The Great Pandemic Primer Ripoff

By Joe Berk

If you reload, you know that one of the toughest things to find over the last two or three years has been primers.  I was one of the lucky guys…I laid in a stock of primers and I came through the shortage in fairly good shape.  Primers are available again, but good Lord, the prices are obscene.

Before the pandemic, primers typically cost about $35 per thousand.  That seemed to generally be in line with the last few decades of inflation (when I started reloading about 50 years ago, a brick of 1000 primers cost about $7).  Then the pandemic came along, and BAM!, primers are now selling for $80 to $125 per thousand.  As a former manufacturing guy, I can tell you that is outright gouging by the manufacturers and distributors.  There’s nothing that changed in the materials that go into primers or their manufacturing processes that could possibly justify the 300% to 400% price increase.  The manufacturers and distributors are gouging their customers.

The price increase has attracted at least one new player to the US market (the Argentinean firm Aventuras).  But even those are $79.95 to $95 per thousand.  The manufacturers, distributors, and resellers know that we’re willing to pay those prices so that we can continue to reload, but it’s an outrage.  My message to the primer supply chain is simple:

Shame on you.

Want to know how primers are used in the reloading process?  Check out our series on reloading .45 ACP ammunition.

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