In light of the ammo shortage...

Ah yes...ancient wisdom serves the frugal! :-D

So self imposed gun control brought to you by the firearm community.

This ammo shortage is a pain in the butt. Luckily I'm finding out how to substitute calibers, and I am using a lot more blackpowder. A .44 Remington serves as a good substitute for my .38 Special.
For .22 rimfire type plinking I'm working on building a rifle barrel for my .410 that shoots .32 S&W long. I can load this and everything shorter with blackpowder and roundballs. A pound of Pyrodex is gonna last a long time when you're only throwing 12 grain doses.

You'll prolly pull out the NAA mousegun as well, eh?

Shooting these things definitely stretches range time. I'll usually shoot something modern for a half hour to get any urge to rush out of my system and then I'll pull out a muzzleloader for a couple of hours. Definitely keeps costs down, promotes actual aiming (and follow through) and keeps it interesting.

Will, I use that little .22 mag for everything. Concealed carry, backup hunting gun, vermin with solid projectiles and ratshot, even close up hunting. I've had it since 09' when I became hopelessly addicted to BP, haven't put it down since.

Of course a nice set of hawgleg grips has made the gun much more comfortable to shoot and another cylinder has increased firepower. Thanks again bud!

I never thought this would become an issue...but with my current budget I just don't have the money to practice with smokeless powder weapons.

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If I didn't handload and didn't have a decent stock handy, I wouldn't be able to either. I don't have a massive ammo stockpile like some do, but I've got enough to shoot for probably another year without buying any more. I figure it'll be back to normal by then.

I don't shoot any competition (yet), or my stock would not last very long. I'm wanting to get into IDPA. When I do that, my 2k-3k round stock won't be a drop in the bucket.

But you're right. Going out and shooting BP would certainly be better than sitting at home wishing you were at the range.

I spend all summer long using my 1860 Army revolver for hunting whistle pigs. Bait them in with some tasty morsels of cantaloupe and other groundhog delicacies and then splatter them with a 454 sized ball. It’s more fun using a black powder revolver and I spend maybe 50 bucks tops for ammo. Heck with those messages you're getting more and more on the internet, "out of stock" No backorder.

I've recently taken up BP shooting for pretty much the same reasons. I reload and am well stocked in the several calibers i own, but since picking up 2 ruger ROAs, 2 remington 1858s, and a CVA in-line, i have lost all interest in shooting anything but black powder. I can't believe i have put this off for so long, this is the most fun i have had shooting in years.
I'm thinking of thinning out the herd on my cartridge guns to get more BP guns, a caplock and flintlock are definitely in my future.

So maybe the recent shortages aren't such a bad thing

On a serious note yes indeed it seems that more and more are coming to the black powder field for several reasons lately. The big concern that I have is percussion caps. After numerous calling around and digging up information I was able to find out that an estimated 1 billion rounds PER DAY is being made right now, this is in all calibers for everyone, and all the primers made (not an easy or quick process mind you) are going for commercial manufactured ammo. Most places have said they anticipate a let up around September ish. Another thing of note is this is the season with one of the highest demands for ammo of the year.

Luckily I bought a bunch of percussion caps before they got too hard to find. Just pure dumb luck since at the time it was kind of an excessive number (not so much now that I'm shooting black powder most weeks). Even more luckily I also have a decent flint stash if it comes to that.