Magnum Rifle Primers - Is U.S. running low?

blacksmithden

blacksmithden

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I live among the creatures of the night (Edmonton)
I'm not putting a lot of weight in this yet, but I got an interesting phone call today.
The company I work for imports a lot of heavy equipment from the U.S. One of the guys who works in technical support for one of our suppliers called one of our other service techs today. He told him that he can't find magnum rifle primers anywhere south of the border and found on the net that we have lots up here. Apparently, the U.S. military has the market pretty much bought out right now. He asked our tech if he could pick some up for him and ship him a box of Federal magnum rifle primers. My fellow service tech called me because he knows I reload. I told him about the headaches he was going to have shipping them legally....blah blah blah...and that was the end of that.
What the heck is going on with the supply, or is this guy from the U.S. just off his rocker???? Anybody heard anything???? Anybody having a hard time finding components/supplies??? I know the prices of things are going up like crazy but are things becomming upavailable all together for anyone???
 
If it is true, I'd doubt the military are using "civillian" style primers, but perhaps they've got the manufacturers so damned busy building their stuff, they don't have the manufacturing capacity to make stuff for us too???? Damned if I know. Maybe this guy secretly owns shares in Federal, and he's trying to start a panic rush???? I have no idea. How much ammo are they using over there anyway???? I thought the invasion was over, and it was now a "stabilize and hold" type operation in both Iraq and Afganistan. Main objective is now to keep the peace while not getting blown to hell by and IED.
 
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I've read on other boards that Federal isn't making any civillian component sales right now. Their military contracts are taking up all their effort and giving them more profit.
I'm willing to bet that we will soon see all kinds of components dry up.
 
I've been hearing that for about a year now, yet I haven't had any trouble obtaining primers recently other than Federal match. But I've decided not to buy federal primers anymore anyway because I HATE the packaging. 1,000 federal primers takes as much shelf space as 5,000 winchester, or other.
 
I guess I'm going to have to go out and pick some up after all. I just picked up a Stevens 200 in 300 win mag. God, I'm a 30-30 lever action guy from WAY back, and I've never hunted with anything else. Man, we're playing with "BIG MEDICINE" now :D I'm just guessing that it'll kick a little harder than my 30-30 :D
Hi ho, hi ho, off to the reloading section I go.
 
If anything, an alarmist rumor, if taken seriously, will trigger a shortage in primer supply. This will leave everybody else in need, right before hunting season....:runaway:

The magnum primers are missing because of the recent "magnumitis" in the hunting folk population :cool:
 
In the early or mid 90's, there was a rumour of some new law coming down that would make all primers go bad (no longer fire) in a year or two.
That started a huge rush on the existing ones.
Eventually, as everyone bought what they could, and the factories pumped out what htey could, it came to the satuaration point.
It was soon after that I started going to gun shows in WA.
After the saturation point had occured, primers where everywhere, and cheap, so I bought them by the flat of 5000.
5000 is the amount that is allowed to be imported, so that worked out fine.
I still have lots!

So the moral of the story is...
Buy it when you can, becuase you never know when you can't
 
Seems like every time a guy tries to buy any reloading component and it's not in stock, the reason must be a shortage, and off we go.
 
Wholesale Sports in Saskatoon has a good supply of primers in their display case, I bought a thousand CCI large rifle match on Friday.
 
A friend just came back from a weekend trip to Washington state. He and his wife picked up 5000 each of standard and magnum rifle primers, a total of 10,000 between them. No problems at all. bearhunter
 
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