question on primers and prices

02 November 2013, 19:26

I am new to this forum and too reloading, been shooting my whole life just never got into reloading until now. With that said I found a local reloader who is selling Magtech primers for 25.00 per 1000 for large and small caliber rifles and handguns
Is that a good price and are those good primers? Also what is the best powder for reloading AK and AR bullets and is 185.00 for 8lbs a good price for powder to reload AR
thanks for any help/feedback

02 November 2013, 19:35

Stonecreek

I have some Magtech primers but haven't yet used any. There are no reports of problems with them, however, and I would regard them as perfectly useable. They are made in Brazil, which is no longer a "third world country". Many of the airplanes you fly on are made in Brazil and I'm much pickier about the planes I ride in than the primers I shoot. $25/1000 isn't a bad price for any primer these days.

There are literally dozens of powders which are suitable for loading .223 for use in any rifle. Individuals always have their favorites, but those "favorites" span the dozens of powders. Which powder you pick will somewhat depend on the weight of bullet you intend to shoot, so there is really no way to make a blanket recommendation. $180/8lb is a little on the steep side, but is not out of line with prices charged during the recent shortage which is now abating. However, I don't think you'll find new, non-surplus powder for much if any less for the next few months, and if you did it would only be $20-30 cheaper, which isn't a big cost difference when loading .223.

02 November 2013, 20:40

Mutant

Thanks for the reply
I was going to be loading 62grain green tip and 55 grain bullets.
I was wondering if there was a chart on here that gave the best powders for different loads.
I want to stock up while we can on powders I want to load a few(less than a 1000)69 grain 223
The rest will be for my AK and then all the handgun loads 9mm 10mm 45 auto 40sw and 357 sig
all hollow points I will load some practice ammo as well

02 November 2013, 20:46

dpcd

Please get a reloading manual like the Hornady and read the hell out of it from cover to cover; that will answer your "best powder" questions. You will find several good powders in the medium burning range will work fine; don't limit yourself to just one powder because when you can't get it, you will have an alternative. Yes, 25 per thousand is a great price; they are selling here for $40. The first primers I bought were from Herters for $4 (four) per thousand.

04 November 2013, 19:26

deltam

Couple years ago, CCI & Winchester primers were in the $27.00 to $28.00 per thousand at local gun shops plus 7% sales tax. Now, as then, if you bought online you had to pay a $25.00 (or $27.00) hazmat fee even if you only bought one box of 1,000. Then after the crash, they went to not available to $55.00 to $65.00 /k. At a recent gun show I attended, quite a few vendors had CCI primers for $30.00/k, including sales tax. Local pickup doesn't involve a hazmat fee.

My personal preference is for CCI primers based on the silly fact that they are silver color and easy to distinguish my reloads from factory loads.

The last few years I chronograph all my new loads. I'm finding the reloading process to be just as rewarding as the shooting, maybe even more so.

I try to not buy large quantities of pistol powder. For a sportsman plinker, 8 lbs of powder is a ridiculous amount considering most pistol loads are 4-10 grs. Rifle rounds are a little bit easier to justify at 25-50 grs per round but still 8 lbs of a specific powder most likely will last longer that I will.

My complaint lately with suppliers is that power supplies seem to be put up in only larger containers. Supply and demand forces at work, I suppose. Why, hypothetically spend 10 minutes filling 10 1 lb containers when they can fill an 8 lb container in 1/10th the time and make more money. As long as there are desperate folks that spent the money on the larger sizes, they make more money.

04 November 2013, 19:40

Snowwolfe

quote:
Originally posted by deltam:

My complaint lately with suppliers is that power supplies seem to be put up in only larger containers. Supply and demand forces at work, I suppose. Why, hypothetically spend 10 minutes filling 10 1 lb containers when they can fill an 8 lb container in 1/10th the time and make more money. As long as there are desperate folks that spent the money on the larger sizes, they make more money.

Shooters who buy 8 pounds jugs are not really desperate. I prefer to buy 8 pound jugs because they are cheaper, take up less space, and I have 8 pounds coming from the same lot number which is very important if you are shooting near max loads or loading for double rifles which require precise loads to keep the regulation perfect.

