Federal primers

I can't find federal primers anywhere. Does anyone know why that is, or where I can get them?

same problem here in Edmonton Alberta

It's my understand that the gov is first inline for Fed primers to be used in the making of ammo for the military. I may be incorrect and if so someone please corrent me. You can find them online in limited supplies which is a good thing but, you have to pay the hazard fee to get them delivered and that can be steep considered how much the cost of primers are. Ya might try here for some Fed primers.

http://www1.ivenue.com/tandtreloading/productCat46603.ctlg

I had 2 different sales clerks at Sportsmans warehouse tell me that the fed facility where they make the primers burned down. It is now up and running again, but they have to fill all the military orders before civilian. I don't know if that is all true or not. But I have been looking for Fed primers for 3 months and cannot get/find them anywhere. Actually, it is getting hard to find any large rifle primers on the shelf, and if I do they are $26.00 a brick instead of the 18.00 a couple of years ago.

Long

I live next to federal cartridge and to the best of my knowledge they did not have any fire. I do know that the military is first in line for the 210's and small pistal primers 100. Sportsmen warehouse said they need to order one year in advance in order to get the primers. Sportmans warehouse in Coon Rapids Mn, Has plenty of 215's and 150's. After years of using Fed's I had to change to remingtion's primers to support my habit.

Take care Aaron

For whatever reason, my local gunstore could not get any number of brands of primers for a while. However, he is now well supplied ! He has about any kind of primer you could imagine. Remington, Winchester, Federal, CCI. etc.

One thing I noticed is that Federal and CCI have both changed their packaging. New colors, etc. I am not sure, but maybe that was part of the delay.

I went ahead and bought another brick of Fed 215M, his price currently is $29.95 for a brick.

Maybe they will show up in your area soon.

Same problem as mentioned in Alberta. Therefore when I was is Edmonton in late February I bought what I could @ P&D then in Red Deer I found full BOXES of Federal 210 & 215, I bought them all except 1 for my buddy and me. So I'm good to go now.

The wars in Iraq and Afganistan have taken a toll on the all the manufacturers. With the amount of ammo expended on a daily basis over there, it's no wonder we reloaders are having a hard time finding primers.

For instance, a guy I know in Iraq told us he went through 9000 rounds of 5.56 (223) ammo in the first three to four months he was in country.

Thanks, no wonder I can find any here in Edmonton!!!

Mighty Peace said:

Same problem as mentioned in Alberta. Therefore when I was is Edmonton in late February I bought what I could @ P&D then in Red Deer I found full BOXES of Federal 210 & 215, I bought them all except 1 for my buddy and me. So I'm good to go now.

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i didnt want to start a new post but is there much of a difference from the regular Mag primers 215 and the 215M match primers? And if so is it worth using them in a hunting rifle?

I guess I'm lucky. I just bought another brick of GM215M's. I have plenty of primers now.
Now I need to stock up on powder before the price jump next month.

JD338

I have been searching for Fed 210M for quite some time. A few weeks ago I saw that Midway had 1 lot of 5000 in stock. I ordered them as fast as I could. I am good to go for a long long time.

JD338":3pbpefng said:

I guess I'm lucky. I just bought another brick of GM215M's. I have plenty of primers now.
Now I need to stock up on powder before the price jump next month.

JD338

Click to expand...

That's why I can't find any 215GM primers around here, you have them all. :grin:

OU812":1ge5xnyp said:

JD338":1ge5xnyp said:

I guess I'm lucky. I just bought another brick of GM215M's. I have plenty of primers now.
Now I need to stock up on powder before the price jump next month.

JD338

Click to expand...

That's why I can't find any 215GM primers around here, you have them all. :grin:

Click to expand...

You're funny. :lol:

JD338

Its a good thing I have a few 1000.

In response to metallica:

The answer is "it depends". I have pretty much gone to the Fed 215M primer but did do a fair amount of testing before I did. I found that the differences between the standard 215 and the 215M varied from gun to gun and load to load.

All things considered the 215M "should" be more consistant. However, some guns and loads just cannot or do not show any difference.

In my 300 Wby Mag using RL 22, I simply cannot detect any difference at all.

In my .338 Win Mag using H 4350, I see a slight improvement using the 215M, both in groups and standard deviation. I saw a similar improvement in my 25-06 using IMR 7828.

In my 7mm Wby Mag using IMR 7828 I found a rather dramatic difference in the two primers. The gun was shooting pretty good with the Fed 215, but I tested the Fed 215M and it was a good deal better. I shot quite a few groups with each. I measured all the groups and averaged them to find a 28% smaller group size with the Fed 215M !

Is that enough to make it a better hunting rifle? I do not know, I do know that I am using the 215M version in that rifle from now on.

Another thing that the match primers do in some cases is eliminate flyers. I had a custom 6mm Rem built a few years ago. It shot well, but not to its potential. I switched to the Fed 210M primer and the groups got a good deal better, no more unexplained shots outside the main group.

thanks R Flowers for the info. Now if I could only find federal primers of any sort.

Thats what I use for my 300WM and 270WSM, as the 215 Mags were out Except for 1 box) so I stalked up on the GM primers. A bit more $$ but who cares when primers are hard to find.