Making Primers?

[roy reali]

There have been many threads lately about components for our hobby. They seem to be getting harder to find. Weather it is some sort of government conspiracy, mass hesteria, or simple greed I don't know. But the fact remains that reloading is getting harder and more expensive. That got me to thinking.

To roll our own ammo requires several components. First there is the brass case. At least we can reuse this several times. With mild loads five hundred cases should keep one busy for awhile. The other parts have to be replaced every time.

If for some reason all the powder supply was to dry up, it can be made. Granted, a dangerous undertaking, but one that could be done. The same with bullets. A mold and some soft metal would create projectiles. We all love the convience of jacketed, premade bullets, but with ones back against the wall there would be no other option. There is one more component needed.

That would be the primer. How on earth could one make them? Is it possible without fancy machinery and a degree in chemistry? Maybe those of you that know about these things could tell me if this is even possible. Could Joe the casual reloader construct homemade primers? Even going to muzzle loaders requires a percussion cap. I suppose switching to flintlocks or matchlocks would be a viable option, but cased ammo is another story.

[wncchester]

We would have to remove the anvil from spent caps, stamp the fiiring pin dent out, install the compound (after making it), and reinstall the anvil properly. Not really practical at home so they have us by the short hairs on primers!

[ar15chase]

You might buy "The Poor Man's Improvised Munitions Handbook" I know it tells you how to make powder in there, I dont know about primers. There are also many more "useful" things in it.

[roy reali]

primers no. They have us at the primers. No primers, no reloading...period. Unless, there would be a practical way to make them.

How long does it take to become proficient with a flintlock?

[Demaiter]

My thoughts were too humorous and well you never know what would happen if someone actually tried one of them. I don't beleive they were very "safe" so I removed them.

[Jkwas]

I've thought about this myself and the answer is quite simple: If the demand is there new companies need to spring up to fill the void. I'm sure the tooling wouldn't be that complicated and the toughest part would be locating to a place where the licensing and insurance wouldn't be prohibitive. I thought about looking into it myself. I bet I could find enough partners to go in on it to make it do-able. How hard could it be? Are the compounds involved proprietory? It's just a metal cup with composition inside. Problem being that once the demand died down you might be stuck with too few customers to remain viable. I'm surprised that a company like Ga Arms for instance hasn't gone into it.

[vsgonzo]

What about the aftermath of a nuclear fallout and its you and the family huddled around the reloaded as your 3 yearold stands guard with a leveraction by the window lol?

[rwilson452]

The problem with ;rimer compound is it is very unstable in the manufacturing process. By very unstable I mean VERY unstable. one little mistake and KABOOM!!!

[highrolls]

Modern primers tend to use lead styphnate, barium nitrate and antimony sulfide, and the process is most likely a proprietary thing. I suspect the old style mercury fulminate would be easier to develop for home-made.

I remember back in the late 60's (maybe around 1968 or 69, I read an article (hazy memory) that was "Guns and Ammo" I think. They were doing a post nuclear war scenario kind of thing and covered how to make both primers and usable powder. They sort of followed wncchester's post above for reworking the primers and used the phosphorus tip of the old style kitchen matches, ground them up carefully with a razor blade, powdered them back into the reworked primers, placed a drop of fingernail polish on the powder and anvil to hold their relative positions, let dry, and reprime. The rest of the kitchen match (the red part) was sliced up and used for powder. They had actually developed loads for 38 special and Shotgun rounds with this stuff. Wish I could find that old magazine. I remember they had a thermal caution on the shotgun reloads. These loads were "hot" in the thermal sense.

[Gbro]

I believe if we ever had to resort to making our own primers I would use the berdan primer. The anvil is in the cartridge case.
This battery cup primer rebuilding tool just may become a needed devise. I pondered what one would use for components when using this tool
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3750528.html

[guntotin_fool]

The issue with all this is its going to take way more kitchen matches to do than buying a couple of thousand primers when you can, and a few cans of powder and making a cache of them.

[Delmar]

There is a video on youtube of a guy who was reconstituting primers using match tips. It didn't look all that fun, but i suppose, if you had no other way to shoot, more people would try it. I am simply going to stock up on primers, just a bit, as I am able. The problem is everybody 'stocking up' will keep primers rare for a while.

[Delmar]

OK
I have been making my own primers for about a month and a half

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7nphPRG6JA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZdaE...eature=related

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Very nice! Time-consuming, but nice! Good work!

[snuffy]

I did it
OK
I have been making my own primers for about a month and a half

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7nphPRG6JA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZdaE...eature=related

Of course you know, those re-built primers are corrosive? The guns that fire those primers would have to have their bores scrubbed thoroughly with water based solvents IMMEDIATELY after being fired, or else you would have rust almost instantly.

The second video showed just the primer being fired the 8th time. How does the primer do with say, a full load after 8 times? Wouldn't that pounded out dent eventually weaken and perforate? Maybe not at 45 acp pressure levels, but what about full house rifle loads?

If we ever get to the point there's no primers available anywhere, we would be fighting a civil war against our government. Do you think we're going to have time to gather spent primers, matches, toy caps, and re-build primers on our kitchen table?

[zxcvbob]

Armstrong's Mixture. (Nobody in their right mind would make the stuff unless they had to.)

Mercury fulminate rots your brass, and mercury has gotten almost impossible to find anyway.

[ZeSpectre]

Modern primers tend to use lead styphnate, barium nitrate and antimony sulfide, and the process is most likely a proprietary thing. I suspect the old style mercury fulminate would be easier to develop for home-made.

mercury fulminate...talk about unstable while you are working it up...yikes.

I keep wondering if we'll see another form of "electronic ignition" showing up in a design soon. I've long felt that primers are a major weakness in firearms.

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Cut the guy some slack. He was simply proving a concept. He was just showing that it in fact could be done. OBVIOUSLY it is not worth the time... unless you NEED a round of ammunition to feed your family! Not everyone goes to the supermarket for their meat.

[impalacustom]

LOL, I guess I'll just save a magazine of ammo so I can go rob someone of their primers if it ever comes to it.

[snuffy]

ICH, cut ME some slack! I was not attacking delamr, just letting everyone know,, TNSTAAFL, There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. In other words, it will work, BUT you have to pay for it by cleaning your gun right away. Just thought some here may not have known that?

[ZeSpectre]

Easy guys,
Let's take a deep breath and keep it civil.

IllinoisCoyoteHunter - Excellent point regarding "proof of concept". This sort of stuff is very good to know because, to be blunt, you never know when it might revert from "obsolete trivia" to important information.

snuffy - Great "FYI" regarding corrosion and the need to take extra care if one should try this sort of reloading. There are a lot of people out there these days who have absolutely no idea how fast corrosive primers can muck things up if extra care isn't taken.

[EmptyHull]

We can always go back to flintlocks. Tim

[Delmar]

It is pretty time consuming but I haven't been able to buy primers in months. I make a bunch of them before I go to the range, shoot em up and go make more. I am saving the couple hundred factory primers I have for emergency situations.


It is true that these suckers are corrosive. Wash your barrel out with water and chase it with a good sqirt of WD 40 to get the water out.

[Delmar]

My goal is not to get everyone to make there own primers, by the way. My goal is to help people believe that the panic buying, isn't completely necessary.

[darkgael]

We can always go back to flintlocks.

That was my thought exactly. Goofy as it may sound, part of my reason for owning and using flintlock rifles, pistols and shotguns is the independence from reloading components. Of course, I don't have the semi-auto option.
If you want to become really independent of the supply and demand of commercial ammo and components, look into a big bore PCP air rifle of 9mm/.45/.50 caliber.
Pete