If the Government wouldn't have cut off all the imported primer's from Wolf, Tula, Ginex, etc., we wouldn't have a shortage in the first place.

We don’t want foreigners stuff, or at least I don’t. I want to purchase American made products and if I have to wait then so be it.

[quote=Ol Thumper][quote=Txhillbilly]So You can get off your Made in America stuff!

Get off my made in America stuff?? That’s possibly the most Un-American thing I’ve read on here, so what your saying is you want even more crap from overseas coming in? If so that’s ok, it’s your opinion and I respect it however I’ll stick to my beliefs in keeping as much as possible here. We’re dependent on to much stuff from other countries as it is,

I was just saying that we are loosing out by not being able to import foreign produced reloading primer's that were once plentiful to buy, and they work just as well as the brands produced here.

During the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. that was NEVER the thought anyone had. If the market needed another supplier, someone created a new supplier. Never was the thought to buy something from another country. And the U.S. made some of the greatest strides in all its' history because of that attitude. We need to get away from foreign goods, and Trump has been working to make that happen. And Jeff is exactly right, making our own ammo and components is crucial to national security.

To me the problem comes after the shortage is over. Winchester, Remington, Federal and CCI have been in the primer business for years and years. So the shortage is over and the price has settled back down to a realistic level. You go to buy a thousand primers(pick a size) here are all the old standards and then over here is the new startup Texas Primer Co. H'mm I don't know anything about them but I have been using CCI for years. What do you buy. You are going to buy what you trust, what you have used successfully for years.
To me that will be a BIG problem.

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.

...i would highly doubt in 2020 that they are still making primers by hand.

Homemade Primer Course
W. Marshall Thompson PhD
April 29, 2014

...

It is interesting that the most important step in primer manufacture, filling the cups with primer compound, continues to be done by hand.

First you would need big punch presses to form cups and anvils and then a machine to wash and degrease them.

I have been in all the plants and all do it virtually the same way.

You would need som remote facility where the synthesis of lead styphnate can be done and primer mix made. It is done in small batches and only one pound at a time is allowed in the plant.

Everyone uses a plate loading process. The primer mix goes to a room that is designed to blow out away from the plant. A lone operator fills each plate with mix and passes it through a hole in the wall to the rest of the process. The work is done on a marble slab with a constant flow of water across it. Mix is relatively stable when wet. The operator takes a ball of mix and, using a rubber squeegie spreads the mix evenly into the holes.
Picture a bunch of 8x10 stainless steel plates with 1000 primer sized holes. There is one for the empty cups, primer mix, and anvils. The plate with the mix is placed atop one with cups and a machine with a bunch of little rods pushes the mix into the cup.

Then in a process called "booking" a plate with anvils is placed over the cups. In some plants this is done manually and it looks much like closing the pages of a book. Others use a machine much like the one that filled the cups. The anvils are then seated and the primer is done.

The work is done in "U" shaped cells with stations for each operation with an inspection as the final step before packaging.

All the plants do it virtually the same way. I have been told that attempts to automate the process have failed. It is very labor intensive. Primer cells are almost always staffed by women who- I was told- have more patience and better dexterity than men

it would take 3 shifts to make primers for 24 hours a day.

That means your employees work 7 days a week. They will quit once the overtime has put a good chuck in the bank. I recommend 4 shifts, 2 on days and 2 on nights, 12 hour days. Of all the weird schedules I worked in production over 20 years, this seemed to keep us happy. I don't miss it.
I look forward to my first purchase of primers. If possible, I'll pick em up in person so I can see the operation.