Thread: Primer Shortage...to be continued???

Originally Posted by Burb122

The only people driving up costs ( instead of waiting and trying another hobbie) are those who pay these prices. Retailers monitor this and hyper inflate. It’s as simple as this.

In the northern hemisphere when the primers are found/available again - the price increase is what you would expect in a post covid economy. 50-100 percent increase. Here some tards are paying 500-1000 percent faithfully.

Just buy an Air gun for the mean time. Or focus on small bore.


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How about you do that and sell your reloading gear for non-inflated prices, instead of having the pretension of wanting to tell other people what they should do with THEIR time and money?

By the way that very same attitude made covid into the shitshow it was.

Greetings All,
This is probably a good time to make a plug for minimalist load development. You can burn up a huge stock of components for little return. Don't get me wrong I really enjoy handloading but I balk at blowing away large volumes of components aimlessly with tiny increments and 3 shot groups delivering velocity I would not be happy with. It is a bit more complex with some rounds but the basic principals still apply.

1. Establish what you want to achieve. Collect the available book data and establish what should be possible in your rifle allowing for barrel length and your components. The data should be for the actual projectile you are using.

2. Establish a sensible start load and chronograph a couple of rounds. This will validate the components you are going to use and the likely load for your target velocity. You can use the velocity increase per grain from your book data to make adjustments.

3. Test loads around your target velocity to establish your working load.

You should be able to establish a working load for a hunting rifle with 10 rounds max. This can be refined over time as part of your zero checks.

Regards Grandpamac.

Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings All,
This is probably a good time to make a plug for minimalist load development. You can burn up a huge stock of components for little return. Don't get me wrong I really enjoy handloading but I balk at blowing away large volumes of components aimlessly with tiny increments and 3 shot groups delivering velocity I would not be happy with. It is a bit more complex with some rounds but the basic principals still apply.

1. Establish what you want to achieve. Collect the available book data and establish what should be possible in your rifle allowing for barrel length and your components. The data should be for the actual projectile you are using.

2. Establish a sensible start load and chronograph a couple of rounds. This will validate the components you are going to use and the likely load for your target velocity. You can use the velocity increase per grain from your book data to make adjustments.

3. Test loads around your target velocity to establish your working load.

You should be able to establish a working load for a hunting rifle with 10 rounds max. This can be refined over time as part of your zero checks.

Regards Grandpamac.

Absolutely agree with GPM

I have recently finished 4 rifle builds / rebuilds

One I tried reloads from my other 30-30 And they shoot well enough for its task to just keep using without wasting materials in small improvements

Another I can't get the projectiles I really had in mind when I built the rifle.
So just tried a mid range load of old fashioned powder with some projectiles I had.
Job done and sub moa hunting rifle sorted.

Sure I would like to go back and tweak both of these when components are more readily available but more likely will just use as is.

Also GPM mentioned the cost of load development for small accuracy gains.
The cost of the barrel and its fitting and chambering also needs to be calculated into things and might make components look cheap

But then we do need to accept that load development is a genuine recreational activity in its own right.
For those guys there is no relief in sight, sorry

My back of a scrap of paper calculation is

Bullet dwell time to get up to speed and exit a 600mm long barrel 0.002 Seconds
Barrel that lasts 1500 rounds x dwell time @ 0.002 seconds and your barrel has lasted approx 3 seconds

Caliber that maybe gets 3000 rounds before the barrel goes west
3000x 0.002 seconds equals 6 seconds of barrel life

Maybe you shoot a mild load in a sensible ( some would say boring ) 308, look after your barrel and get 5000 rounds out of it
5000x 0.002 seconds equals 10 seconds of fun

I credit this info to a fallow forum member that put this idea into my brain recently.
It puts into context the time and effort ( and money ) that goes into building decent barrels, profiling, fitting, chambering and finishing rifle barrels

Originally Posted by STC

How about you do that and sell your reloading gear for non-inflated prices, instead of having the pretension of wanting to tell other people what they should do with THEIR time and money?

By the way that very same attitude made covid into the shitshow it was.

I’m good thanks. It’s really hard to educate the daft, especially in regressive economics, so I’ll just stop here. I’m in the GRATEFUL position in not needing to purchase the gear or consumables.

But I will state openly that I would not gouge my fellow enthusiasts with hyper inflated prices on a money making exercise.

You don’t have to like that but the next guy will.

