Somebody really needs to create an independent Canadian primer fab

This has been fun to read. I think OP should put on some safety glasses, put a primer on a hard surface and smash it with a hammer. Now think about the challenges of mixing tens of kilograms of the stuff that milligrams just blew up like that. Insurance would be fun.
 
There truly is a case to be made that it could work. War is forcing Nato to restock ammunition in numbers they haven't since the cold war. So we will probably be low on primers for the next few years. But knowing how Canada operates, it would would take years to even get the bureaucrats off their ass to allow you to do it.
 
Ribstaylor said:
There truly is a case to be made that it could work. War is forcing Nato to restock ammunition in numbers they haven't since the cold war. So we will probably be low on primers for the next few years. But knowing how Canada operates, it would would take years to even get the bureaucrats off their ass to allow you to do it.
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This theme of "there would be be too much red tape" comes-up repeatedly. I don't dispute the challenges. I think some of the challenges can be addressed by HOW you go about it.

The metal fab work could be done anywhere without any special licenses or insurances. In fact, an entrepreneur who takes-up the opportunity could even be someone with an existing stamping operation who wants to redeploy his or her operations to produce primer cups and anvils. Otherwise the the new primer fabricator could skip any need for a plant to stamp-out the metal parts by just buying empty primer cups and anvils on the open market (if available), or the operator could subcontract-out the stamping of anvils and primers to someone looking for that business.

This of course leads to the licensing and insurance to be a burden for just the final operations, relating to priming the metal parts with compound, assembling the primers and packaging these for shipment.

The size of a facility necessary to do this work wouldn't be very big. A small assembly operation would be easier and cheaper to get permits and insurance for, compared to some huge plant. If the primer chemistry avoided using the Lead Styphnate formula, in favour of using one of the newer formulas for "green primers", that might help with approvals - because Lead Styphnate is particularly dangerous, unhealthy stuff, which is probably going to be phased-out soon anyway.

There may be people who already have the necessary "explosives licences" that they aren't fully using - which could be leveraged, rather than someone with no history seeking one of these licenses out, from scratch. I can think of Higginson Powders, Marstar the people who used to run Bear Reloading out of the Kingston area, etc. It would be easy to get the list of all those with explosives licenses - via an Access to Information Request - and the entrepreneur could run-down that list to identify potential operating partners, or whatever. I've already spoken, in a very preliminary way, with one company that I believe has the right licenses and insurances and which even might have an area on their property that might be able to accommodate a small final assembly operation.

There are some very knowledgeable people who've already come-up with some really good ideas and things I didn't know about. Any other suggestions that might reduce the challenges relating to licensing and insurances will be welcomed here. For all I know, some welding shops might even have some of the necessary licenses and insurances or might have licenses, etc. that can be upgraded. In the same vein, I like the idea from the guy who said "do it on First Nations land and get the Feds to pay for the operation's set-up"(!)

Like I have said, nothing worthwhile is ever easy but the profit potential is such that a motivated entrepreneur would have a strong incentive to find THE solution. The challenges are such that if the entrepreneur can find the right partners (maybe that one great partner out there) and navigate the bureaucracy, then they can expect to keep the profit levels high. This is because the big-4 have no interest in filling market demand for primers and - unlike setting-up a restaurant - no one is going to try to immediately copy your success and set-up to compete with you. Permitting requirements could be a barrier to entry that - once surmounted - would serve to keep the competition-out!

Yes, in this sense, challenges can be your friend.
 
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I looked into a primer cup and anvil stamping machine. I think it was a little over $100k usd for the machine. Which isn’t that bad, but coming up with catalyst for the primer might be the issue, unless one could purchase the formula form a company like Federal. But I’m not a chemist or an explosives expert. So I don’t know. But overall the machine is pretty simple. There’s a video on YouTube on how primers are made. Its pretty straightforward. I think we could use a primer manufacturer in Canada, powder would be great too. Really at the end of the day its just money. Anything can be done with enough money.
 
People may find this interesting.


One thing I find interesting is he is using a "new" priming compound which isn't lead-free but uses what seems to be much safer ingratiates that normal commercial primers. The priming compound is not corrosive and is only activated at the end of the primer filling operation with a drop of water.

That compound is called EPH20. There are tutorials etc. about this at https://aardvarkreloading.com/index.html

The person in the video says that they have calculated that the cost of remanufacturing old primers this way works out to $4.00 per thousand.

I'd still like to see someone set-up a micro fab in Canada to make new primers from scratch but this video, etc. gives some useful comment about chemistry, materials handling etc. at a very small scale.

Anybody know anything about EPH20?
 
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