Macross wrote:bladeracer wrote:ZaineB wrote:I don't know how many small pistol primers you think are sold in Oz every year, but I doubt it'd even fill a ten-foot container.
I dont know about that. Noia apparently had 1 million Federal small pistol primers in stock before the shortages. A case of 5000 is 450mm x 200mm by 100mm. (I have one in my stash and just measured it). Im sure there is a way to work out how much space 1,000,000 would work out to but when i tried my brain started hurting.
So yeah, im sure there are more small pistol primers consumed in australia than you think. Most guys who shoot IPSC chew through 200 plus per week which adds up quick.
How many IPSC shooters do we have in all of Australia?
How many of them are handloading rather than using bulk factory ammo?
What percentage of those are shooting every week?
The few (that are not sponsored with factory ammo) who are shooting 200rds per week, every week of the year, are using 200x52=10400, or two cases a year. A hundred such dedicated shooters are getting through 1,040,000 primers per year.
Retail value of around 10 cents apiece, or 8.5c buying by the case, around $90,000, so import value probably around $30K, plus Dangerous Goods import costs. By the time the importer has the container at the warehouse maybe it's worth $40K.
A 10ft container has a capacity of 16m3, so you could probably get 10,000,000 primers, or 12 cubic-meters in there. A quick Google found some oldish figures of about A$4000 to bring a 20ft container from the US to Sydney. No idea of the export/import or DG fees, but the export fee from South Africa for two rifles in 2018 was US$800. Regardless, the landed cost of ten-million primers is probably not too outrageous, maybe A$500K, that can be retailed for about $900K. The importer stands to make perhaps $100K to $150K for the effort.
So how does that stack up against an enterprising individual deciding to fill a niche by starting up a primer manufacturing business here...particularly when primers are beginning to show up on shelves in the US already.