Reloading SitRep

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For those of you that reload, supplies are starting to trickle in.

The Outdoor Rec Center on Ft Lewis actually has primers! They had CCI brand, small rifle, small pistol, large rifle, and large pistol magnum. No regular large pistol though. The price went up to ~$35 a K though.

Cabela’s has dies in, as soon as I bought some 10mm dies through the internet of course. They have some brass, but most popular handgun calibers are still out. I remember seeing .38 special, .44 mag, and 40 S&W. No primers but they did have a decent selection of powder. AMMO: Still sparse in handgun calibers, decent selection of rifle calibers though. .223 was running about 45 cents a round.


Warehouse Sports in Lacy and Federal Way has a pretty good selection of powder, no primers, and a few bags of brass in .44 Mag, .45ACP, and 9mm. They have a decent selection of bullets. AMMO: Some American eagle, 9mm was $15 a box. Some other calibers in the same brand, but the more specialty stuff like self protection HP is still out.


Bullseye in Tacoma has some primers, of course with price-gouger pricing as we have come to expect from them. They have a little powder and some bullets. No brass to speak of although the upstairs range has quite a bit of used brass.

Mary's in Tacoma has a decent selection of ammo in the popular calibers, and some of the less popular too.

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Thanks Mainsail. That's good to hear.

MD

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Sitrep in Wenatchee is,lots of primers ecept large pistol,price is down to around $30 a K,bullets,powder,no problem.

We need to remember who gouged us when times were lean,we should start a list of the worst rip-off outfits and the ones who held steady also,AIM surplus did not raise prices one cent,yet some of our home state boys screwed us hard for the fast buck.

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For a guy like me thats still new to reloading can you use large pistol magnum primers for 45 acp? I am doing a search for this info myself but any help I will take.



Thanks okkid........

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okkid wrote:

For a guy like me thats still new to reloading can you use large pistol magnum primers for 45 acp? I am doing a search for this info myself but any help I will take.



Thanks okkid........

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If you don't load near or at the maximum load for your caliber magnum primers work just fine for non-magnum cartridges. I loaded over 1,000 small pistol magnum primers in my 9mm loads. There were no signs of excess pressure and accuracy was better than OK. Magnum primers are misunderstood. Yes, the primer material is "hotter" but since there is not all that much of it it doesn't contribute that much to the overall output of the charge. It is designed to ignite powders that sometimes can be hard to get to burn completely thus giving full power behind the bullet. Another feature of the "magnum" primer is the thicker metal in the "cup". When loading true magnum loads like .357 or .44 mags the internal pressures are definitely higher. A standard primer cup might well blow out at the firing pin dimple. Not good for long gun life.

Just start with a reduced load and work up to one that functions well in your gun without showing signs of overpressure like flattened primers or "flowing" around the firing pin dimple.

FWIW, magnum primers are recommended for AR-15 loads due to the thicker metal in the cup. Helps prevent slamfires in the autoloading rifles. I use nothing but Wolf Small Rifle Magnum Primers for mine and load right at the maximum load. Thousands of rounds with no issues and I am able to reload my cases at least 4 or more times.

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Thanks for the info as I have 200 large pistol magnum primers for 45 acp and will do some up today and get back with you on how they work. STill doing some reading on them but this sure did help a lot. Again Thank you so much for the info.

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Those CCI primers at Ft Lewis - were they in the APS plastic strips by any chance?

I recently received an order of primers from Cabela's so I'm in good shape, but I can't find the CCI's in strips anywhere.

I have an RCBS Pro 2000 reloader and those strips really save time.

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SANDRAT wrote:

Sitrep in Wenatchee is,lots of primers ecept large pistol,price is down to around $30 a K,bullets,powder,no problem.

We need to remember who gouged us when times were lean,we should start a list of the worst rip-off outfits and the ones who held steady also,AIM surplus did not raise prices one cent,yet some of our home state boys screwed us hard for the fast buck.

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I think this is a terribly foolish idea. I appreciate that some businesses have been able to keep ammo in stock by charging prices that keep the market in equilibrium.

