Also, does anyone have a handle on the actual percentage that reloading fills in the US ammo market? What percentage of ammo used are reloads?
Out of 100 primers consumed, how many would typically go to reloaders on an annual basis?
no exact numbers but primers to private reloading is tiny no matter how big we think we are
with a lot of the relaoders of the past having been shotgun shell reloaders for trap , they made it not worth your time to relaod for around 20 years and most people slowed or stopped reloading 12 and 20 with high price of led and low cost of loaded ammo.
competition shooting is up but even with that I would be surprised if 3 in 100 primers hit the private relaoding market as in those of us not having a class 6 ffl license to manufacture ammunition and buying in 1K boxes
there is a growing professional relaoding market but I would still guess they are small potatoes at maybe 10% or less of ammo on the shelf/web for sale
I think we definitely need greater diversification in the Primer market , right now primers are a real point of slow down in the system and you can only work 24/7 you just can't go faster when it comes to primers everything is limited by the quantity of priming compound you can have out and moving at one time.