04 November 2013, 20:57

Mutant

Thanks for the replies
I know the prices have been all over the place....like with magazines...48 round AK mags were a 100 a piece at the beginning of the year...now I just bought some for 8.00 a piece and for every 4 you bought you got one FREE. I know insane how things swing in these days

Ok so I am going to buy a bulk of the MagTech primers..........as for the powders: Large caliber and small caliber rifle powder in 8lb cans for 200 or under out the door is good then? So what would a good price be on large and small hand gun powder in 8lb cans

And too start out and learn is a single stage loader the way to go...to learn to be precise etc and then move onto say a 550 or 650 progressive press?
And with the single stage I can still load everything from 416 barrett to 9mm
Thanks

04 November 2013, 22:55

Snowwolfe

If you want to see what good prices are for powder or primers check out Powder Valley
http://www.powdervalleyinc.com/stylemenu.html

That will give you an idea of what it sells for online to compare locally.

05 November 2013, 03:22

Fury01

I see no change in availability measured against "before the event" happened. What you find is scattered, priced very high and lasts not long. I am not sure I think we civilian shooters are buying all the powder, primers, bullets and ammo including .22 Long rifle ammo that world wide production can make. If we are; there are a lot of basements that won't meet fire code and don't have room to play ping pong anymore. And I am sick of the circumstances no matter what the problem is. I can't go buy 22's for my granddaughter to shoot up. We have given up much in this country in the last few years folks and I think we rightly fear there is more coming.

05 November 2013, 20:19

deltam

quote:
Originally posted by Mutant:
Thanks for the replies
I know the prices have been all over the place....like with magazines...48 round AK mags were a 100 a piece at the beginning of the year...now I just bought some for 8.00 a piece and for every 4 you bought you got one FREE. I know insane how things swing in these days

Ok so I am going to buy a bulk of the MagTech primers..........as for the powders: Large caliber and small caliber rifle powder in 8lb cans for 200 or under out the door is good then? So what would a good price be on large and small hand gun powder in 8lb cans

And too start out and learn is a single stage loader the way to go...to learn to be precise etc and then move onto say a 550 or 650 progressive press?
And with the single stage I can still load everything from 416 barrett to 9mm
Thanks

For someone new to reloading, I would suggest doing a bit of math to determine how much powder to buy in a given brand or label and how much you plan to shoot, and will it perform for the different calibers you plan to shoot. Take a 9 mm Luger. A common bullet is a jacketed 115 gr round nose. A common powder used for this round is Unique. Take a average load of 5.0 gr for this round, 8 lbs of powder will get you 11,000 rounds, give or take a few.

A common rifle round is .308. A common powder for this round is Varget. An average load of this powder for a 160 gr jacketed round would be for sake of example , load in the range of 45 gr range for powder. This will get you 2,200 rounds, give or take a few.

A few years ago, when we refinanced our house, the guy that did our appraisal saw my reloading set-up and said he was a competitive shooter/reloader shooting a .45 ACP highly modified 1911 "race gun", the slang term for such a modified pistol. He said he typically shot 10,000 rounds of the same caliber, bullet, and powder load a year. Eight pound containers make sense for someone like him.

For the average plinker, like me, this is a lot of shooting. I get more enjoyment from shooting different guns of different caliber.

I think pistol or straight walled cases are easier to load than bottle neck cartridges. The rifle rounds I've loaded, all of which were bottle neck, take more attention to detail, like head spacing than most pistol rounds. Much in each depend on the chamber of each. Generally the closer the tolerances, the more accurate they are. Generally these closer tolerances are more finicky. It depends on your gun.

As far as the single vs progressive debate is concerned, I started with a progressive. The mistakes I made, and new ones that crop up, would be common to either one. If you are a member of a gun range ask around and see if there is a reloader that will help you get started. Also I would highly recommend two books, "Lyman's Reloading Handbook", 49th edition, and especially Hornady's "Reloading for the Handgunner", by Patrick Sweeney. The later is a great book, filled with common sense advice. These books will help you in your purchasing decisions as well.

