Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Is anyone lobbying the manufacturers for primers?

We know that the manufacturers lobby writers to test and advertise their products. Is there any serious conversations going on about the lack of primers killing a generation of young reloaders from the other direction?
Best regards,
F01

It's mostly old men hoarding everything that comes out that is keeping young reloaders from reloading.

I would not disagree with you on the hoarding issue. But do you have any data that says it's the old men causing the problem?

Not so sure about that .
Have visited lgs within a 40-50 mile radius every two to three weeks and most either can’t get them or seem to be able to get small pistol and rifle primers but no luck with large rifle or pistol primers .
Seem to be available on the net , don’t understand why the lgs can’t get them .
By the net I mean private owned business, not gun broker or any of those gypsy laden sights .
When you find them they seem to run 120-140 per thousand .
Kenneth

Those hoards, however many there actually are, were acquired before the current situation arose and have nothing to do with the current mess. It’s long been known that ammunition producers get first crack at the primer supply, many also being the makers of the primers they use. Once the ammo situation stabilizes, the primer supply will increase, and prices will drop a bit as well I suspect. Ammo is already becoming more readily available, and prices are coming down. Primers are popping up here and there, and sometimes stay available for some days, a sign that the desperate have gotten enough to feel somewhat secure. Once they’re commonly available, the supply will continue to increase, barring another upheaval of some sort.

A year ago, everything associated with handloading was scarce, a natural consequence of the scarcity of ammo market. I had a hard time putting together a set of dies for 9mm, which I never bothered to load when prices were low. Now, I’m loath to use primers that will cost $.10 to replace when good factory ammo is down to $.30 each. OTOH, those same primers serve very well in other rounds like .38 Special, .357, and .22 Hornet, for which factory ammo has never been really cheap, so will be reserved for those unless I run out of cheap 9s.

No, because the causes of this "shortage" are the same as all the previous shortages going back to the 1-2 year primer shortage in the late 1990s after the passage of the Clinton "assault rifle ban." Many handloaders thought all their guns and ammo were going to become "illegal" and started hoarding--and the big item was primers. This was because a rumor started going around that "new government rules" were somehow changing the way primers were made, so they'd all "go dud" within six months. Consequently handloaders started buying up all the "old style" primers they could find, and some were so paranoid that they started stuffing them inside PVC pipe and burying the pipes in their yards.

Same basic thing has happened in various ways during every component/ammo buying panic since, though often to different sorts of stuff. Obama's reelection somehow caused shooters to start hoarding rimfire ammunition, especially .22 Long Rifle. This lasted for a year or more, until most shooters figured they had enough. Not so oddly, one of the items I've been seeing plenty of in local stores is .22 Long Rifle ammo, probably because many folks are still shooting all the ammo they bought back then.

One of the interesting stories here on the Campfire was a guy who bragged about how he "got around" the 1-brick limit for .22 Long Rifles at a local store. He brought a "disguise" with him and left it in his pickup while he went into the store and bought his one brick. He then took the brick out to his pickup, changed his jacket and hat, and put on a pair of sunglasses--and went back inside and bought another brick.

I also was in a store that had the same deal--one brick per customer--during that period, right after a bunch of .22 ammo had been just delivered. Not only were people crowded around trying to grab a brick before it was all gone, but they were taking photos with their cell phones, then sending the photos to friends, who then showed up to join in the hoarding frenzy.

Every manufacturer I was personally acquainted with back then was running their plants 24/7 by putting on extra shifts. This included CCI in Idaho, where they were cranking out not just rimfire ammo but primers to feed the demand.

What has happened every time this sort of hoarding panic has occurred before is that after a year, or a little longer, it starts to subside, again because those who were "caught short" suddenly decide they have a sufficient supply. The other thing that happens is some people buy up whatever they can find that's in short supply, then sell it at higher prices. This is why Hodgdon's website notes that the powder they're selling when it become it's available is "NOT FOR RESALE," which obviously means squat to resellers.

Now, I can understand why somebody young enough to have just started reloading would wonder what the hell's going, and blame the manufacturers, because they've never seen this occur before. But I have, going back to the Clinton "dud primer" rumors, and so far the panic-buying/hoarding eventually slows down, and then ceases, when everybody who feels the need to hoard quits buying--which of course also stops the resellers from buying. A year or two after the Obama rimfire panic I was at a local garage sale, and the guy had obviously been a reseller, because he had stacks of .22 rimfire that still had the super-high price stickers on from when he'd been reselling. And nobody was buying any.

Oh, and I have yet to encounter any of the "go-dud primers" that supposedly were going to replace all the "real primers" during the Clinton panic.

A while back it was “fashionable” here to suggest that retailers raise prices to discourage hoarding and also resellers. Haven’t seen any of that lately, just grousing about the high prices. The current prices and limits are certainly discouraging hoarding, but from posts here the resellers are just cranking up the price to give themselves “room”. $150 sounds like the going rate for a brick at gunshows.

Those were some interesting times.


Got to know the evening gun department clerk at my local Walmart and would frequent a coupla times a week, to check on their stock.

One evening, he was puttin' out a case of .22 LR, and it was disappearing as it hit the shelf.

