I got curious about whether or not I could order primers directly from the manufacturer so I gave it a try and started with Federal. Went to my favorite search engine, entered "federal primers", and the #1 hit was a site called FederalPrimers.com
The site loaded, looked professional. Pictures of happy Federal employees and such so I clicked on shop and they have Federal, CCI, Remington and Winchester primers listed with prices. Federal #100M's were $45/1000 so I set quantity to ten and put them in my shopping cart. Seemed like a strange price as the small magnum match primers were only $40. And the farther I went the more curious it got. Spelling and grammatical errors for example and incomplete info on some products.
Got to the checkout page and read that orders over $500 get free shipping so I went back and added another case. Now I'm looking at three cases/15 bricks of match small pistol primers for $600 which is a small fraction of what they're going for on GunBroker or even local shops if they ever have any. Also noticed they had smokeless powder. Accurate, Alliant, Hodgdon, Ramshot and Winchester or at least they say they do. But the link to the powder pages always comes up with "I,m sorry - page not found". Their grammatical error, not mine.
Went back to my cart, dropped the quantity down to one brick for $45 and moved on to checkout. Then it got really weird. Name, address, etc. then for payment credit cards are not an option. Default payment method is CashApp but with options to use Zelle, Venmo and maybe one other. All were systems that suck the bucks right out of your checking account. I went with the CashApp since I don't have one and I'm fully convinced by this point it was fraud I wanted to see what would happen. Keep in mind the only information they have about me at this point is my name and address which is easily available to anyone plus my backup email address and the phone number for my old PA phone that doesn't actually work but any text messages get forwarded to my Florida phone.
So I hit the order icon and get a response that my order has been accepted, without any sales tax added, but of course I haven't paid them. In about a minute a have a forwarded text and email that have identical messages looking for money:
"We received your order on our website
www-federalprimers-com
Order Number: #6182
Please Can we proceed?"
Same grammar error in both the text and email.
I did this about 24 hours ago and only received the plea for money once. I'm pretty sure I won't be getting any primers but it amazes me that people would go to this much trouble to try to steal a few bucks.
Edited to make website address unusable.
The site loaded, looked professional. Pictures of happy Federal employees and such so I clicked on shop and they have Federal, CCI, Remington and Winchester primers listed with prices. Federal #100M's were $45/1000 so I set quantity to ten and put them in my shopping cart. Seemed like a strange price as the small magnum match primers were only $40. And the farther I went the more curious it got. Spelling and grammatical errors for example and incomplete info on some products.
Got to the checkout page and read that orders over $500 get free shipping so I went back and added another case. Now I'm looking at three cases/15 bricks of match small pistol primers for $600 which is a small fraction of what they're going for on GunBroker or even local shops if they ever have any. Also noticed they had smokeless powder. Accurate, Alliant, Hodgdon, Ramshot and Winchester or at least they say they do. But the link to the powder pages always comes up with "I,m sorry - page not found". Their grammatical error, not mine.
Went back to my cart, dropped the quantity down to one brick for $45 and moved on to checkout. Then it got really weird. Name, address, etc. then for payment credit cards are not an option. Default payment method is CashApp but with options to use Zelle, Venmo and maybe one other. All were systems that suck the bucks right out of your checking account. I went with the CashApp since I don't have one and I'm fully convinced by this point it was fraud I wanted to see what would happen. Keep in mind the only information they have about me at this point is my name and address which is easily available to anyone plus my backup email address and the phone number for my old PA phone that doesn't actually work but any text messages get forwarded to my Florida phone.
So I hit the order icon and get a response that my order has been accepted, without any sales tax added, but of course I haven't paid them. In about a minute a have a forwarded text and email that have identical messages looking for money:
"We received your order on our website
www-federalprimers-com
Order Number: #6182
Please Can we proceed?"
Same grammar error in both the text and email.
I did this about 24 hours ago and only received the plea for money once. I'm pretty sure I won't be getting any primers but it amazes me that people would go to this much trouble to try to steal a few bucks.
Edited to make website address unusable.
Last edited:
