Making primers

[ebb]

When there is the threat of loss of firearms rights we always get the type of problem we have now, with shortages and way more demand than usual. With the threat of Hillary we had AR makers start businesses in vast numbers. Will we see new companies start up to make primers and ammo? I am surprised that some of the larger independent companies have not started making primers even before this. Berger was starving home/small bullet makers for jackets and now we have stay-molly a new start up and Sierra selling jackets. I am surprised that some one like Black Hills or a similar company has not started making there own. It has even occur to me that members here and at other sites have not gotten together and formed a corporation to make stuff that we seem to be short of. A few years back some one making 22LR ammo could have made many friends if they sold directly to shooters and didn't allow hoarding. Now it seems that the market could use just about every thing. 9mm, 223, primers, 22LR, 308win. The ATF web site "looks" as if you would just need an on 06 license. It may be way more complicated than it looks. Remington being out of the ammo picture I am sure has way more to do with this than imagined. The guy at the steel yard I got steel from yesterday bought 2 boxes of 6mm rem cause he had none and paid $80 for the 2 boxes.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Remington is close to being up.
priming compound is so dangerous there isnt even much info on how to make lead styphnate or charge cups. If there was more info out there some folks may take up the challenge. They put the poor guy charging the cups in a steel room all by himself and he can only handle 1000 at a time. Its by far the most dangerous part of making ammo

 

[K22]

I'm no learned financial person but I believe companies and investors might be taking a measured approach to expanding investment on facilities and personnel and may be asking:.

- Yes the demand is great now and probably will be there for a long time but will the means exist to purchase the products?

- How long can the economy survive with record deficit spending?

- How many jobs will be lost forever due to the virus and lifestyle changes?

- At some point the government is going to have to reconcile the debt with spending and how will this affect individual household disposable income?

- With a new administration about to take over what kind of new laws will be passed to restrict the firearms and shooting world?

Shooting supplies are not on the top hierarchy of human needs when compared to food, clothing, and shelter. Yea, I know protection is another one but when push comes to shove, the other three trump everything but you have have something to protect.

 

[PBking51]

As a large (in my mind) shareholder of Vista Outdoors. I can tell you that though Remington as a whole was picked apart by various companies. The ammo division was purchased by the same company that makes CCI and Federal and they very well intend to produce ammo again. Maybe it wont be under the "remington" brand but its not like the industry just lost a key player.

 

[Titandriver]

Link to a video - go to 3:50 to see how primers are made.

 

[AccelR8]

I've wondered the same thing. Within the scope of current industrial technologies it seems to me making primers would be a relatively easy to process to adopt. Despite the fact that a lot of it is proprietary, it seems like pretty basic stuff. I mean at least making the cups and anvils would be pretty straightforward. And it looks like you could get your priming compound and foil paper here;

Pyrotechnic Chemistry | Island Pyrochemical Industries

I guess the only question would be how long before it pays off, if ever.

 

[skeeljc]

I think it would be difficult to get an operator to charge primer cups in a new, unproven manufacturing company.

 

[22DASHER]

Very impressive operation at Federal. Watching that video it’s easy to understand why there aren’t too many manufactures out there that do it all...

 

[skeeljc]

I watched a video of CCI making .22's. An operator isolated in a room smeared wet priming compound in a tray containing 1000 holes. He then passed the loaded tray through a slot in the wall to the person who put it into the machine that loaded the compound into the RF cases. They would not tell or show how they distributed the compound inside the .22 case.

Difficulty was probably the reason Aguila started out with Eley primed cases. Now I believe they prime their own.

I have had plenty of Federal .22 LR that misfired only to fire when chambered a second time. I have never had that happen with Aguila .22 LR.

 

[Knotwild]

Making Your Own Primers

 

[JimT]

Remington is close to being up.
priming compound is so dangerous there isnt even much info on how to make lead styphnate or charge cups. If there was more info out there some folks may take up the challenge. They put the poor guy charging the cups in a steel room all by himself and he can only handle 1000 at a time. Its by far the most dangerous part of making ammo

So how close is Remington to being up and running at full production???

 

[AccelR8]

I think it would be difficult to get an operator to charge primer cups in a new, unproven manufacturing company.

Robotics?

 

[MikeMcCasland]

Robotics?

I came across a thread on another forum from a former Federal employee who basically said they'd tried to automate it, but could never get it to work the way they wanted.

Essentially it's a few people standing in a small room, making a tray of 1,000 primers at a time (per crew member). The expected rate of production was "tens of thousands per hour, per person".

There were other challenges with production too; namely that priming compound is by far the most dangerous part of manufacturing ammo, you needed skilled labor to do it, and the priming compound storage regulations made the process inherently slow.