After the last brick was grabbed, the grumbling and surly crown dispersed and went home.

I stuck around to say hello, and along the way asked if there was any more .22 LR in the back.

So he went and checked, and was gone a long time.


Came back carrying another case and put it on the counter.

Said an employee must have squirreled it away for themselves, because it was hidden in some other place.


Then I said in jest, "If there's a one box limit... I'll take that one."


He looked down, smiled, and then sold it to me.

Ha!

Good times...




GR

Listened to 2 old guys at the range chatting about their stash of primers large enough to pass on to their kin after they die.

I guess I'm a hoarder, sorta kinda. Over the decades as I bought brick upon bricks of .22 target ammo to shoot I would typically fire 1/2 -2/3 of them and put the remainder on the shelf. Repeated enough times over 30-40 years and the "remaindered" pile grew and grew. Without consciously trying to I guess that made me a hoarder as I've weathered every dry spell handily. Pretty much ditto with all sizes of primers too. I guess laziness and forgetfulness has its strong points.

I never used to keep much ammo on hand, and typically loaded 100 rounds at a time for deer hunting, minus the ones fired for work-up, then used them until I felt I need more for the coming season. .22s were purchased a few boxes at a time until my sons started burning them up in bulk. When the first Obama panic hit, I would stop at the Whatamart near my office on my way home and pick up whatever they had, if any, mostly bulk Win and Fed, until I had a few thousand. Still have most of those, minus the ones I have given away or shot in handguns where their crappy accuracy wasn’t an issue. When I retired I started getting more serious about rimfires, and when I found something my guns liked, I bought a few bricks. A lot of what I have now are leftovers from loads that were surpassed by something else, or when new lots were less accurate than the previous ones. Pretty well fixed for now, and definitely am not in the market for just-because bulk crap because I never just blast away to stir up dust like some I see at the range, and there aren’t any squeaks or other bulk vermin around here.

After the first shortage(I never ran out ) I try and keep enough components to last me through a few years of shooting.

Primer shortage.

A major supplier(Remington) went tits up and is only getting back in operation.

Wolf or any other Russian primers are no longer being imported.

Large quantities of ammo is being loaded for the war in Ukraine and other European countries are stock piling ammo incase the war spreads over the Ukraine border

Japan and Taiwan are stock piling for fear that China might go on the rampage

Plus US ammo manufactures are using a lot to restock the shelves with ammo after the last panic ammo buying spree.

Pretty much the whole world is clamoring for primers, so I'm not surprised that they are hard to find.

Kind of puts me in mind of what I've heard tell about what the situation was like during WWII when zero ammo/components were to be had. My maternal grandfather being a farmer had a ration card that allowed him a few shotshells and .22's, ostensibly for vermin control in an industry essential to the war effort. Not being a hunter himself, he religiously exercised his option to buy and kept kith-and-kin supplied with enough stuff to keep birds and rabbits on the table.

What mildly surprises me today is the number of folks who fritter away precious supplies of primers, ammo, and .22's on frivolous plinking and "mag dumps". Don't they know "there's a war on" ? Hoarded supplies or not, what if the situation grows worse (and it can, but I truly hope not) and we find ourselves in another WWII-like ammo shortage? My advice: put a bunch aside, if you have it, and don't touch it.

Yes, younger guys that reload have jobs.

Older men have been around a long time and they got caught short a long time ago, now they know better.

Yup..... Except I've never been caught real short but don't consider myself a hoarder either. Even in the first term of Clinton there were some supply issues with things like .22 LR but nothing like the Obama shortages. It was Obama that taught me to keep enough stuff on hand that I wouldn't have to worry for a few years. That's my standard procedure and it has served me well. Live & learn.

erich,

All good points.

The other point I should probably point out is that MOST hunters aren't handloaders--probably somewhere around 90%. As a result, during times like these (where some handloaders try to "hoard") companies that produce both primers and ammo are using more of the primers they make in factory loads--especially starting about now, because a lot of hunters will be expecting to buy some ammo for the fall season.

As a more general comment, am always amazed at "shortage" threads like these, which are generally started by somebody who sees some vast conspiracy on the part of ammo and component companies to produce less--usually to drive up prices, though one post I read a month or so ago suggested that somehow Joe Biden was forcing bullet/powder/primer companies to produce less.

During the Obama rimfire shortage, I tried to spread the rumor that Barack and Michelle really liked to shoot ground squirrels, the reason all the rimfire ammo was going to secret government warehouses. But apparently that was too much to believe even for conspiracy theorists.

I took off work this past Tuesday for a dental appointment that did not last near as long as they said it would. Anyways, I went home and got my crap and went to the range. There was a group of about 6 old men there shooting and about 3 or 4 of them were bragging about their stash of primers and how they have enough to last a couple of life times. They were all snickering about how they don’t have to work and know when local shipments come in and they are in line when they stores open up to get them before anyone else can. So, yeah, I’d say some old people are the problem, not all, but some are.

Try as I may, my mind is incapable of conjuring up a mental image of Barack & Michelle gopher hunting. Unbelievable for sure.

Once the current nonsense is over I’ll go back to buying like I used to….. a little each month…..