According to Patrick Sweeney, two of the easiest rounds to learn to reload are the .38 spec and the 45 ACP. I would stay away from the likes of the 10 mm, a.k.a Sony Crockett, Miami Vice (if you are old enough to remember this series) hand cannon or the bottle neck .357 Sig handgun round.

I have narrowed down my pistol powders to four. Unique, HP-38, Universal clays formula, and Bullseye. These will load the pistols I own OK. I've found Bullseye is better for short barrel pistols like my Kahr PM 9 and Unique better for my longer barrel 1911 45 ACP. I'm relatively new to rifle reloading. The calibers I reload are .223, .308 AR style and a new addition is a Remington 700 in 300 AAC Blackout bolt gun. I just started reloading rifle rounds last spring and have a lot to yet learn. My auto loads cycle reliably with reasonable accuracy and that is a good first step. I live in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. My backyard range is a maximum of 100 yds. There are just to many trees and hills around here to get much more than that. There is a members only range about 15 miles away that has a 200 yd range. Given these limitations, I can't really load for long range accuracy.

I shoot a lot of lead lately in pistol rounds. Availability is better and prices per bullet are better than jacketed bullets. Lead is a bit more smoky due to the lubricant but is easy to clean off my pistols. I really don't worry about barrel leading in the modest loads I use. I still have a good stock of Berry's plated lead pistol bullets, a compromise between cost of jacketed vs lead and when I get low on a specific caliber or weight I get the smaller amounts (250 count or 500 count) from Dillon or one of the other plated bullet suppliers I have bookmarked. I use to buy direct from Berry's but lately they only want to sell to retailers like Dillon. Part of the supply/demand conditions I suppose. I reload 6 different pistol calibers and enjoy chronographing different combinations of bullet weights and powder. I have a 50x55 foot shed/barn on our property with a bullet trap inside and have my chronograph permanently set up.

I recently bought a 300 AAC Blackout primarily to shoot suppressed. At one point, I was regretting this caliber as there is very little published data for this caliber. It has taken a certain amount of finesse to get the round where I want it to be, using the Elmer Keith method, though not to the extreme he did. Not having a lot of published recipes for loads, I had to fudge the loading, just a little bit, going off of experience to get the sub-sonic round to perform like I wanted. I would have never done this with a such kaboom prone rounds as a10 mm, knowing what I have learned about this round.

05 November 2013, 20:28

deltam

quote:
Originally posted by deltam:
quote:
Originally posted by Mutant:
Thanks for the replies
I know the prices have been all over the place....like with magazines...48 round AK mags were a 100 a piece at the beginning of the year...now I just bought some for 8.00 a piece and for every 4 you bought you got one FREE. I know insane how things swing in these days

Ok so I am going to buy a bulk of the MagTech primers..........as for the powders: Large caliber and small caliber rifle powder in 8lb cans for 200 or under out the door is good then? So what would a good price be on large and small hand gun powder in 8lb cans

And too start out and learn is a single stage loader the way to go...to learn to be precise etc and then move onto say a 550 or 650 progressive press?
And with the single stage I can still load everything from 416 barrett to 9mm
Thanks

For someone new to reloading, I would suggest doing a bit of math to determine how much powder to buy in a given brand or label and how much you plan to shoot, and will it perform for the different calibers you plan to shoot. Take a 9 mm Luger. A common bullet is a jacketed 115 gr round nose. A common powder used for this round is Unique. Take a average load of 5.0 gr for this round, 8 lbs of powder will get you 11,000 rounds, give or take a few.

A common rifle round is .308. A common powder for this round is Varget. An average load of this powder for a 160 gr jacketed round would be for sake of example , load in the range of 45 gr range for powder. This will get you 2,200 rounds, give or take a few.

A few years ago, when we refinanced our house, the guy that did our appraisal saw my reloading set-up and said he was a competitive shooter/reloader shooting a .45 ACP highly modified 1911 "race gun", the slang term for such a modified pistol. He said he typically shot 10,000 rounds of the same caliber, bullet, and powder load a year. Eight pound containers make sense for someone like him.

For the average plinker, like me, this is a lot of shooting. I get more enjoyment from shooting different guns of different caliber.

