Past (AMMO Shortage) events in history?

I can't remember anything like this for sure.

Even Y2K wasn't this bad but it probably would have been if there had been a war going on at the same time.

I think the combination of political uncertainty and a military buying billions of rounds a year has put a squeeze on things never seen before.

The standard military contractors were not able to produce enough ammo so there were additional contracts let out to the manufacturers that normally didn't do business with the gov.

Wish I could remember where but I recall reading that the military is paying about 35 cents a round for 5.56 currently.

That's good profit and guaranteed steady income for a smaller company. No surprise they would turn their backs on some civilian sales for a piece of that pie usually reserved for giants like ATK.

With the buildup in Afghanistan it may be this way for a while yet I fear.

How about the early 1940s WWII. They didn't even have enough copper for pennies when they were done making the bullets for the military.

Quite frankly I am actually thinking of melting my older real pennies into bar stock and getting a small lathe to turn my own .308 bullets.

I have a big water jug full of pennies I have been collecting for years.

I would copy a Barnes solid or drill in the base and add some lead to satabilize it better.

Lead, real lead is going to be in short supply as well.

lead? try old car batteries.

I remember the great primer shortage of '94, I don't recall there being a similar ammo shortage around that time but I was pretty young.

I don't know about old car batteries, seems like too much acid and other toxic stuff in a battery to make it worth my while. However, the old lead wheel weights from a tire shop are good-to-go. They'd most likely just give you a five gallon bucket of them.

"How about the early 1940s WWII."

I asked my father and he said there was no shortage. Of course he was in the military.

Seriously, people back then didn't shoot cases of ammo. The major shortages that are still mentioned frequently (hey, I visit an old folks home every week) were gas, coffee, sugar and such. A lot of old guns and Civil War swords went to scrap metal drives.

The majority bought one box of ammo at a time and tried to get one animal for every bullet in the box. That's the way I was raised in the '50s and 60s. It really improves your focus and technique in a hurry.

John

That's the way I was raised in the '50s and 60s. It really improves your focus and technique in a hurry.

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Yep...in the 60's I could afford one box of .22LR's at a time. I made those 50 rounds last as long as I could.
I can't recall a gun owner created ammo shortage quite like the one we have right now.
I did see some .380 at Cheaper-Than-Dirt yesterday....CCI Blazer FMJ for $59.95 per box!

JohnBT: "The majority bought one box of ammo at a time and tried to get one animal for every bullet in the box. That's the way I was raised in the '50s and 60s."

I think I can provide confirmation. I come from a family of hoarders and pack rats. Yet one day before taking my father to my local range, my parents first saw the inside of my ammo cabinet (NOT the much larger "stockpile"; just the little cabinet), and they looked at each other with amused concern. To them, it looked like I was getting ready for WWIII. I suppose it made as much sense to them as if I bought several hundred tubes of toothpaste all at once, to use one after the other as they ran out down the years. After all, you need your teeth, and toothpaste might run out. Flouride might run short, after all. Prices increase. So on.

Back in the 1950s, when you ran out of bullets you ducked into the local hardware store and bought another box. Davy Crockett and Bat Masterson did not have "ammo stockpiles" in the Hollywood movies, after all. They'd go into the General Store and buy ammo in a foreshadowing scene that let them talk guns on screen.

I believe the shortages, inflation and survival craze of the 1970s and 1980s changed the earlier assumptions, and individuals saw themselves as frontiersmen stockpiling goods which might run short. It was funny for years, but now those of us who stockpiled are in the catbird seat. For me it began as prudent hoarding of obscure or scarce vintage military cailbers as I found them. But soon it seemed odd to have so much .303 Brit, 6,5 Swede, 6.5 Jap, 7.5 French and so on, yet far less .30-30, .30-'06, etc. So the general stockpile grew.

Quite frankly I am actually thinking of melting my older real pennies into bar stock and getting a small lathe to turn my own .308 bullets

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Unless they are pretty old thye onl have a thin copper coating.

lead? try old car batteries

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Not a good idea. Your better off mining bullets from the range or collecting wheel weight from local tire shops

From the CastBoolits forum:
Why Car Batteries Are Dangerous
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When the battery lead is melted down there is enough sulfuric acid from residual electrolyte trapped in the lead dioxide and lead framework of the battery plates to react with the small amount of calcium metal in the lead alloy. Normally when sulfuric acid (or water) gets in contact with calcium metal it undergoes a rather vigorous reaction that generates hydrogen gas. In and of itself this is no big deal, hydrogen is a simple non-toxic asphyxiant that is also flammable. But the lead alloy used in batteries also contains a bit of antimony and even arsenic to help harden and strengthen the lead to withstand the vibration and general knocking-about batteries have to withstand in order to survive normal automotive use. When hydrogen comes in contact with arsenic and antimony, or compounds of these two elements, the hydrogen reacts to form ammonia analogues called arsine and stibine, AsH3 and SbH3. Both of these are heavy gases and both have the similar characteristic odors of rotting fish. In World War One the Germans experimented with these, along with phosphine, another rotting-fish-smelling gaseous ammonia analogue with formula PH3, as war gases. As such they were highly effective since they are deadly in amounts too small to easily detect. In even smaller amounts that are too small to immediately kill they cause rather painful lung damage that often eventually leads to emphysema and lung cancer.
So, leave smelting car batteries or using lead smelted from them to professional recyclers. Many folks including myself have successfully smelted batteries and lived to tell about it, but the risk is just too great to mess with the stuff.

People keep mentioning wheel weights.

The things are covered with asbestos dust from brake linings. Just something to keep in mind.

