What powders and primers are available in SA or Namibia?

Is Somchem the only powder available?

Allen

S0mchem is pretty much it in SA, don't know about Namibia but I'd have thought it's the same.

Allen, Somchem is the only one available with any kind of regularity. The Gunshop in Windhoek has a limited suppply of Norma powders, that I doubt they will re-order if it runs out. Now and again, you might find the odd tin of other than Somchem powders, but it is actually not as bad as some think. I use it (Somchem) to reload the following cartridges:
6x45
.243
.260
7x64
8x57
8x68
9,3x64
.404
.450 Rigby
and have not found them lacking too much.

I've never had any problems with Somchem at all and the staff are actually very helpful. - If you have any questions all you have to do is pick up the phone and they'll tell you everything you need to know. They also publish their own very comprehensive reloading manual.

guys,
last I heard is that somchem export something like 40 tons of powder a month.
A lot of it is used in the manufacture of ammo, but a lot is also packed and private labelled by some well known brands.
So you could well be using Somchem powders already

They produce good powder and I have found it to be extremely consistent batch to batch.

The previous posts have summed up the powder situation very well. Somchem regards their batching as so consistant that they do not even identify the individual tins with a batch number!

Primers is another story. A few months ago there was a real scarcity of primers in Bloemfontein - and, I'm told, the rest of the country as well. You can not rely on any specufic primer being available when you want to buy, and forget ordering specially. Simply not likely to happen.

I'm now, due to the recent unavailability, using CCI BENCHREST with results so similar to CCI 200 that I can not see any difference at all.

There used to be MUSGRAVE primers for sale, anyone seen them lately?

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

I also had to switch from cci benchrest to cci 200 primers on the 243 and i use pmp primers on the 308 and 375

Andrew,
PMP primers are reasonably readily available.
My only gripe with them is that they are ostensibly magnum primers, and while they work in most cases, they do tend to upset my 308 target rifle groups a tad.
BTW, I still have some CCI primers left which have the sticker price of R1.12 on them and they work fine

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
I've never had any problems with Somchem at all and the staff are actually very helpful. - If you have any questions all you have to do is pick up the phone and they'll tell you everything you need to know. They also publish their own very comprehensive reloading manual.

How can we get our hands on a manual?

quote:

How can we get our hands on a manual?

Ask any of the RSA or Namibia or even Zim guys (I would imagine) to post you one.

quote:

Originally posted by WyoJoe:How can we get our hands on a manual?

Check out their website, the drop-down has most calibers listed, plus a Barnes-X section:

http://www.dlswc.co.za/Reload/default.asp

Bill's right. You don't need a manual because it's all on the website. - If you can't find what you want, just contact them and they'll get back to you.