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CCI 450 Primers

Why is Gunbroker the only source for CCI450 Primers? Where do all these little mom and pop shops get them for sale?
I have talked with owners of some of the most reputable supply houses and large stores and they are just not available along with other brands.
 
Why is Gunbroker the only source for CCI450 Primers? Where do all these little mom and pop shops get them for sale?
I have talked with owners of some of the most reputable supply houses and large stores and they are just not available along with other brands.
Seems to be a lot of private sellers liquidating excess personal items at a huge profit. There are many locals buying “stuff” the instant it’s on a store shelf then posting to GB for the wolves.
 
Life in 2021. May be standard operating procedure for the foreseeable future. S100RR, I see you are a new member and maybe newer to the hobby. This has happened before. Each time to me it gets worse. Wish I had great words of advice, but I don't. Maybe this; by only what you need and pay and except it. Don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. If you do, it could be an on coming train. Sorry about the negative response, but we are all in this together. I've many stories about dealers getting shipments and them selling out with an hour. I hope you get lucky and possibly find some at more reasonable prices.
 
This time seems different to me. We've got the president of Federal, CCI & etc. releasing videos here Federal 1 and here Federal 2 with the second much less informative than the first. Jason Hornady here Hornady assuring us that everything is going to be okay and yet I have seen no primers at any local stores in Atlanta or on-line at what I think are large volume dealers like Brownells, Grafs, Powder Valley and the like. Not only are primers unavailable but within a few months of primer disappearance, it became just as difficult to find powder, brass and now projectiles. Maybe I am misremembering the past but it seems like you could always get your hands on alternative powders and projectiles but, not now.

Possible hearsay - I have heard from industry sources (I know a guy who knows a guy kind of source) that the supply chain is broken. Difficult to get necessary components out of China like lead for bullets and chemicals required to make primers due to Covid and overwhelming demand. Note that this is a different story than that coming out of Federal and Hornady.

One of the Jasons claims that we have many more hunters this year (2020) than ever before. It was easy to look at an aggregated state-by-state hunting license issuance for the past two years, 2019 and 2020, and there was no detectable uptick in hunting licenses.

I don't necessarily think there is some conspiracy to keep hand loaders from loading but, as far as I am aware there were no GIANT purchases of ammo by government entities like last time.

I am surprised that gun sales continue to be so strong but, I know that they are being sold the moment they hit a store. I have witnessed that with my own eyes. If you knew there was no new ammo coming, owning a gun wouldn't do you much good.

This long read does not end with a conclusion other than this time seems different to me.

Hopefully, one of you will say that they have seen new shipments of primers in the past 4-6 weeks and I'll be wrong.

Henryrifle
 
Don't forget the record setting new gun owners ( something like 7 million) the first few months of covid when people feared a walking dead scenario. Now they're buying ammo too. Vista is something ridiculous like 2 years behind on ammo back orders valued in the billions of dollars.. Covid has reduced factory employee capacity... Mail is slow, borders somewhat closed here and there from time to time. And it's world wide. Not just the usa. Until Biden miraculously cures covid and we get out of this hole it isn't going to get much better. Reloading supplies are being hoarded and manufacturers probably want to put out as much ammo as possible to fill back orders and make money rather than supply components so we can load our own for cheaper
 
@Eris: For sure those are some good points but, remember the last time when Obama was president he had the Post Office, IRS and others buying millions if not billions of round of ammunition.

For sure we are in uncharted waters and at the same time it couldn't be more clear that honesty and transparency from 'leaders' of all walks of life is at an all-time low and, seemingly, getting worse.

Henryrifle
 
BS. New gun buyers buy ammo, not CCI 450 primers.

They aren't just out at MY PERSONAL Cabelas, Sportmans Whse, etc. -- they are out EVERYWHERE, except on GB. I realize scalpers are buying up everything they can, but there is obviously something else going on.

My suspicion is that someone high up in the distribution chain is selling nearly everything the mfgrs produce to the people paying the most cash, which is the scalpers you see on GB.

I think it is going to be bad for quite a while.
 
