Relevant but not BP.
I'm puzzled by your not finding strike-anywhere matches. They're available around here in the picnic section of every supermarket I've been in.
Just for the sake of doing it, many years ago I re-loaded large pistol primers with matchheads. I popped them out of the cases, cleaned them up, made a punch to flatten them out, and annealed them by quenching from red heat. Some of the anvils were distorted, and were not used. I tried this experiment out with pistol primers since they do not distort much from internal pressures when fired. The primers had the three-legged anvil.
I was very careful about not getting match heads together when removing the percussive tips of the matches. I'd cut one off carefully (had about 20% ignite during this operation), and put it in a small pile about four feet away. When I got ten or twelve of them, I'd put them in a plastic vial, only ten or so per vial. I also had a big fire extinguisher handy.
When ready, I took a matchead, placed it on a damp paper towel for a couple of minutes, placed it in the primer, pressed it down with the same punch I used to flatted the ding out of the primer, and set the anvil back in. Some of the anvils were a little loose, so I would remove it and try another. This anvil-setting operation was kind of tricky, since you've got to let the anvil protrude slightly.
You will notice that commercial primers are made so that the anvil sticks out slightly, and on the act of repriming the cartridge, the protruding anvil legs press the anvil head into the pellet of priming compound so the pellet is sort of pre-stressed. This enhances the sensitivity and reliability. I had been concerned that the priming operation would break up the dry matchhead pellet on loading them into cases, but this "prestressing" seemed to have little effect --but see note below about the two light loads.
I then let them dry, keeping them a safe distance apart, and loaded them into resized .45 ACP Cases.
I chose to do this with the .45 because it is easy to clean the corrosives out of it, and I could replace the NM barrel with the original barrel for the test, so I wouldn't screw up the NM barrel.
I re-loaded, if I recall correctly, something like 4 grains of Unique into the case and seated 230 grain bullets on top of them.
I had no misfires in ten rounds that I loaded, but the light-ish load of Unique failed to cycle the slide twice. I do not know if this was due to poor ignition or just a lighter individual load (the former is more likely.) None stuck in the barrel, as one might expect from light loads.
This is a delicate and touchy operation, but since I had had extensive training in chemistry, I knew what to do to prevent injury -- gloves, welder's face maske, glasses under that, etc. I also was prudent about keeping one match head away from the others until I put them in the plastic vials.
After firing the ten I'd loaded, I decided this was a reasonably viable technique for re-manufacturing primers, but subject to considerable enhancement, and not suitable for a "home production line."
I destroyed all the other matchheads by the simple expedient of soaking them in water and flushing them down the john.
I only did it because I am a firm believer that firearms technology should not reside solely in the hands of the government and the police.
I would suggest, however, that this not be attempted by anyone. I am reporting it to deter experimentation on the theory that since I did it, you don't have to.
Besides, this was all done many decades ago when I was young and foolish and immortal... whereas now I am old and foolish and not so immortal anymore.
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Hatcher (Hatcher's Notebook, no page reference available) reports an incident where a young man was carrying a bucket of loose primers from the drying house to the ammunition assembly area at one of the arsenals, shaking it in time with his walking. The bucket exploded, killing the boy instantly.
The moral of the story is to never let primers get together in bulk, although as packed in the grooved containers you buy them in they are almost perfectly safe from mass detonation, even from fires.