Primers

This situation sucks. I recently bought the gear, read the loading manuals in anticipation of starting to load my own in retirement, and no primers. Anybody remember how long the last shortage I’ve been reading about lasted?

There hasn't been a shortage like this in the 50 years that I have been loading. In the past there has been hoarding, but at least the manufacturers continued to ship primers.
 
This situation sucks. I recently bought the gear, read the loading manuals in anticipation of starting to load my own in retirement, and no primers. Anybody remember how long the last shortage I’ve been reading about lasted?

The last 20 years have seen multiple shortages, to the point that shortages are almost as common as normal times.

Going by memory, 2003-2006 was primarily loaded ammo, I'm sure some components were also affected. This was caused by the US government fighting 2 wars and starting up multiple new agencies in the wake of Sept.11, 2001.

Threats of gun control after the Newtown, CT shooting drove another shortage around 2012 that lasted maybe 6 months. I seem to remember powder was the worst hit.

2015-16 was another bad run, primers and rimfire ammo were most affected. I forget what drove that. But it did inspire me to buy 20,000 primers around 2018 when supply returned to normal, which is what got me through the last couple of years.
 
I picked up 2k Campro Ginex primers at the last gun show in my area and found that they don’t work reliably in my 45s. May have to learn how to make my own primers.

Install a stronger hammer spring, Campro primers are HARD and require substantially more force to consistently ignite.
 
Install a stronger hammer spring, ....

Horses for courses, right?

Semiauto milsurp rifle shooter: "Federal primers are garbage, they cause slamfires. CCI are the best."

Finely tuned revolver shooter: "CCI primers are garbage, they cause misfires. Federal are the best."
 
I picked up 2k Campro Ginex primers at the last gun show in my area and found that they don’t work reliably in my 45s. May have to learn how to make my own primers.

then its your 45, or your reloading.

Heaver hammer spring or extended firing pin would work.

I have over 50k used mysef personally and not one hasn't gone bang. I have many fellow shooters that have no issues also. Over 1.5 millon sold with more return customers every time.

Guiex primers are a bit harder than CCI, but if the gun is set up properly there should be no issue.

You get the odd one flattend a bit being pushed into crimped brass, but they still go bang. The reason for this is that they are metric sized and not the typical imperical sizing like N.American companies like Federal, CCI, Winchester, etc.... they would crush if the primers pockets of crimped brass aren't swaged properly.
 
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Install a stronger hammer spring, Campro primers are HARD and require substantially more force to consistently ignite.

I keep hearing people say this, and the exact opposite that the primers are super soft. My experience is that the SPPs are ridiculously soft. Maybe it varies greatly from SPP to LPP to SRP, and even from batch to batch of each.
 
Horses for courses, right?

Semiauto milsurp rifle shooter: "Federal primers are garbage, they cause slamfires. CCI are the best."

Finely tuned revolver shooter: "CCI primers are garbage, they cause misfires. Federal are the best."

I have to laugh a bit at people claiming FEDERAL PRIMERS are junk.

The US military "Match Ammunition" was almost always loaded using FEDERAL 210M primers for their 30-06 and 7.62x51 rounds. Admittedly their match rounds were usually loaded with lower pressures for the 300 yd ranges but most people don't or can't shoot that far anyway.
 
I keep hearing people say this, and the exact opposite that the primers are super soft. My experience is that the SPPs are ridiculously soft. Maybe it varies greatly from SPP to LPP to SRP, and even from batch to batch of each.

I've heard the same thing but I did test a 100 count tray of Campro small rifle primers in a load for my Tikka T3X, chambered for 223rem.

This rifle has a reduced coil firing pin spring and when the strike was made, the firing pin just bounced off, hardly leaving an impression.

I assumed the small pistol or large pistol primers would be the same. My bad
 
I've heard the same thing but I did test a 100 count tray of Campro small rifle primers in a load for my Tikka T3X, chambered for 223rem.

This rifle has a reduced coil firing pin spring and when the strike was made, the firing pin just bounced off, hardly leaving an impression.

I assumed the small pistol or large pistol primers would be the same. My bad

Likewise I assumed for the longest time that the LPP and SRP were as soft as the SPP. But it does make sense that SRP would be hard.
 
There’s some clown on the ee who wants to trade 200 large rifle primers for 1500 large pistol or mag primers
WTF is wrong with people? Bloody crooks!
 
There’s some clown on the ee who wants to trade 200 large rifle primers for 1500 large pistol or mag primers
WTF is wrong with people? Bloody crooks!

Actually that sounds about right. You’d be lucky to get a brick of LR or LRM primers for 500 at auction, but pistol primers go cheap if 100 a is cheap. Is it crazy? Sure it is; but the world is crazy right now
 
There’s some clown on the ee who wants to trade 200 large rifle primers for 1500 large pistol or mag primers
WTF is wrong with people? Bloody crooks!

He'll look pretty smart when he uses the Large Pistol Magnum Primers in his rifles, they're pretty close to the averag Standard Large Rifle Primer.

There were folks at the last gunshow I attended as a vendor doing the same thing.
 
Not sure if I would want to use a Large pistol magnum primer in a rifle unless I knew for sure they would be ok
I never even thought about trying it as I don't want anything bad to happen to my rifles
Have heard you can interchange small pistol and small rifle though
Got lots of magnum pistol primers I won't run out of them anytime soon as I only use them in my 44 mag
 
He'll look pretty smart when he uses the Large Pistol Magnum Primers in his rifles, they're pretty close to the averag Standard Large Rifle Primer.

There were folks at the last gunshow I attended as a vendor doing the same thing.

He will really look smart if he tries to load pistol primers to 60,000psi, and they leak or rupture, because they are not designed for that much pressure.
 
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