Pic of what Americans are paying per 1000. Was $45 pre covid.




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Originally Posted by Burb122

I’m good thanks. It’s really hard to educate the daft, especially in regressive economics, so I’ll just stop here. I’m in the GRATEFUL position in not needing to purchase the gear or consumables.

But I will state openly that I would not gouge my fellow enthusiasts with hyper inflated prices on a money making exercise.

You don’t have to like that but the next guy will.

Pic of what Americans are paying per 1000. Was $45 pre covid.




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So instead of selling your primers for a price that you would deem to be "fair" you just keep hoarding them, which essentially means infinite price while bitching and moaning about people that actually help making sure everyone that absolutely needs primers can still get them while making a bit of a profit?

hypocricy at its best, and when called out on it starting insults.

thats more than enough gents......time to agree to disagree and move on please

Originally Posted by 7mm Rem Mag

A few folk on here were bitching when primers went to $20 per hundred, I bought 500 to make sure I had enough for my hunting needs. Now they are $50 for 100, just buy them or soon they will be $100 for 100 and so on.

^^^ This is what stuffs it! Not to point the finger totally at you bud. But…If this ^^^ stopped until supply resumes (there not 1950s cars, primers are still a modern production). They wouldn’t be $400-500-600 (who knows now) a brick when they hit the shelves next year. Retailer will be making over $300 profit each brick.

Again I’m ok for primers. I just feel for the guys who are not. And perhaps walk away from the hobby. It’s pretty rough at there man.


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Originally Posted by akaroa1

My back of a scrap of paper calculation is

Bullet dwell time to get up to speed and exit a 600mm long barrel 0.002 Seconds
Barrel that lasts 1500 rounds x dwell time @ 0.002 seconds and your barrel has lasted approx 3 seconds

Caliber that maybe gets 3000 rounds before the barrel goes west
3000x 0.002 seconds equals 6 seconds of barrel life

Maybe you shoot a mild load in a sensible ( some would say boring ) 308, look after your barrel and get 5000 rounds out of it
5000x 0.002 seconds equals 10 seconds of fun

I credit this info to a fallow forum member that put this idea into my brain recently.
It puts into context the time and effort ( and money ) that goes into building decent barrels, profiling, fitting, chambering and finishing rifle barrels

So is that like being married and working out the price of sexual occurrences divided by the number of years in service multiplied by the gratification in seconds ...oh ho now I have the headache

Originally Posted by Burb122

^^^ This is what stuffs it! Not to point the finger totally at you bud. But…If this ^^^ stopped until supply resumes (there not 1950s cars, primers are still a modern production). They wouldn’t be $400-500-600 (who knows now) a brick when they hit the shelves next year. Retailer will be making over $300 profit each brick.

Again I’m ok for primers. I just feel for the guys who are not. And perhaps walk away from the hobby. It’s pretty rough at there man.


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Ha ha funny guy, good luck with asking people to walk away from hunting just so you can buy cheap primers in 3 years time.

I want to put food on the table for my family and I won't let an extra $10 for primers stop me however you are welcome to do whatever floats your boat.

I mean this all in the nicest possible way so please don't take offence and please feel free to give up hunting for 3 years if you want to as its your choice however I will continue and I will enjoy ever minute of it.

Originally Posted by 7mm Rem Mag

Ha ha funny guy, good luck with asking people to walk away from hunting just so you can buy cheap primers in 3 years time.

I want to put food on the table for my family and I won't let an extra $10 for primers stop me however you are welcome to do whatever floats your boat.

I mean this all in the nicest possible way so please don't take offence and please feel free to give up hunting for 3 years if you want to as its your choice however I will continue and I will enjoy ever minute of it.

I don’t cheat , I use a bow and a muzzle loader for hunting. Way more fun. It’s so easy with a scope ya just give the meat away.


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Originally Posted by 7mm Rem Mag

Ha ha funny guy, good luck with asking people to walk away from hunting just so you can buy cheap primers in 3 years time.

I want to put food on the table for my family and I won't let an extra $10 for primers stop me however you are welcome to do whatever floats your boat.

I mean this all in the nicest possible way so please don't take offence and please feel free to give up hunting for 3 years if you want to as its your choice however I will continue and I will enjoy ever minute of it.

And don’t take offence to this, but that’s just the same attitude as the gun ban - helping screw over the rest of the enthusiasts again in the country again.

It doesn’t effect me so I don’t care.


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