Well I'm starting to roll right along now with my reloading now. I've got lots of bullets, lots of powder but so far have been buying primers a box at a time except for a few sizes. It looks like with the guns I will be loading for, I'll be using five different primers so it's time to buy in bulk to get my moneys worth with the hazmat shipping fee. Locally, they are close to or above $40 per 1000.
From my shopping this morning I quickly see that Winchesters are the priciest, CCI's in the middle and with the places I checked, Remingtons are the cheapest across the board. I wonder why that is, I would think things like primers would be so identical it wouldn't matter which you buy so....... Is there something about Remington primers I should know before buying them in bulk? Are they not American made, highest rate of duds, thinner more sensitive cups or what?
If it's just personal preference, I'd just as soon save the money.
Highboy had a youtube video on primers. I'll look for it later when I'm not on a mobile device.
In summary, Winchesters were the most potent, CCI mid, and I don't recall the others. I think Remington were the least potent out of the big name manufacturers but that needs to be confirmed.
I use Remington primers for a lot of my reloading. I can't think of any that didn't go bang. When pickins are slim, I'll buy what's available but I like Remington, CCI and even Tula.
I normally buy primers and powder on line and pay the HazMat fees. Believe it or not it actually saves me money. By the time I drive to the lgs and buy overpriced expendables along with sales tax, I save money buying online in bulk.
Primers in bulk defined by me, for me alone, as being 5000 or more. Powder is five pounds or more. Lately I've been fond of the three to five pound jugs. I try not to over buy ... ever. In these times it's best to buy when the products are available.
The last primers I bought were Magnum SP that I bought from Graf and Sons that I paid right at $100 for a case (5000 primers). I bought two cases and like said even with the hazmat fee is was cheaper than running over to the LGS and paying $35-40 a 1000. Sometimes, Grafs will have a "sale" on hazmat fees and will pay them for you.
Ummm, yeah, but no I don't think I'd pay $40.00 for a brick of primers. They are starting to appear around here at a local big box store that has Winchester and CCI on the shelf for $32.00 (which I think is still high as I got some from the same store about a year and a half ago for $24.00).
lets say I need 5000 small pistol primers.
Primers at 40.00 per 1000; so 4 X 40. = $160.00
Sales tax @.0825%; so 160. .0825 = $13.20
50 mile round trip to lgs; so 50mi at 17mpg = 2.94 gallons at 3.50 per gallon = $10.30
I just spent $183.50
Powder Valley CCI small pistol primer prices at $27.00 per 1000
5 boxes of primers at 27.00 each = $135.00
Fuel = $0.00
sales tax if ordering from out of state $0.00
HazMat at $27.00
FedEx shipping at $8.00
Total spent $170.00
I saved $13.50 ordering from Powder Valley and FedEx brought the product to my home.
lets say I need 5000 small pistol primers.
Primers at 40.00 per 1000; so 4 X 40. = $160.00
Sales tax @.0825%; so 160. .0825 = $13.20
50 mile round trip to lgs; so 50mi at 17mpg = 2.94 gallons at 3.50 per gallon = $10.30
I just spent $183.50
Powder Valley CCI small pistol primer prices at $27.00 per 1000
5 boxes of primers at 27.00 each = $135.00
Fuel = $0.00
sales tax if ordering from out of state $0.00
HazMat at $27.00
FedEx shipping at $8.00
Total spent $170.00
I saved $13.50 ordering from Powder Valley and FedEx brought the product to my home.
I scored pretty good last time I bought them. As RCC mentioned, Sportsman's has CCI in stock for about $30/1000 (I think it was $31, actually). Normally that would be a 500 mile drive for me, but since it was on my way home from a business meeting, the mileage reimbursement worked out well. Let's see...
Because of flooding that day, I had to take a few detours, bringing the mileage to 608. Fuel was at about $3.39, so my cost for 3000 primers was:
3000 @ $31/k = $93 + about $8 tax => $101
44 gal fuel @ $3.39 = $149
Total cost = $250
Reimbursement for 608 miles @ $0.565 = $343
Net cost (profit) = ($93). If I'd taken the time to work through this beforehand, I could have purchased 6000 and broke even.
