Black market? Hardly.
Actually, Midway, Graf's, Brownells, and MidSouth have primers available periodically. The problem is that the small amounts they receive are quickly (almost instantly) grabbed by primer starved customers. The other problem is that some online vendors limit buyers to a single brick of primers, which when combined with shipping and hazmat charges make the price north of $100 per brick. Too rich for my blood.
Tell us, when they open the doors at Sportsman's Warehouse, do all those people in line run and make a mad dash for the primer shelf? Or do they pretend to be orderly and walk briskly? When all 30 get to the primers more or less at the same time, is it pretty orderly? Does SW have a monitor on hand to keep it orderly? Just wondering. Since they seem to be limited as to quantity allowed, maybe they'd do better to set up a table to deal with this rush, make each guy go through the line one at a time. Dole them out until they are gone, then fold up the table until the next day. Just an idea.
The one brick limit sucks but at least it gives more people a chance purchase some. The $100 a brick after haz mat seems to be equal to the average prices I am seeing here on NWFA classifieds. Given an equal product and price, I would probably buy local instead of risking that the shipped product might get lost or damaged in delivery. I bought powder from cabelas once and a blue dot container lid was broken and loose powder flakes were in the box. Cabelas sent me a replacement and didn't want the broken container back.
Tell us, when they open the doors at Sportsman's Warehouse, do all those people in line run and make a mad dash for the primer shelf? Not that I have seen so far.Or do they pretend to be orderly and walk briskly? Pretty much, a few of us walk rapidly. I would say half race to the ammo shelves, while the other half heads for powder and primers.When all 30 get to the primers more or less at the same time, is it pretty orderly? It is a bit of a grab fest, you snooze, you lose. The primers are usually gone in the first 5 minutes, since they rarely have more than 10 or 15 bricks on the shelf (and frequently have none). Does SW have a monitor on hand to keep it orderly? Nope, just relying on people's common courtesy. (This isn't Seattle or Portland). Just wondering. Since they seem to be limited as to quantity allowed, maybe they'd do better to set up a table to deal with this rush, make each guy go through the line one at a time. Dole them out until they are gone, then fold up the table until the next day. Just an idea. A goood idea, maybe a queuing line in front of the doors, too. I won't hold my breath. They did that for a while with ammo at the gun counter, where people lined up. But now that they have more ammo on the shelves, they discontinued the practice, as well as raising the maximum purchase from 2 boxes to 5 boxes per person per day.
I don't wait in lines, I don't have enough time left in life to waste on it. But I happened to be near Cabela's the other day and decided to drop by the gun dept. just for laughs, as I hadn't been in there for over a year. Of course primer availability was zilch, zero, null, nada, zip, bupkis. But they used to be on shelve that were self served. I noticed that now the would-be primer shelves are behind a counter (barrier).
As to guns in stock at Cabela's, that really was worth a laugh. The used long gun racks that used to be in front of the Library were gone. The glass cases in the Library were quite vacant, occupancy rate of about 15%.
Re. primers from Midway, et al, nominally available online but not very often, thanks maybe in part to bots. With quantity restrictions, the shipping and hazmat drive the price to unacceptable levels.
Keep trucking along.
Thanks. I also need a better auto correct app for my phone. I almost said auto correct program.
Don't know. That's all I've been seeing in the last few weeks.
Many people are saying, things will return to normal again. I saw recently Brownell's had a very limited amount of primers for $75+/1,000, plus Hazmat & shipping, pushing the price well over $100. We need to remember, this time, it is "not normal", there are to many variables working against us, the elections, the pandemic, more people than ever buying guns and ammo, those "in the know" buying all they can get. Think way back when (couple decades ago) gas prices went up to $3.50-$4.00 a gallon or more, USPS-UPS-FedEx all raised their prices. Even when prices of gas came back down, did they lower their prices back down? Hell no, they kept raising them, business as usual. Businesses shut down during the pandemic, people left their jobs. All the business, in the guns & ammo trade have been looking to hire. I have seen ammo slowly coming back, even now shelves are almost full of every caliber, but prices are up. Even powders have been showing up, with an increase of $5-$15 a pound. I've seen very few primers showing up in retail stores, if they do, there's a limit of 100-200 and the prices have been $6-$9/100. This may very well be the new norm. For someone as myself, on a fixed income, my dreams and aspirations, to return to loading in the last 2 years, after a absence of 30+ years, is becoming a pipe-dream. Knowing if I sold everything I've accumulated, I may even show a profit, makes me sick to contemplate.
I think prices will moderate once everybody has stocked up. It might take awhile but unless regulations shut down production capacity product availability should continue to increase.
