Still No Relief With Ammo

[kbm6893]

MODERATOR EDIT:
Lay off the political commentary. See post #56.
Sincerely,
s&wchad

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A year ago I said it would pass, but ammo is still not widely available. Sure, I see some boxes of 9MM, but it’s nearly triple the price still. Haven’t seen one box of ammo of any kind in Walmart in months. Haven’t seen one primer since right before the pandemic. I don’t have a Bass Pro Shops or Cabelas that occasionally gets them in. My local guy that supplies all my components doesn’t have one bottle of powder or one box of primers in his shop. Hasn’t had any powder for 2 months, and even then it was shotgun powder. Haven’t seen one powder I use in over a year.

I know I can find some online at inflated prices. I’m not interested in high priced ammo through the mail. I started reloading about 6 months after Newtown. Components were scarce but I found some with only a little difficulty. We’re 18 months into this and no end in sight. Throw in a very anti-gun administration, foreign ammo being banned from being imported, and a non stop anti-gun media barrage, and it just looks like it’s never gonna ease up. I’m down to about 1200 pistol primers, and 2000 small rifle. I’ve got a few thousand of each already seated in cases, but I think I’m done shooting until I know I can replace what i shoot.

Seems like dark days ahead. Days I never thought I’d see.

 

[LostintheOzone]

This one will run a little longer than the last one.

The last dry spell was about 2 years IIRC. Hard times ahead.

HTA. Should be a bumper sticker.

 

[Rifleman200-10X]

Never thought I'd be stressing about primers/bullets/powder. I was a sponsored Service Rifle, and Long Range Highpower competitor for Hornady for almost 10 years. I shot around 10,000 rounds of 308 and 5.56 every year, and the UPS guy would carry small but very heavy boxes to my door on a regular basis. And there were always some leftovers every year, and I had a pretty substantial stockpile of components. Not a lot of handgun components, granted, but I never thought I'd be rationing my rifle stuff.

 

[MyDads38]

I've stopped shooting almost all together. in 18 months, I fired 300 rounds of 9mm-all reloads. I see things getting better in some places, but not in my area. I have picked up some 22, 308, 12 and 20 gauge at 2 different WMs around my area, but it is just luck. I could shoot more, just not comfortable enough to do so. I'm good on powder, learned that lesson last shortage. Wasn't expecting primers to dry up like they did (or Toilet Paper). I've been camping with my wife and beagles and playing guitar again. Hopefully, this will pass as it did in the past, just taking longer this time...

 

[teletech]

The local shops around here have ammo in stock, not everything all the time and it's expensive, but if you need some it's there.
Reloading components are still scarce but people really aren't buying, just waiting for prices to drop.

 

[waffles]

Local shops are keeping 223 ammo pretty much constantly these days, as well as .40S&W. Everything else is a crapshoot. I'm still not entirely out of ammo, but running low in some calibers and really only replacing hunting ammo as plinking prices are a bit more than I can swing for anything centerfire. It'll come back down sometime, but we have a good while longer of the dark times ahead.

 

[Rob613]

LGS received a message from one of their distributors, who have been mostly right from the beginning of this.

“This is going to get very ugly very fast. If you see stuff on the website, I would recommend buying it. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

I then saw the list from the distributor...there wasn’t much to pick from and it was expensive.

 

[max503]

My WM had 22 ammo for a while but now it seems people are scarfing it again.

 

[Breakaway500]

Nobody is laughing at the "hoarders" now..

 

[kbm6893]

I’m not out of ammo. Not even close. I have several thousand rounds loaded, the ability to make a few thousand more, and even before all this I didn’t shoot that much, maybe 1000 rounds of 9MM, 300-400 of .45 and .38 Special a year. I have probably 40,000 rounds of .22 ammo.

It just feels different this time. We’ve all been through other shortages. Nothing like this. To be honest, this one feels permanent to me. Best case scenario, the prices are going to be way higher. I expect a price increase of nearly double what it was to be the norm.

If I’m wrong, and I hope I am, I’ll have more components on hand when I am able to. At my reloading and shooting rate, I’m good on powder and bullets for years. It’s the primers that I’m low on.

