The Great Ammo Scare of a couple years ago caught me flat footed regarding small pistol primers, with which I prime my Hornet cases. My 86 year old shooting buddy donated a couple sleeves of truly ancient Alcan SP primers from his mountain of supplies that largely dates back to the 60's. I immediately noticed a marked improvement with my Hornet cast bullet loads (which have largely replaced my .22RF shooting) over those previously loaded with CCI SP primers. Then I found myself dreading running out of them and having to go back to "modern" primers. Frank laughed and gave me the rest of his stash- a whole case of them.
He also gave me a large pile of old (30's-40's vintage?) FA-70 primers (Frankford Arsenal). Corrosive LR primers used for all gov't rifle ammo from the 20's to the early 50's, but with the reputation among handloaders of a bygone era as being very consistent in nature and immune to adverse storage conditions/usage conditions (which was why the gov't stuck with them long after the rest of the country went to non-corrosive types). What the heck, I thought, might as well try them. Darned if they don't work beautifully (no accuracy difference from the Holy CCI's I normally use) and are a welcome addition to the "rainy day" primer stash. So what if I have to thoroughly clean the bore after shooting them- I clean it anyway.
