Old primer/bullet boxes

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The big primer boxes that Federal uses are to meet international shipping/storage requirements for primers. Having extra room around the primers makes them less likely to sympathetically detonate when stored in very large quantities.

When I moved out of my first house my reloading room was in the basement and it had a small bar in the corner that I had my press setup in front of. I am not a big drinker so the bar was pretty much unused as a bar just extra work space for reloading. I got in the habit of throwing those big Federal primer boxes behind the bar when I finished 1000 primers. Federal was all I was using since I was loading 40S&W for both a semi-auto and a revolver. So to keep it simple all I used wis Federal. When we finally moved I went back there and gather them all up. 36,000 primers worth of Federal primer boxes will fill a larger 50 gallon garbage bag. I would have loved to find a use for old primer trays but other than using a few as coasters in the shop I have never found much use for them.
 
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I would have loved to find a use for old primer trays

When I was a kid, my best friend's dad shot a lot of trap. We snagged a few Winchester 209 primer trays out of the trash, and I had my mom make little 'shotshell primer' ice cube trays out of them. Didn't work very well, I'm afraid...
 
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Here I thought I was finally in the current century with CCI primer boxes. My last red CCI 1000 pack box is almost empty and I was about to be looking at all blue CCI boxes until my Powder Valley order showed up Saturday and low and behold 2 of the 1000 pack boxes are some new fancy design. Guess I'm destined to have a stack of different colored primer boxes for ever.

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Guess I totally missed this run of boxes as I don't think I ever had one is stock.
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It's funny how they change the packaging on something as mundane as primers. Since they seem to be flying off the shelves, I don't know why they waste their money on 'paint,' they could just 'white box' them like they do the #34's and #41's and save the money.
 
Maybe someone can tell me how old these Winchester primers are:

Edit - BTW, that 45acp box is full of original cartridges, along with the 2 - 9mm boxes on top of it. They are too cool to shoot.

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Here I thought I was finally in the current century with CCI primer boxes. My last red CCI 1000 pack box is almost empty and I was about to be looking at all blue CCI boxes until my Powder Valley order showed up Saturday and low and behold 2 of the 1000 pack boxes are some new fancy design. Guess I'm destined to have a stack of different colored primer boxes for ever.

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Guess I totally missed this run of boxes as I don't think I ever had one is stock.
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I’ve had the blue and black Don’t ever recall red boxes. How far back do they go.
 
I'll play, have liked "Show & Tell" since grade-school.:)

Gathered some stuff for a quick picture........

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Upper left is not primers or bullets, but partial box of gas checks. Thought it was interesting as the label says:

Midwestern Arms & Tool Works
Chicago 8, Illinois

Also a couple of wood trays like 243winxb but not completely full. When I started reloading I decided to use up the old stock after doing some research. So this idiot wrote comparison notes on some sleeves. :eek: Oh well...........
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The box of Speer bullets has a faded hand-written price of $4.00.
 
I’ve had the blue and black Don’t ever recall red boxes. How far back do they go.

I purchased my last red box sometime in the mid 90's, not sure when they started or how long the red was in production as I kind of took a 10 year break from reloading shortly after purchasing them.
 
Was pretty sure I had a couple of opened boxes of Win primers - looked right at them 3 times before finding them.
Found a couple other things too.

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45-70 New (well, never used) primed cases, 1 missing. Some of it's probably not that old. Anyone know anything about the Markell bullets?
 
I purchased my last red box sometime in the mid 90's, not sure when they started or how long the red was in production as I kind of took a 10 year break from reloading shortly after purchasing them.
I see they are Magnum primers which I have never used. Perhaps that’s the reason.
 
I see they are Magnum primers which I have never used. Perhaps that’s the reason.

I think you jogged my memory. I think your right the red box was Mag primers and the blue and gray box was standard primers, explains why I never had a blue and gray box as I only purchased mag CCI primers up until a few years ago when Mag primers were impossible to find for a while.
 
I kept the empty boxes of a couple Sierra bullets that were marked from the first factory location in the early 60s, IIRC. They are just gathering dust if somebody wants them, have to go looking.
 
I give my empty primer trays, Acme bullet boxes and the occasional bullet tray to an art teacher friend of mine. She and her students find all sorts of uses for them.
 
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