Asbestos as the braking material has been banned in the US for quite a while (to include aftermarket parts). I think the last car originally equipped with asbestos lined brakes was in 1993. I guess it is still possible to get weights that have some asbestos dust on them.

The majority bought one box of ammo at a time and tried to get one animal for every bullet in the box. That's the way I was raised in the '50s and 60s. It really improves your focus and technique in a hurry.

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That was my experience also. I can't remember my dad ever having more that a box of .22lr's at a time and 12 gauge was about 1/2 a box.

I believe the shortages, inflation and survival craze of the 1970s and 1980s changed the earlier assumptions, and individuals saw themselves as frontiersmen stockpiling goods which might run short.

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Good points. I'd add the influx of cheap import ammo also led to the new shooters keeping more ammo on hand than my local hardware store used to stock.

My grandfather saw an ammo shortage during the depression, he lived in Florida, as I do now, and it was quite common for people to put a deer, hog, or gator or two on the table each month. His dad was one of the few folks with a car that mostly went unused because my great-grandad had few horses and carts(he and few guys he knew made their own wheels), and he didn't live far from his shops or factories.

Granted this is still the days of black powder and muzzle loaders, like old Alvin York grew up on, for a lot of folks. The good 'modern' ammo was not easy to come by, sometimes you'd have to go to a few counties to get a couple hundred rounds that'd last for a few months. And my great-grandad had more than a few enemies, folks in the Klan had it after him. Other than that he never really could recall any shortages.

I'm done stockpiling, when I was at Walmart the last time I saw they had about forty of the Winchester White Box 100 packs and plenty of .30-30. Granted other than .22lr and some Sig .357 and .25 auto there wasn't much else but I realized I had paid in total average for my last 2k of 9mm at twenty-one cents a round(all good factory reloadable stuff) and here I bought three 100 packs for 19.99 a pack. Plus my English Surplus .308 showed up which was 750 rounds, I bought three bricks(550 rounds) of .22lr and forgot I had another four besides the open one in my packing totes. Yeah I did a full inventory and felt like a total idiot, but I was happy to find another 150 .357 magnum and 200 .44 Magnum, and around fifty shotgun slugs and 00'. Plus I did a group buy just recently with my cousins on 7.62x25 and I got 10k at just under a cent a round, granted between my six couins and I we bought a total of over 60k from a guy in Miami who's an importer. And I already had two k of thep polish which shoot real good. And so I'm going to get two more TTCs(I've got one in 7.62x25, a Norinco in 9mm, and I did the conversion on one TTC for 9x23 Winchester which I can easily convert back to 7.62x25, it'll also shoot 9x23 Largo I've found).

But I'm a pack rat and such, I financed my hoarding through gambling, playing the stock market, my landscapping business, while going to law school, I'm just sad that one day there won't be many Tokarevs left for under $250, just love those guns. And I'm still waiting on that k of .223 I ordered, the defense contractor filled five hundred rounds but forgot to fill the rest. And I have less than 250 rounds for the 30-30, and only a little more than 2k for my AKs and SKS. I know I should stop spending, I can well afford to keep going, but it's gotten obscene, and I'm not far off from finishing my PPSH43 now so I'll have another gun to shoot. And i've got less than a k of .45 ACP for my two Ruger P90s(one is the fiancees, but she wants to wait to get married before taking it).

And my I've got ton of reloading supplies still. I just wish I could get more small rifle primers.

Ammo was expensive when I was a kid in the 60's and 70's. That was before the CCCP broke up, so there was no cheap Eastern European ammo, either new or surplus. Imported ammo meant something like Norma or Eley and it was pricey. I don't remember the American makers having cheaper bulk pack centerfire stuff like Winchester white box, either. There wasn't a shortage, as such, but people I knew just didn't keep more than a box or two on hand due to price. I originally got into reloading just to be able to shoot a Colt SP-1 with some economy.

I wonder if the development of more efficient energy sources will lead us to start using more scrap steel for bullet cores and cases. You can get scrap for like $100/ton. Mild steel makes decent plinking ammo, and we could save the lead for hunting and defensive loads.
The issue is mainly energy costs... steel casts at a much higher temperature than lead. And, it is more difficult to anneal and press the cases, again due to temp requirements and rapid heat dispersion. You would need a kiln that pushes close to 2000 degrees F for casting, and about 1500 for annealing.

I wonder if the development of more efficient energy sources will lead us to start using more scrap steel for bullet cores and cases.

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Not in Illinois, anyway -- can't shoot anything heavier than lead.

Not in Illinois, anyway -- can't shoot anything heavier than lead.

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Do you mean that you can not use steel core or jacket bullets in IL? Lead is heavier and denser than steel.

Around '94 as posted above...

Unless they are pretty old thye onl have a thin copper coating.

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Not THAT old - any penny minted pre-1982 is 95% copper, 5% zinc by weight. Many of the 1982 cents are also 95% copper, but the change occurred during the year and it is simply easier to separate the pre-'82 cents from the newer ones. The Memorial-backed cents were made by the billions from 1959 until 2008 (we have 4 new backs this year, in honor of Lincoln's 200th b'day).

I've done an informal survey of several thousand pennies - roughly 15% are from 1959-1981.

My question is this: where are there molds for copper solids? Or does one simply create them from existing solid bullets?

By the way, when copper prices were high about a year ago, the pre-'82 cents were worth roughly $0.025 each in copper - though it was and is illegal to melt them down (yeah, I know, stop laughing). FYI, copper's melting point is roughly 2000 degrees F.