than a round of ammo would mean that the machines and the facility to produce them and to store the materials and store the finished product would be smaller. Probably significantly smaller.
Even though they have to manufacture more primers than the amount of ammo being manufactured in order for there to be some left to sell as components, it makes sense that the required facilities would be smaller. But even smaller facilities also have less room for expansion.

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I agree. I don't like it but I will buy them at a much higher rate than they used to be, but I have my limit. I'm not spending $150 for a brick of SRP's. I just want to be able to walk into my local shop and buy them like I used to, even if they were $80 a brick. $50 more a brick isn't going to break me. I'd happily take an hour ride once a month to Bass Pro or Cabela's, but there is no guarantee they even have them. About two months ago, somebody posted a picture of the shelves at Bass Pro. 95% empty of all primers, and a limit placed on the few bricks that were there. And absolutely no sign of letting up. We are approaching 3 and a half years of this. I'm sure there are a few 50 year veterans of reloading watching this thread. Can they say they have ever seen a drought go on this long?

I bartered some low velocity 22 ammo for 700 primers. Figure those cost me about 4 cents each. I have some I paid $20 /100. So if I use those on 44 magnums and 357s, it is still cheaper than buying ammo, considering that I have lots and lots of cases.

local shop with lots of stock at $100/1000. At 10 cents each, almost everything I load is cheaper than new.

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Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

When I had a bit of connection with Remington I was at Lonoke and seem to remember being told they made primer compound in no larger quantities of a pound at a time...and there was a lot of hand work involved. Don't remember all the details as I was just stopping to get small gauge ammo to take to the World Skeet Shoot for a Remington Rep... me too! They had explosive signs all over the Building. 30 year old recollection

Exactly. Two very important issues you brought up.
1) Small batches. I can't imagine there is ANYTHING else in the ammo manufacturing process that is done in 1-pound batches, but I can sure see why they wouldn't want to mix up larger batches of priming compound. That and the amount of hand labor required means that the "economy of scale" factor is out the window for making primers. Smaller batches + more labor = more cost per batch.
2) Regulations. The requirement for there to be "explosive signs all over the Building" is due to the regulations involved in manufacturing such a volatile product - like primers. Signs are just the most obvious easy to see indication of the regulatory requirements - and that just barely scratches the surface of the actual regulations they have to comply with.
But sure, adding production capacity is easy and cheap - right?

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I used to work at a division of Olin, and worked around explosives as their photographer. If the priming compound is wet, its reasonably safe. You can safely work with larger batches as long as it gets into the primer cups before it dries. So a much larger production process can work, if you have a steady supply of fresh wet compound.

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I don't know anything about making primers, but I do know since I have been shooting (over 30 years now), I can remember bricks of primers on shelves at all times. The standard military purchases every year was well over 1 billion rounds, and from 2001 to 2018 or so, it was approaching 2 billion. And somehow during all that time, with supplying all that to the military and police, primers were cheap and plentiful for the civilian market. There have been a couple of blips, (right after Newtown when I started), but that drought was easing up within months.

Now, they're nowhere to be found unless you're lucky, when you do find them, they're often limited in how many you can buy, and limited in supply for the shops that do get them in, and in many cases three times the price they were in 2020. And Ukraine has very little to do with it.

I did a little research in some old articles .The idea that the compound is an explosive...High Ex but the article said the compound was made in small batches ...kept wet and there was a lot of human interaction was part and parcel of that article. These days of machine/computer controlled engineering may make it safer. Hate to say iy...Safety costs money...big money. And another thing to consider...hiring people costs money...big money. When I hired a new paramedic the first year cost twice their salary and they were already trained. If you think salaries haven't gone up...look at Mickey Ds 18 dollars an hour...for untrained under-achievers. Get someone good and train them to make primers? More...much more. Heck I've always enjoyed playing with making ammo black powder and using all the equipment...but when it comes to making explosives...I gave that up before I turned 21. I got to play with all kinds of toys at one time. I can guarantee you that making primers would be a very restrictive business with All kinds of gummit restrictions and rules. I don't see a conspiracy. Sales equal profits Companies ARE in it for the money. I do remember when reloading wasn't looked on by the ammo companies too happily. I don't think we're coming back to that...but the last 3 years or possibly more have been very hard on the reloading business...especially shotshell reloading. 50-60 dollar shot is a very bad thing for shotgunning. Wad manufacturing has dropped way off with less companies making lots less wads these days. Shotshell primers are way up there too

