My last primer order was 5k spp delivered for $475. They delivered this week. Decided a long time ago I would keep at least a 3 year supply on hand.

I remember when primers were $35 per 5k at pistol matches.

The days of primers costing less than 4 cents each have come and gone.

Still a significant savings to reloading even with inflated prices.  Not to mention I get to load the exact ammo I want for the task at hand.

Inflation and supply chain issues will come and go. The joy of reloading continues.

Primer making is pretty much inherently a part-manual activity.

Here’s a YouTube video about how Federal makes their primers:

So the video shows us that they still do it "Old School"  I wonder what they use as a primer compound is. I guess they use new types vs the old mercury fulminate.

And I noticed today that there are still people bidding up primers. Some paying 100 bucks for 300 Magnum LRP !! Don't seem to getting any better at all on the big site.

NOBODY uses mercury fulminate anymore.  Mercury makes brass brittle, and fulminate is a pain to handle while making primers.

Federal has historically used a different priming compound formula than most other primer makers.  Some folks say that this makes their primers “more sensitive,” but that term isn’t entirely due to the compound used.  Primer cup thickness and hardness are big players in sensitivity.

$69 is a bargain, I turned my nose at $89 two months ago .

A vendor in AL has Expansion Industries primers listed (but not in stock) on their website. Their asking price (plus state sales tax and HAZMAT shipping) is just as high as primers from CCI and Winchester. If this is Expansion Industries MAP people are going to be disappointed.

Rec'd email notification from Brownells that they had CCI standard small rifle primers in stock.

Price: $95 + sales tax and Hazmat.

Uh, NO.

+87

I see SPP at shows for $125 and up.

Sportsman's Warehouse opened a new store near me, and they were selling primers for $5/100 for regular and about $8.80/100 for match primers.  200/primers limit.  I was surprised that they still had stock a week later, though it was pretty low.

No large rifle.  I did finally manage to get enough small pistol magnum to work up a load I'm looking at.  

I am trying to find LRP and it just seems to be getting worse. best I can find is 165+10 for 1G CCI milspec NO.34. Damn, then I looked at the price of 308 ammo and that has gone through the roof.

You would think by now, prices would be going down  

Tired of buying primers at $100+/1K? Then stop buying them.

The problem is that as long as people are willing to shell out that kind of money there is no disincentive for sellers to lower their price.

"Hey, 9mm ammo is $.50 a round but I can reload it for $.35 so it makes sense to pay $120.00 for this brick. This is exactly the problem.

There is a really well known supplier that has had #400's, #450's, and #550's in stock since Friday (5k limit). Price stayed the same all weekend and into yesterday. Just looked and they are still in stock but they increased everything by almost $10.

Part of the problem is indeed the “sure I’ll pay out my wazoo” mentality.  That’s not all of the problem though.

The pandemic hit every industry, including ammunition manufacturing.  Lower staffing - especially with a very sensitive manufacturing process like primers - means that output dropped.  But contracts don’t care about pandemics, and so contracts were fulfilled with (most of) the primer output most makers could manage.

And then “Joe Panic Buyer”, figured it was the ammo-pocalypse and mortgaged his trailer to buy everything he could.  Loaded ammunition, components, everything.  And that snowballed.

If I could find them, I’d buy a couple thousand small pistol and one k of large pistol.  One brick at a time would be fine, too.  Then I’d stop until I was starting to run really low.  The trouble is that old Mr. Panic Buyer is still convinced we’re in the ammo-pocalypse, and until the bank takes his trailer, he’s going to keep stacking it deeper and deeper, like any good hoarder would.  And he’s up 24/7 refreshing those web sites to see when stuff is in stock so he can buy them out.  Again.

Not sure if this is the right place for it, but as there is every day, a lot of talk about primers, which got me thinking.

I did a quick search via Google and didn't see much in the way of recent updates regarding the Expansion Industries project in Texas, so I emailed them since their website is up (with ammo even). I asked about cost too.

This is their response from 17 May:

"Hey thanks for the email. Primers are about to begin production and we are shooting to have them available for retail customers sometime in the summer. We currently only make primers but we will be making brass and bullets soon as well."

Didn't answer much, but maybe some additional relief come summer...

It’s reason to hope, anyway.

Exactly! Until everyone buys enough to be comfortable this cycle will continue.

In October of 2019 I bought about 15K of various primers. Not to hoard, but because I was low and Brownells had good prices and free shipping and HAZMAT.  I don't ever like to get below 5K of each type of primer because I remember the panics of 1994, 1999, 2008, and 2013. I wasn't even old enough to buy ammo in 1994 but I remember how hard it was to buy a single box of primers to reload ammo for deer season that year.

So every few years I make a large order when I find a good deal.

I haven't bought any primers for myself since then. I load all the ammo I want or need because I stocked components when they were available and cheap.

Hording primers, powder, and bullets at this time is silly and a waste of money. Buy only what you need and wait for the prices to come back down.

Rare score at Palmetto State Armory's Columbia location: Federal SPP $6.99/100 limit 2. My travel partner has no need of them so he bought another two so I could get 400.  Given there were six trays left they were probably sold out five minutes later.