Thoughts on primer price trends?

[mmc45414]

Preach it, brother…
I’m with you- if I could buy primers off the shelf for $0.65/ea + local tax, I’d be all over it.
Unfortunately, locally it’s $0.95/ea, and online it’s $400-450/5k, which is upwards of $0.08/ea.
I’ve already paid $0.95/ea shipped for my last purchase a year or so ago. And the latest offers are only marginally better.
I go through 5-6k a year, and have about 7k on hand.

I’m just wondering if the downward trend will continue.

Our individual strategerie probably has a lot to do with where we live. Ohio is pretty thick with gun nuts, and there have been some good deals lately that are sorta local. Vance had some for $70 (limit 2k per day), and @bruceride lives close and hooked me up, and I think right now I have about 9k. Then AIM just had some for $65, showroom only, and if I had seen them a little sooner I would have probably gone for a motorcycle ride during my lunch hour and snagged some more. So I am probably in the "not HazMat" acquisition phase, if they are on a shelf in front of me Imma gonna snag.

For a while (the dark days...) I added a startup tab to my www browser for Ammoseek, and just snagged some from time to time. The order limits pissed me off more than the cost and the HazMat, if I can buy 5k-10k you can take a plunge, maybe do a group buy with a buddy, but the 1k-2k limits sent me to the moon, Alice!!

[EMC]

I was recently able to order 5k CCI500s for a reasonable 6.5 cents per primer on a sale from republic ammunition (not including hazmat and shipping that upped it to 7ish). Ammoseek is helpful as long as you do due diligence on seller legitimacy.

I figure I can't wait forever for 4 cent pricing. It may not happen.

[mmc45414]

Have we hit a plateau in falling primer prices?

I figure I can't wait forever for 4 cent pricing. It may not happen.

I think all my ranting didn't address the actual question...
I would be really surprised if primers ever get back below $50/1k. I mean when we bought domestic brands for the best price they were still almost $30, and the cost of everything is higher now than it was when we were getting them for $30. So I guess if I buy primers now at $65, I am only paying $15 for insurance. The 9k I have is probably around a one year supply, since a couple of (lower volume) buddies use my RL1100 and draw from the pool.

[Bobaloo22]

Natchez has been running free Hazmat lately, just got to check regularly.

[GyroF-16]

Just checked Natchez as recommended above… they’re still asking $0.085/per for name-brand SSPs, and that’s before tax and any shipping.

I decided to try to quantify what a reasonable, inflation-adjusted price would be for primers today.
After checking several sources, I found cumulative inflation estimates from 2020-2023 to be 18%-19.6%.
A good example is this calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

It gives an inflation rate of 19% for the period I’m looking at.

Looking back at my records, I bought pistol primers in 2019 for $0.0227/per (all prices are my total cost, including tax, shipping, and HAZMAT, if any).
In March/April of 2020, I bought two 5k bricks of primers for $0.0398 and $0.0443/per. This was during the beginning of the “great shortage”, and really represented high demand, not high production costs.

Even accepting the highest of the above as a “baseline cost” of $0.0443/per, and rounding the cumulative inflation rates since 2020 up to 20%, I get an expected current cost of (0.0443 x 1.2) = $0.532/per.

Today, the best price I can find for domestic primers (including tax, shipping & HAZMAT) is here:

https://www.massammo.com/product/cci...imer-1000-pcs/

And it comes out to $384.95 for 5k, or $0.077/per.

That’s a 73.9% increase over the already-inflated prices in April 2020.

So, I’m thinking that it’s reasonable to expect that prices could return to $0.0532/per, (or roughly $50 per 1000 advertised online price), once the lingering effects of a perceived “shortage” abate.
That said, my conclusion is that, until I NEED to buy, I’ll wait for at least a $0.065/per price to my door.

Here endeth the math lesson.

[revchuck38]

^^^^In normal times and with other commodities, I'd agree with you. But primer (and ammo) availability will probably be affected by what looks to me to be the probable Democratic presidential victory next year, and I'm afraid whatever is available with be panic-bought regardless of the price. Shoot, where I live, when Biden won in '20 all the toilet paper disappeared again.

[Hambo]

But primer (and ammo) availability will probably be affected by what looks to me to be the probable Democratic presidential victory next year,

Whoa up, buddy. Let's not go there yet.

I never thought I'd say this, but at current prices I don't think it's worth the minimal savings to load 9mm. Everything else, yes.

[BN]

Here are some notes I made about reloading costs in 2012.

Primers might go down a little, but primers are the hardest component to acquire during a shortage.

On a high note, bulk 9mm ammo is around the same price as it was several years ago and there seems to be a good supply.

Buy cheap and stack it deep. Cheap is a relative term.

[mmc45414]

lingering effects of a perceived “shortage”

Great post, but I think we tend to forget that not all aspects of the shortage were perception.
Remington, one of the three domestic manufacturers went through bankruptcy at the same time importation of Russian primers was halted at the same time politics motivated new shooters and hoarders. If only ten percent (back to math...) of two million background checks are new shooters who buy a couple boxes of ammo, that is twenty million primers a MONTH (iffin I mathed that correctly).

But now Remington is back online and I believe Fiocchi is supposed to be building a new facility in Alabama or someplace, so maybe prices will decline. I think right now I will be buying at ~$65 if they are on a shelf without HazMat, when I get back down to around 5k I will probably plan to order 5k, maybe even 10k.

^^^^In normal times and with other commodities, I'd agree with you. But primer (and ammo) availability will probably be affected by what looks to me to be the probable Democratic presidential victory next year, and I'm afraid whatever is available with be panic-bought regardless of the price.

Yeah, maybe I will buy more sooner rather than later...

[mmc45414]

I never thought I'd say this, but at current prices I don't think it's worth the minimal savings to load 9mm. Everything else, yes.

Probably, but it might depend on equipment. I have been on this slippery slope since 1973, started with a single stage and kept getting more and more stuff until I find myself sitting here with an RL1100 with a bullet feeder. If I was using a 550 or SDB I would probably be buying 9mm. I tell myself that, but really I would probably do it for no savings, just out of habit.

Primers might go down a little, but primers are the hardest component to acquire during a shortage.
Buy cheap and stack it deep. Cheap is a relative term.

Yeah, my plan is to stack the primers deeper than the other components. One thing reloading facilitates is being able to dither out the spending. 8 pounds of powder will load 10-12 cases for the cost of 1 case, and there are lots of options. 5 cases worth of primers cost about what a case and a half of ammo costs. Bullets I order in 3k at a time, and there are lots of options. So right now I am probably covered with enough powder and primers for 9 cases.