I can believe the industry is neglecting reloaders. Probably more profit in selling them to ammo manufactures so they can make factory ammo. I do not believe it’s danger in making them or lack of qualified staff, since just three years ago none of that was an issue. The winds may have changed.

I do know I don’t advise anybody to start reloading like I used to. My stuff is long paid for but I wouldn’t t invest the amount I have in equipment if I was starting out today.

I can't help but ask, in what sort of local gun shop does one have to wait 20 minutes for help?

Y'all know there is a plethora of small ammo manufacturers out there these days. Not so many years past there weren't very many at all...and most we're re-manufacturers...of police etc ammo. The big three...Rem Win and Rem ran them out after they got started. Supervel bit the bullet...Browning made it and they closed 'em down Activ...got going good and got priced out of the market...Estate too as well as S&W. The Big three just dropped their prices and a couple years...all gone. I took advantage of the startups as a dealer. Everybody had low prices to start up new companies.. Then the big guys lowered their prices and the smaller concerns just literally could not compete financially. Just to let you know this no longer happens ...and there is no Big three who changed the ebb and flow of the ammo business. The dynamics have changed in more than the ammo/reloading business too. Covid and it's effects changed many things. But really affected the shooting business...but we're not alone...it's a global economy now...LOL

Do have to add...we the reloaders/shooters made the manufacturers aware of what we would pay...because of our fears and greed. Not dissing anyone...just human nature to panic buy...that's what it has been. Panic buying

SCAM, Beware!
In stock:

Federal Premium Gold Medal Large Rifle Magnum Match Primers #215M Box of 1000 (10 Trays of 100) - Midwest Reloads

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S&WHF #946
S&WCA #3824

Never mind, it's a scammer.

FRAUD ALERT -- MIDWEST POWDERS | Sniper's Hide Forum

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S&WHF #946
S&WCA #3824

I loaded up some of these with my Dillon 550 and attempted to fire a box of 50 9mm yesterday. I had about 10 rounds that didn't ignite on the first try. Some didn't until 3 tries. These primers are hard to seat with my Dillon 550, even when I was very careful to make sure that I was pushing the handle all the way. The primers felt like they were seating all the way and none of the primers were stood proud. I bumped the remaining rounds with a Hornady hand primer and got them seated just below flush. I'm hoping that that will solve the trouble. BTW, I never had that trouble with Winchester, CCI, Remington or S&B SPP's.

That’s what I have been saying. The primer manufactures have seen we’re happy to pay triple so they’re charging that. And covid, Ukraine, or supply lines have nothing to do with it.

$95 per brick is almost tempting....
Too bad they aren't legit - thanks for posting the fraud alert.

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OK, so all the manufacturers are conspiring together - somehow - maybe in some smoke-filled back room somewhere?
And sending millions of rounds of ammo per month to the war in Ukraine has no impact on the supply of ammo/reloading components.
Gotcha'

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You’re very obsessed with Ukraine for some reason. 2 billion rounds a year spent in the war in terror for at least 15 years before it dipped to 1 billion. Add in police departments and government law enforcement. Then add in civilian sales. And never a problem getting primers. And cases of ammo for cheap. Ukraine is not the reason for this.

And the all the manufacturers you refer to is 3. And companies have manipulated the market before. It’s all about business. You’re saying their profits are down? Even figuring in higher cost of materials?

We're done here. No useful purpose is now being served.

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