To the best of my figuring, only about 5% of American men are afflicted with ‘shooters disease’. Which the past 18 months has made rather tough. I sent a note to Winchester (Olin) the other day. I said: “If you’re not going to make ammo, at least sell us primers so we can make our own.”

Winchester among other things makes powder, primers and ammunition. I’ve never seen the stranglehold two corporations have on the Second Amendment. Winchester and Vista Outdoor (Federal, CCI, Blazer, Remington) have to control 90% of the U.S. market.

Organizations that are supposed to be looking out for the Second Amendment like the NRA, don’t seem to grasp that. Never has the right to bear arms been so tenuous. Or rather the ability to put something in those arms. It doesn’t matter that brass, powder and bullets are available, without primers nothing works.

Which I happen to have some recent experience with. Midway USA this week has had some large pistol primers available from CCI. Through some stroke of dumb luck I stumbled upon the Midway site Monday and nabbed a 1,000. Midway did a good job of limiting purchases to 1 per person per week (they still have some as of Thursday – and by Friday they were gone).

Brownells got some CCI small rifle primers. The best I can figure is that they have one-way interchangeability. Rifle can work in pistol, but pistol can’t work in rifle. We’re about to test that out. I nabbed a 1,000 of them (why get 2,000 until I know for sure they’ll work in pistol?).

So I nabbed 2,000 of the first primers I’ve seen in 18 months. Which is important as I’ve made a vow not to buy ammo from these domestic shysters and their contrived shortage. Its a pain having to “roll your own“, but its worth it to be somewhat in control of your own destiny.

I’m old enough to remember when you could walk into a store and buy anything you wanted. That was old America. I recently ran into a clerk who interacts with Federal. He was told by the Federal rep that they thought they were 5 years out on catching up with their orders.

5 years essentially without a Second Amendment. On top of that you have the shipping container shortage cutting off our main supplier China, along with the backlog at the Port of Los Angeles. A key shortage is copper. Its the material used to provide a ‘jacket’ around the lead bullet. Its also a component of the ‘brass’ used to hold the powder and the bullet.

Is the copper shortage legitimate? Maybe. Its like the chip shortage for automobiles, I assume its legitimate. Store shelves are mostly bare except for your NATO cartridges 5.56 and 9 mm. There’s a smattering of .40 S&W, .45 ACP and some rifle cartridges, but there is still a lot of bare shelves.

“Lead styphnate is the primary explosive in modern primers, while barium nitrate is the oxidizer that adds oxygen to the explosive. Tetrazene is a sensitizer that makes the primer easier to detonate. The remaining elements are fuels. The specific ingredients in primer compounds vary from one make to another” – none of those elements explains to me why there is a primer shortage. Its not like they’re as rare as printer ink.

The thing I cannot get past is how within a year a necessity that is used by 100% of the people, toilet paper, was back to normal supply. And yet a recreational item used by only 5% of the people is still in short supply?

And why does global trade exist for everything but ammo?

[10/1/21 update: Brownells of Grinnell, Iowa had CCI large pistol primers Friday. This is on top of their CCI small rifle primers they had on Wednesday. CCI is also the brand I ordered from Midway on Monday. CCI seems to be trying at least. Now I feel bad when I sent them an email asking, “Canada’s got primers, why don’t we?” In the spring I saw a guy on Facebook saying he’d been on Midway’s “notify me” list for 18 months with nothing. You have to check their sites every day twice a day. They’re not sending out any emails.]