I think pistol or straight walled cases are easier to load than bottle neck cartridges. The rifle rounds I've loaded, all of which were bottle neck, take more attention to detail, like head spacing than most pistol rounds. Much in each depend on the chamber of each. Generally the closer the tolerances, the more accurate they are. Generally these closer tolerances are more finicky. It depends on your gun.

As far as the single vs progressive debate is concerned, I started with a progressive. The mistakes I made, and new ones that crop up, would be common to either one. If you are a member of a gun range ask around and see if there is a reloader that will help you get started. Also I would highly recommend two books, "Lyman's Reloading Handbook", 49th edition, and especially Hornady's "Reloading for the Handgunner", by Patrick Sweeney. The later is a great book, filled with common sense advice. These books will help you in your purchasing decisions as well.

According to Patrick Sweeney, two of the easiest rounds to learn to reload are the .38 spec and the 45 ACP. I would stay away from the likes of the 10 mm, a.k.a Sony Crockett, Miami Vice (if you are old enough to remember this series) hand cannon or the bottle neck .357 Sig handgun round.

I have narrowed down my pistol powders to four. Unique, HP-38, Universal clays formula, and Bullseye. These will load the pistols I own OK. I've found Bullseye is better for short barrel pistols like my Kahr PM 9 and Unique better for my longer barrel 1911 45 ACP. I'm relatively new to rifle reloading. The calibers I reload are .223, .308 AR style and a new addition is a Remington 700 in 300 AAC Blackout bolt gun. I just started reloading rifle rounds last spring and have a lot to yet learn. My auto loads cycle reliably with reasonable accuracy and that is a good first step. I live in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. My backyard range is a maximum of 100 yds. There are just to many trees and hills around here to get much more than that. There is a members only range about 15 miles away that has a 200 yd range. Given these limitations, I can't really load for long range accuracy. My rifle powders are Varget, AR-Comp and Trail Boss. I did buy, reluctantly, 8 lbs of AR-Comp due to limited availability of the rifle calibers I'm familiar with. The Trail Boss is for sub-sonic loads.

I shoot a lot of lead lately in pistol rounds. Availability is better and prices per bullet are better than jacketed bullets. Lead is a bit more smoky due to the lubricant but is easy to clean off my pistols. I really don't worry about barrel leading in the modest loads I use. I still have a good stock of Berry's plated lead pistol bullets, a compromise between cost of jacketed vs lead and when I get low on a specific caliber or weight I get the smaller amounts (250 count or 500 count) from Dillon or one of the other plated bullet suppliers I have bookmarked. I use to buy direct from Berry's but lately they only want to sell to retailers like Dillon. Part of the supply/demand conditions I suppose. I reload 6 different pistol calibers and enjoy chronographing different combinations of bullet weights and powder. I have a 50x55 foot shed/barn on our property with a bullet trap inside and have my chronograph permanently set up.

I recently bought a 300 AAC Blackout primarily to shoot suppressed. At one point, I was regretting this caliber as there is very little published data for this caliber. It has taken a certain amount of finesse to get the round where I want it to be, using the Elmer Keith method, though not to the extreme he did. Not having a lot of published recipes for loads, I had to fudge the loading, just a little bit, going off of experience to get the sub-sonic round to perform like I wanted. I would have never done this with a such kaboom prone rounds as a10 mm, knowing what I have learned about this round.

05 November 2013, 20:41

deltam

quote:
Originally posted by deltam:
quote:
Originally posted by Mutant:
Thanks for the replies
I know the prices have been all over the place....like with magazines...48 round AK mags were a 100 a piece at the beginning of the year...now I just bought some for 8.00 a piece and for every 4 you bought you got one FREE. I know insane how things swing in these days

Ok so I am going to buy a bulk of the MagTech primers..........as for the powders: Large caliber and small caliber rifle powder in 8lb cans for 200 or under out the door is good then? So what would a good price be on large and small hand gun powder in 8lb cans

And too start out and learn is a single stage loader the way to go...to learn to be precise etc and then move onto say a 550 or 650 progressive press?
And with the single stage I can still load everything from 416 barrett to 9mm
Thanks

For someone new to reloading, I would suggest doing a bit of math to determine how much powder to buy in a given brand or label and how much you plan to shoot, and will it perform for the different calibers you plan to shoot. Take a 9 mm Luger. A common bullet is a jacketed 115 gr round nose. A common powder used for this round is Unique. Take a average load of 5.0 gr for this round, 8 lbs of powder will get you 11,000 rounds, give or take a few.

