After things calmed down I got ammo for all the caliber guns I had. But now I have an older gun that shoots .44 Spl and it deserves mild loads. HSM 240 gr. is presently available for $25.70/50, which for me is fine.

So my question is, when everything else was tight during the panic buying, what was the availability of Cowboy type .44 Spl.

Thank you in advance
(BTW, for me, reloading is not an option)

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Buy American
Vote Responsibly

Not gettin' a lot of responses, are you? Move to a state where they're found in most gun shops. Take up reloading. Or become a smuggler.

Just accept the idea that you've got a caliber that may not be found on an errand. When you see it, buy it. Stock up ahead of time. Invest so you have it when you want it or need it. The new tax law gives you all that extra money each paycheck. Use some of it wisely and buy a few boxes.

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Dick Burg

I have a lot of various 44 caliber revolvers. I have purchased a total of two boxes of ammo over a period of 40 years. The "ammo panic" came and went without the slightest notice by me. I cast all of my own bullets, so I never have to buy them either, and I can make them in whatever weight I want. I can also load the cartridges to my preferred power level, whether "cowboy loads" in 44-40, or full powered 44 magnums.

.22 ammo? No thanks. Not for me.

Dick Burg said it. When the federal AWB loomed in the early nineties, I quickly stocked up on standard-capacity mags for guns I had back then, and started slowly accumulating ammo. I didn't have as much discretionary money then as now, but I always moved forward rather than backward.

My heirs won't suffer any immediate ammo shortages.

During the middle of the last "Panic" , I've been through about 3 panics now, I went over to my buddies gun shop to spend some money and pick up a few things ...he had nothing on the shelves...no ammo, no bullets, primers, powders ...he didn't even have any Lee bullet moulds or handles. I was looking for Varget Powder....so was he. None, nada , zip , zero. I mean the shelves were empty no ammo , center fire or rim fire , very few boxes of shotgun shells. I did not see any cowboy loads in 44 special .He did have some gun cleaning supplies. This was an established gun shop that had a large inventory at one time...everything flew off the shelves and the manufacturers have still not caught up fully. I still have trouble sometimes finding primers, handgun powder and cast bullets .
Now I'm not talking about buying mail order....buying at loacal gun shops we have three local owned and a Cabela's.
I called my friend and asked him about cowboy loads , he said he had a few boxes and can get them for me but doesn't keep a large stock because of low demand.
I started reloading and bullet casting in 1967...When Bill Clinton (anti-gun democrat) was elected in 1993 , that "panic" made me realize an election can cause wide spread panic buying and hoarding....clearing shelves of things you could easily purchase at one time.
After that I made sure to have reloading dies and several bullet moulds for every caliber I owned or thought about owning, handgun, rifle or shotgun .
I never want to depend on what a dealer has in stock or what a politician can decide to limit with a stroke of a pen again. I have stockpiled primers and powder .
Being the master of your own ammunition supply....feels good !
Gary

Unless you live in an area where there is a lot of CAS activity, you probably won't see much Cowboy ammo on any store shelves, ammo panic or not. And it has been my experience that a large majority of Cowboy shooters always load their own anyway, except possibly for shotshells.

I wonder, with factory .44 Spcl. being a lower demand cartridge, and Cowboy .44 Spcl. likely being in even less demand, if it might be more available than a bunch of more popular cartridges during ammo panics? During an ammo panic, our local Wally World,with one exception, had no centerfire handgun or .22 rimfire ammo available, but through it all had WWB .357 SIG, a cartridge less in demand, available.......

I guess I shouldn't say they had none available. A Wally World employee told me the same guys knew when ammo came in and would be stocked. He said the same guys came in as soon as it was in the case and bought it all

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NRA Life, COTEP 640

At the Wally mart in our area the guys who worked the night shift at the plants , got off at 6:am and would drive to wally mart to meet the 7:30 am delivery truck. They stood in line and bought up all the ammo before it got to a shelf.
And two different sales clerks both told me this when I was looking for 22 ammo. I had to get in line before 6:00 to beat them to it if I wanted any .
Gary

During panics the ammo companies have trouble meeting the demand on the common stuff and do not produce much, if any, of the less common rounds.