Although I dislike paying more for ammo than I did a year or two ago, I do appreciate that the stores/ranges that charge the market price are able to stock ammo and not immediately run out.

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SANDRAT wrote:

We need to remember who gouged us when times were lean,

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How can you say "Gouging" when the manufacturers raised THEIR prices to the Dealers by over 1/3.

I had a long talk with one of the oldest Gun Dealers in W Washington recently. He pointed out that Primers were the most difficult item to handle. Order sizes are limited as well as shipment sizes. After all, who wants a truckload of extremely high explosive traveling on the highway. Solution is to limit shipment sizes. Result, higher prices. As for import primers, licenses to import "things that go bang" take forever to obtain. This is why Wolf Ammo and Primers are here in quantity some days and then gone for months.

How about Government Purchases. When the Government demands certain quantities for their needs, there goes the Civilian market share.

What about raw material cost. EVERYTHING costs more today. Brass is up, Powder is up, and yes, even primers cost more.

As for Gouging, don't blame the local dealer (or for that matter your favorite Online Vendor) their prices merely represent the reality of today. Those who are actually gouging aren't these people but those that grabbed the last of the earlier supplies and are trying to sell them for as much as 5 times the previous prices on Gunbrokers, etc.

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alienbogey wrote:

Those CCI primers at Ft Lewis - were they in the APS plastic strips by any chance?

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Just the regular primer trays I think.

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Hmm...gotta see how I can get some small pistol primers at ORC. I guess I could have my 80yo mother in law take me.

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I stopped at Cabela's today and they have at least two dozen boxes of (I think Remington, but I'm not 100% sure) small pistol primers. They were running $33 and change for 1K.

They also got in several bags of nickle plated 45ACP brass.

Powder had just arrived, so I picked up some Tightgroup.

10mm reloading is still a problem but I managed to pick up 500 new brass cases through the internest, so I have everything I need to get started on that.

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SANDRAT wrote:

Sitrep in Wenatchee is,lots of primers ecept large pistol,price is down to around $30 a K,bullets,powder,no problem.

We need to remember who gouged us when times were lean,we should start a list of the worst rip-off outfits and the ones who held steady also,AIM surplus did not raise prices one cent,yet some of our home state boys screwed us hard for the fast buck.

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Supply and demand. When supply is low, price goes up. That is the market working.

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I've loaded up several hundred .45 acp rounds and have run out of large pistol primers.

Can't find any except online for 6-8 cents a primer. I just bought a couple of boxes of .44 spl to tide me over until I can load some up, and they cost me $57.00 dollars per 50 rnd box. Holy Mackerel !!

Guess I will just wait for more primers.................

Cheers,
Bill

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The Outdoor Rec on Ft Lewis has a pretty good selection of CCI primers. Most of them are magnum type, but there were four bricks of large pistol, when I left there were two bricks.

Nothing new at Cabela's or Warehouse Sports the last time I looked.

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Cabela's in Lacy has a boatload of small rifle primers.

Warehouse Sports in Lacy had two bricks +some flats of both small and large pistol primers, there's only one brick of LP now since I bought one. They are also fat on bullets in a number of different calibers and weights.

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I bought small and large pistol primers at Kesselring's not too long ago. $33/1000. The only ones they didn't have in stock were large magnum.

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The Wal-Mart in Lakewood has that ever elusive .380 on the shelf. The guy behind the counter didn't expect it to last too long.

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Just got back from Cabelas. 30 boxes (1000) of small pistol primers on the shelf. That was even after I took a couple for myself. They also just stocked Federal bulk .22 525 packs. There were a couple cases that the guy was putting out.

They said they had large pistol primers last week. Imissed out on that.

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Yeah, the situation must be getting at least a little bit better. I went to Kesselring's a couple of days ago and they actually had small pistol magnum primers (Federal)- I think I was in a moderate state of unbelief for a bit.

However, ***nobody*** seems to have .357 Magnum brass on the shelf!!! And some places apparently won't have 'em in stock for over a month from now...