A common rifle round is .308. A common powder for this round is Varget. An average load of this powder for a 160 gr jacketed round would be for sake of example , load in the range of 45 gr range for powder. This will get you 2,200 rounds, give or take a few.

A few years ago, when we refinanced our house, the guy that did our appraisal saw my reloading set-up and said he was a competitive shooter/reloader shooting a .45 ACP highly modified 1911 "race gun", the slang term for such a modified pistol. He said he typically shot 10,000 rounds of the same caliber, bullet, and powder load a year. Eight pound containers make sense for someone like him.

For the average plinker, like me, this is a lot of shooting. I get more enjoyment from shooting different guns of different caliber.

I think pistol or straight walled cases are easier to load than bottle neck cartridges. The rifle rounds I've loaded, all of which were bottle neck, take more attention to detail, like head spacing than most pistol rounds. Much in each depend on the chamber of each. Generally the closer the tolerances, the more accurate they are. Generally these closer tolerances are more finicky. It depends on your gun.

As far as the single vs progressive debate is concerned, I started with a progressive. The mistakes I made, and new ones that crop up, would be common to either one. If you are a member of a gun range ask around and see if there is a reloader that will help you get started. Also I would highly recommend two books, "Lyman's Reloading Handbook", 49th edition, and especially Hornady's "Reloading for the Handgunner", by Patrick Sweeney. The later is a great book, filled with common sense advice. These books will help you in your purchasing decisions as well.

According to Patrick Sweeney, two of the easiest rounds to learn to reload are the .38 spec and the 45 ACP. I would stay away from the likes of the 10 mm, a.k.a Sony Crockett, Miami Vice (if you are old enough to remember this series) or the bottle neck .357 Sig handgun round.

I have narrowed down my pistol powders to four. Unique, HP-38, Universal clays formula, and Bullseye. These will load the pistols I own OK. I've found Bullseye is better for short barrel pistols like my Kahr PM 9 and Unique better for my longer barrel 1911 45 ACP. I'm relatively new to rifle reloading. The calibers I reload are .223, .308 AR style and a new addition is a Remington 700 in 300 AAC Blackout bolt gun. I just started reloading rifle rounds last spring and have a lot to yet learn. My auto loads cycle reliably with reasonable accuracy and that is a good first step. I live in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. My backyard range is a maximum of 100 yds. There are just to many trees and hills around here to get much more than that. There is a members only range about 15 miles away that has a 200 yd range. Given these limitations, I can't really load for long range accuracy.

I shoot a lot of lead lately in pistol rounds. Availability is better and prices per bullet are better than jacketed bullets. Lead is a bit more smoky due to the lubricant but is easy to clean off my pistols. I really don't worry about barrel leading in the modest loads I use. I still have a good stock of Berry's plated lead pistol bullets, a compromise between cost of jacketed vs lead and when I get low on a specific caliber or weight I get the smaller amounts (250 count or 500 count) from Dillon or one of the other plated bullet suppliers I have bookmarked. I use to buy direct from Berry's but lately they only want to sell to retailers like Dillon. Part of the supply/demand conditions I suppose. I reload 6 different pistol calibers and enjoy chronographing different combinations of bullet weights and powder. I have a 50x55 foot shed/barn on our property with a bullet trap inside and have my chronograph permanently set up.

I recently bought a 300 AAC Blackout primarily to shoot suppressed. At one point, I was regretting this caliber as there is very little published data for this caliber. It has taken a certain amount of finesse to get the round where I want it to be, using the Elmer Keith method, though not to the extreme he did. Not having a lot of published recipes for loads, I had to fudge the loading, just a little bit, going off of experience to get the sub-sonic round to perform like I wanted. I would have never done this with a 10 mm pistol round, knowing what I have learned about this round.

06 November 2013, 18:25

Mutant

Deltam thank you very much for your very in depth and thoughtful reply It was very helpful