 

[vonn]

I think the current political situation has caused a number of people to begin or continue stockpiling so I think that supplies will be short for longer than anticipated. Today’s prices may be cheap tomorrow.

 

[motor51]

Well I consolidated calibers a while back and had plenty of ammo. My problem is I got bit by the .357 bug and now I can’t find ammo for it. Oh well, guess it will get back to normal eventually


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Jessie]

And to make matters worse there’s the Russian ammo ban coming Sept. 7 for at least one year.
You may not use the steel case stuff and believe it won’t matter much but all those who do use it will be buying up what you normally shoot once their supply is cut off.
So in short, I think it will get worse yet.

 

[505Gibbs]

The fuel on this fire is the HUGE number of new firearm buyers that doesn't seem to slow down and many if not most want ammo at almost any price so they can try their new toy. That certainly won't do much to lower prices for now - IMO.

 

[PPCSHOOTER]

POWDER IS STARTING TO COME BACK IN MY AREA. I HAVE SEEN PRIMERS AT THE RETAIL LEVEL $65-$69 PER K LIMIT 1K. BUT ONLY AT SHEELS AND BROWNELLS. NO PRIMERS AT SMALL SHOPS AT ALL. BUT I'VE SEEN THE SAME SMALL SHOP OWNERS AT GUN SHOWS WITH PRIMERS ON THE THEIR TABLES FOR $150 PER K. I'LL REMEMBER THAT. THE DAYS OF PRIMERS FOR $25 PER K ARE OVER. I SAW A WHOLESALER'S PRICE SHEET. CHEAPEST PRIMERS WERE $34 PER K. JUST WHAT I'VE SEEN. JP

 

[Jack Flash]

Not to get political, but look for one ban after another.

 

[Muss Muggins]

Lots of stuff available here at near normal prices. I knew things were getting back to normal when Academy had a dozen boxes of 5.7x28 last week at only $8 more a box than before the shortage. I bought three . . .

 

[Johnnu2]

Fake shortages are becoming a marketing strategy in our country (IMHO of course). I would think that the suppliers know that 2 years is a minimum time to run the shortage; but this may be increasing depending upon our spending addictions.

I always advise that the consumer must vote with his feet and run away from buying. It's the only way to control supply and demand. I know it hurts, but lets be tough with these people. I like to turn the old saying around: When the going gets tough, the tough get going. So let's get going far away from the sellers.
And let's REMEMBER who they are.

J.

 

[Dfish1247]

If people aren’t using ammunition and components, where is it all going? There’s been panics and shortages for years now, and resellers have cashed in over and over. Granted, new members of the sport show up every day, but not every single one decides to keep a lifetime supply of everything for the whole neighborhood on hand at all times, quite a few lose interest shortly after, or the self defense crowd goes and uses a couple boxes every now and then.

Before all this nonsense started, how many people did you see mag dump a glock or ar, gobs of them, that’s how many. Now, there’s barely a piece of fresh spent steel case laying on the ground or in the trash, much less brass. People were using this stuff up like no tomorrow, now it’s hidden away never to see the light of day. And yet, it was plentiful to be had. Only one part is reusable, the brass, rest of it is one and done. I don’t hear about shooting sport shortages worldwide, and not every country is anti gun.

When I can go to the range on Saturday and it’s deserted no matter the time of day, something is bad wrong. Normally, the show offs are there blasting away, and a couple paper punchers, during the week, the shift workers and retirees are there paper punching or a few blasters show up, but nothing like a Saturday.

I understand not increasing production capability due to a feast and famine market, but good grief, the revenue that could’ve been made during these panics would pay for that stuff in spades and put even more in the manufacturer’s pocket. We have a bigger population than we did even 10 short years ago, that means more wallets, which means more money.

There’s million of theories and scenarios, we could all go on and on till the end of time and still not cover it all, above is just a couple things I can think of.

 

[teletech]

I've had to make sure to show up before a local range opens in the bay area of California order to not be wait-listed, so around there there's still a lot of shooting going on. At my place in Kingman, AZ, you don't really need a range but just a 10 minute drive out of town, so no waiting. The shops there are actually pretty well stocked with ammo. The prices seem rather high, but it's there.