In the thread he was being asked about the viability of standing up a new primer production company, and he basically said it was a non-starter. You'd need ~$50 mil to get off the ground from an equipment standpoint, and even with the increased demand, the margin on primers is so low that you'd have to have crews running 24/7/365 just to break even.

i.e. it makes a lot of sense to do it if you're making loaded ammo (and selling overages to reloaders), but just running a dedicated primer production facility wouldn't be very profitable. It sounded like the primer production at the facility he worked at was pretty much only in place to support the production of factory ammo.

Just passing it along for what it's worth.

Quotes from the thread:


"I used to work at Federal in the 90s and the way primers are made would shock you. While the cups and anvils are stamped out of roll steel, the actual assembly of the primer is done by hand in a room with water on the floor to catch the dropped material. Its not nearly as high tech as I thought it would be, the cups are placed in a large tray and then the lead styphnate is grated over the top almost like a cheese grater, then the anvils are embedded down into the cup. This is all done in a blast proof room separate from the actual factory floor.

A fair bit of land is used as the priming material is dangerous and is stored across the property in small shacks. As you could imagine a baseball sized piece of priming material that you are grating across the tray of primer cups is pretty explosive stuff.

At the end of they day, primers are not that profitable, they are a sideline business and necessity for ammo production. I doubt you could make a return on the investment needed to fund a primer production facility. Guessing $50 million would get something basic going."

When asked if it was still being done manually?

"
I believe they still are, they were as recently as the early 2019. There is quite a but of big machinery involved, but still not automated like you would think. A good operator could turn out tens of thousands in an hour. Four or five operators can make enough to keep up with the entire facilities ammo production. Room looks nicer than the old days, but the old cheese grater process is still in place.

Around the 4:00 mark you will see how its done."

"
Yes, the compound, the cup, and anvil are assembled by hand. One person assembles metal components after stamping and one applies the mix, then its back into a machine that seats the anvil into the mix. It is then dried so it can be loaded.

To my knowledge they have tried to remove humans from those portions and have failed. Several skilled 2 person teams is still required to make primers. Same thing with UltraMatch 22 ammo, bullets were started by hand as a machine could not do it as well as a group of ladies from MN."

"
You would have to produce way more than that to cover the costs of the facility and machinery. Most needed machines are very expensive and so will finding people to operate them, you would need 4 operators teams for 3 shifts a day to even come close. Based on the profit margins in my day , I don't see if being a stand alone business unless you could command a much higher price when demand is lower in normal years. Your gross profit will be less than .01 per unit.

The better route if you are serious is to contract with an over seas producer that isn't operating at capacity, anywhere from Mexico to Russia and many locals in between. I would shoot Lapua or Norma OEM primers in a heartbeat, lots of BR shoots like the Russian primers as well."

 

[jk80]

I live about 2 or 3 miles from olin in east alton. I've got a few buddies that worked in the primer department and all but one said they didn't like it. One said he was sick of being on edge his whole shift. The way he talked about it when he was working with the compound you couldn't drive a greased needle up his rear with a twenty pound sledgehammer. I don't think he was too upset when he got another job. They said the building they were in was built to blow out in a section if something went wrong to keep from damaging other equipment. I don't think making primers is for beginners or an at home project.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

It may take $50mil for somebody like federal to make primers, but i know how much stamping and roll presses cost- bliss or waterbury farrell would build you a factory with 2 lines turn key for that plus that would get you the building

 

[Dusty Stevens]

The issue with charging the cups, besides being extremely dangerous, is getting every cup filled to the same weight. Just rubbing it in there aint gonna cut it you gotta press em all the same. Theres a heck of a technique keeping the compound the same consistency all day, etc

 

[MikeMcCasland]

It may take $50mil for somebody like federal to make primers, but i know how much stamping and roll presses cost- bliss or waterbury farrell would build you a factory with 2 lines turn key for that plus that would get you the building

We've gotta have some VC guys on this board. Let's crowdsource this thing and make it happen.

I'm in for $50.

 

[PatMiles]

- At some point the government is going to have to reconcile the debt with spending and how will this affect individual household disposable income?

The only reconciliation that is going to happen is higher taxes.

 

[Old Navy]

The government regulations would be a big deal. I worked for a rocket manufacture for thirty years. The amount of safety precautions and special facilities required is staggering.

 

[Mr. Zorg]

There have been many recipes over the decades, some more commercially successful than others. I found the material at this site interesting as to the history of priming compound mixtures, but I'm an ubergeek for such stuff (I have degrees in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering).

Priming Compositions - Chemical Analysis Of Firearms

Priming compositions for firearms ammunition are mixtures which, when subjected to percussion, provide a sudden burst of flame that serves to ignite the

www.bevfitchett.us

This too, Chapter VI (6) is specifically about primers & priming.

Ammunition Making (Frost) | PDF

NRA guidebook long out of publication good info

www.scribd.com