I think I have enough 450s and 41s to get me through this shortage, but I can assure you that when availability recovers I’m seriously considering buying 50k or more cci41s.
I think I see part of the problem here. 20 people like this is MILLION primers. 2000 people in the US is 2,000,000,000 2 Billion when they might use 5000 a year for a total of 10 million.

I still do not understand how the people on Gunbroker have them and I would be surprised if the had the ability to ship them legally.
 
BS. New gun buyers buy ammo, not CCI 450 primers.

They aren't just out at MY PERSONAL Cabelas, Sportmans Whse, etc. -- they are out EVERYWHERE, except on GB. I realize scalpers are buying up everything they can, but there is obviously something else going on.

My suspicion is that someone high up in the distribution chain is selling nearly everything the mfgrs produce to the people paying the most cash, which is the scalpers you see on GB.

I think it is going to be bad for quite a while.
If this were happening, there'd be more primers on GB.

The last two shortages I've been through were very similar - just a lot more shortage this time.
Powder and bullets are still coming through. I just bought 64 lbs of powder over the past couple months. Same with bullets. They are there, just have to keep at it.

No question primers are essentially unobtanium - but, then, there's always a bottleneck. Maybe driven by Remington ceasing primer production last summer/fall?
 
Hopefully, one of you will say that they have seen new shipments of primers in the past 4-6 weeks and I'll be wrong.

Henryrifle

Our local shop got a small shipment of CCI 500 (spp) the other Monday - but they were gone as soon as they were put out. Brownell's had CCI 400s available in 1000 and 5000-count boxes this past Wednesday - but that lasted all of a few minutes (or less) before they were gone.
 
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BS. New gun buyers buy ammo, not CCI 450 primers.

They aren't just out at MY PERSONAL Cabelas, Sportmans Whse, etc. -- they are out EVERYWHERE, except on GB. I realize scalpers are buying up everything they can, but there is obviously something else going on.

My suspicion is that someone high up in the distribution chain is selling nearly everything the mfgrs produce to the people paying the most cash, which is the scalpers you see on GB.

I think it is going to be bad for quite a while.
Manufacturers have to make the ammo to sell to the gun buyers.. Why sell you 450s when they can crank out other small rifle primed calibers to meet contractual sales arrangements they have with every big box store in the country? Primers are still on the shelves here weekly, they just come in much smaller random shipments and sell out within hours. By small shipments i mean maybe 10-15k a week at our local sportsmans of random stuff
That includes cci450 although very seldom. The vast majority of primers are actually cci
 
You just need to be lucky, I bought a case of 450's 2 weeks ago from Midway.
I was watching online as Midsouth was putting out various powders on their website they were gone
in less than two minutes. Ammo same thing gone in 60 seconds, crazy.

People are feeding this madness by actually paying stupid prices for stuff.

I was at a LGS and asked if they had SR primers, owner said yes I have Wolf primers
and I paid a pretty penny for them. So that means he bought them on the secondary
market. At $190 per 1K no thanks.
 
There out there, this was last week at Scheels. Fair price, and they lasted a couple of days. I didn't pick any up as I'm sitting ok
 

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I think we just don’t understand ammo an component manufacturing. I guess first, how powder and primers are made. Simply, most powder is made overseas. I think it is real that Covid is having a big impact on that. I’m less clear about primers....I would not be surprised due to their “explosive” nature that they are made overseas or sub components are....

I think we need to know more about how ammunition gets from the QC line at the ammo maker to its final destination.

I’m not sure, but ammo seems like a batch process. Where you build recipe by recipe in some order. Is winter always contract ammo period, spring the time for handgun and match consumer ammo, summer hunting ammo production, fall budget ammo manufacturing, etc? Also, are distributors distributing evenly or are some regions more profitable? Do they owe certain folks first pick of available ammo...Are those folks limiting ammo due to supply chain issues? What I mean is are big box stores filling warehouses to allow them to pack trucks full and give supply chain a chance to fill up? Remember, a retailers goal is to be efficient in supply chain and retail....not to fulfill customer demand. Holding back actually raises prices until demand drops off at a higher price will help them reestablish stock at a higher price.

I don’t know, just trying to reassemble evidence and thoughts from last time...
 

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