It probably took a little longer for the .44 Special to sell out, but once the shelves were empty the chance of anything getting restocked was slim.

CAS ammunition was never easy to find and this area is and was heavy into CAS. 44 Special was certainly even more difficult, as was .44-40. That's why I let my .44-40 Vaqueros and Rossi Model 92 go to a friend. Too hard to chase down the ammunition and my handloader from my CAS shooting days retired. (I don't hand load and would never try it; if I loaded it I'd never trust it, I am that unhandy!).

.45 Colt was easy to obtain. I still have a boatload.

Getting .44 Special ammunition has never been a problem for me. I reload.

Powder, check.
Lead, check.
Primers, check.
Brass, check.

What, me panic?
-Alfred E. Neuman (closeted reloader)

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Certified Curmudgeon

Exactly, I've been through a few panics, mostly since the 2008 election.

Ammo manf seem to put a halt to the smaller market lines. Everything seems to focus on the main lines like 9mm, 40, .45 auto.

In central Ill, 44spcl is not easy to come buy and when you do, it costs an arm and a leg. I buy my rounds online.

I know people keep mentioning reloading, but for us younger members that didn't have decades to stockpile, you couldn't find powder or primers to save your life...so I didn't really matter what you did.

I know that for myself and many of my shooting friends, the panics simply meant drastically reduced range time. The panic in late 2012 translated to my visiting the range only once or twice summer of 2013, there just wasn't ammo to be found anywhere and when you could, it was 3 times what it should have been.

While OP says reloading isn't in his future. For those who can I previously laid out what I considered to be reasonable low end (meaning new, not I got this Dillon off ePay for $29 plus shipping) to start out. Numers were for .38 Spl, but handloading .44 is about the same, bullets a tad more, powder, heck 7000 grains per pound $18-20 per pound, if you shoot factory now, you have brass.

My numbers were $98 durable goods, plus $89 expendables to do 750 rounds. ($187 total out of pocket.) Those 750 rounds cost you $0.33 each including 100 percent depriciation on durables and "surplus" powder and primers, then rounds cost $0.114 each distributing the cost of powder, primer, hornady frontier lead bullets over each round produced.

Trick is to buy now, before the Redcoats leave Boston.

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Certified Curmudgeon

stockpile brass,,
Bulk order primers and powder,
Dont worry be happy

No need to panic, but now is the time to slowly build up your reserves and scrounging fired brass and scrap lead. Be careful on the quantity of powder and primers; there is probably a limit to what you can store and still be covered under your insurance policy in case of fire. Too much and you are SOL.

I only need three handgun powders (Bullseye, Unique,and 2400, and I could get along fine without 2400 if needed) and two rifle powders (IMR 4198 and IMR 4064), so that saves a lot of redundancy. If you can't load good ammo with just these powders there is something wrong with your gun.

Forget the fancy pants presses; all you need is a single stage.

Lee bullets molds will cast a lot of bullets and are cheap. Most of them don't even need to be sized; just lubed.

I could go on for a while, but you get the idea... plain, simple, and effective.

I can cast for most chamberings I shoot. I have several hundred # of various lead including wheel weights, Lynotype and pure. I have lots of primers (the weakest link). Is 50# of powder a lot? I can always make black powder if times get hard.

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Chris
SWCA #2243 SWHF #292

Just keep it cool while you are mixing it. (Made a very small amount in a high school chemistry class, can you imagine that today?)

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Certified Curmudgeon

Could not agree more except I could not give up 2400. Nearly all of my reloading is with Bullseye, Unique and 2400. I use 2400 in carbine loads, so I would just have to deal with .30-30 and 7.62 Russian Short being my top end.

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Certified Curmudgeon