by Gadge » 30 Mar 2023, 9:27 am
Graeme Forbes of Forbes Wholesale, who were the long-time Oz RWS agents, tells the tale of ADI flying in shipments of primers from Germany, while he had ample stocks of cheaper seafreighted RWS primers on hand!
ADI/Thales have never locally produced Boxer primers AFAIK. The old Footscray factory only ever made Berdan primers - no anvil, and different cup diameters to standard Boxer types. They had plans at one time, to produce primers at ADI Benalla, but it seems that never went ahead.
A relevant anecdote; I applied for an Industrial Chemist job at ADI Benalla ~30 years back now , and synthesis of the active [explosive] components for primer filling was then part of that job description.
Got to the second [on site] interview stage, but was pipped by a local to me Research Lab chemist...