First, welcome to the world of loading ammo!AlaskanInTexas wrote:I have been living off gifted primers since I started reloading a couple years ago (thank you uncle-in-law). The time has come to start making some bulk purchases. The best deal I can find online is 2.8 cents (for a 5k purchase). I am not sure if that is closer to business as normal prices or inflated hysteria prices. In other words, I am not sure whether to pull the trigger now or wait for a better deal as things calm down. Any thoughts?
As to your questions, if I was low on primers I would buy some, enough to stay active. Then plan on a large purchase of primers and powder.
Here are some figures to help with planning
1 pound of powder = 7000 grains
8LB jug = 56000 grains of powder
Let us divide 56000 grains by various powder charges 3, 5, 15, 25, 50, 74. This will range from 38 specials to 300 Win Mag loads
56000/3 = 18667 rounds
56000/5 = 11200
56000/15 = 3733
56000/25 = 2240
56000/50 = 1120
56000/74 = 746
So if you buy an 8 lb jug of powder for 38 special 3gr loads you will need roughly 20000 primers to load that 1 jug of powder
Same for 45 ACP @ 5 grs you need 15000 primers for 1 jug of powder
357 mag class of cartridge @ 15 grs = 1.5 jugs of powder per 5000 primers
223 class cartridge @ 25 grs = 2 jugs of powder per 5000 primers
30-06 or 308 class cartridge @ 50 grs = 4 jugs of powder per 5000 primers
300 win mag class of cartridge @ 74 grs = 7 jugs powder per 5000 primers
From this information you can easily see that getting enough powder for pistol primers is not difficult, but keeping enough powder on hand for larger cartridges gets progressively harder.
I use this to balance my powder and primer stash and try to keep the two in balance, but I almost always wind up with more primers than I have powder to load, especially in rifle calibers.
So when you can get powder and primers under one hazmat fee do so. It helps with the cost, just try to balance the powder primer numbers so you are not flush on one and dry on the other.
Bullet buying and stashing is for another long winded post!
Good luck and get those primers before they are gone!