There was a gun show here last month and one of the dealers was selling cases of 5,000 small rifle and/or small pistol CCI primers for $125.00/case. With 8% tax the total was $135/case that's $27/K and a very good price. I won't need any primers for a long time.
Wow, way too much math for me! I gave up math more than 10x8 when I retired from electronics (my Garand ammo pouch handles 10 clips of 8 rounds each)...
I remember what I paid for primers before the latest election and I'll account for that to base what I'll pay for a brick, including inflation of course. If the asking price is much more than that, the seller will keep 'em...
Thanks Randon, I did some web surfing today and the cheapest online prices that were in stock came from Powder Valley. I thought Graf and Sons 5k box prices would be better but they are almost identical to buying 1k boxes elsewhere.
I'll probably order a few thousand of each to make the hazmat fee more palatable.
Lee 2nd edition has some mention about Federal primers and their sensitivity to going bang in comparison to others (p33, 61, 64). They are not to be used with Lee tray primer feeding devices. I'm not sure about the Lee 2nd edition reprint date of 2013 vs when the Lee Ergo Prime hit the market so check with Lee on that.
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You stated you had lots of powder. Remember nfpa-495 (Lyman 49th, p65) vs qty, storage. Keep the powder and primer well separated (many use another room).
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You stated you had lots of powder. Remember nfpa-495 (Lyman 49th, p65) vs qty, storage. Keep the powder and primer well separated (many use another room).
OH............... I thought they meant to keep the powder separated by the primers so I arranged mine.... jug of powder..box of primers..jug of powder..box of primers and so on for three rows. Those primer boxes sure help keep the jars of powder from shifting around!
As above-Powder Valley-I buy 5k at a time and always save 20-30$ versus buying local/gun shows.I now prefer Tula or Wolf-lowest ES in my 6.5 wildcats with Tulas and my handguns fire everytime with Wolf.I've never liked Win and don't think they're worth the extra $$.I loaded 15rds in one of my 6.5s using 5 different brand primers.chronoed and accuracy tested-Tula won-well worth the 75 rds to find out.
The last I bought at Grafs were $99.99 for 5000. $20 a "brick" as I said, I wait for them to have a sale. I do think those $100 case days are over, though, but I still wait and hope!! I(f I need some, I do shop around before I buy, I never considered Powder Valley for primers, I guess because of the name - POWDER Valley!!
The last I bought at Grafs were $99.99 for 5000. $20 a "brick" as I said, I wait for them to have a sale. I do think those $100 case days are over, though, but I still wait and hope!! I(f I need some, I do shop around before I buy, I never considered Powder Valley for primers, I guess because of the name - POWDER Valley!!
While we're talking about sales, I think it would be great if there was a way for members to alert others of a sale since we all don't have time to scour the web everyday looking for sales. Also, in a perfect world it would be nice if these vendors would put more than just ONE size primer on sale at a time, they know we buy more than one size to offset the price of hazmat fees.
About 6 or 7 months ago. I bought two cases of the Magnum Small Rifles.
It would be nice to be notified when things go on sale, We do have one place "slickgduns.com" that post several times a day with some stuff when some things go on sale. I don't think they do powder or primers, though!
I usually go the online route. A coworker and I go in on a single order and split the hazmat fee. We each usually buy 10k primers a piece to make it worthwhile. I'm stocked up for quite a bit on CCI small pistol primers
I'm not a fan of the packaging of Federal primers. But, I have not had any bad experiences when they are not supposed to go bang.
I started loading with the Lee loaders in the mid 70s and I always used CCI primers. Therefore, I prefer these. Next time I buy in bulk, I will try Tula primers so long as Obama does not ban their import from the newly reconstituted Soviets.
I had a Federal primer detonate on me while reloading. Didn't hurt anything but it scared the crap out of me. After that I did some internet research and found numerous reports of premature primer detonation while reloading and about 90% were Federal primers. So now I still have 700 federal small pistol primers that I will not use and I'll never use another Federal of any size.
while i do wear ear plugs when priming ( and glasses always. ).. I've been lucky i guess and never had a primer pop unless iw as pulling the trigger on something.
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