Went driving around to gun shops yesterday just to get a feel for what's going on. I made two stops in Pekin, IL.
Dave's Trading Post was my first stop - they're always heavy on reloading components and I was looking for some BOOLITS.
My old friend Dave was picked clean. Shotgun primers out the wazoo, but no others. The powder shelves were almost empty, a few cans of Titewad and other shotshell powders that bore no interest to me. He had two lonely cans of IMR4064 and one can of AA4064 marked at about $20 a can - I liberated the 2 lbs of IMR4064 for some 7.5 swiss reloading. Normally he's got several hundred pounds of powder in stock; at this point, maybe has 30 pounds.
Bullets? Man slim pickings. There were NO 223 or 308 or 45 or any other common caliber in jacketed form, although he still had a (substantially smaller than before) pile of lead cast bullets; maybe 30,000 or so (normally has a LOT more). The only thing plentiful that I was interested in, he'd recently picked up a whole mess of 7mm projectiles (140gr spitzer), about 4,000 of them, at an estate sale, and had a really good price on them (15/box). I picked up some. Whoever passed away must have really loved 7mm!
Handgun cabinets still had a few revolvers and maybe two dozen semi-autos. I was really surprised to see the revolvers so heavily depleted. Very few small frame autos.
Rifle / shotgun rack was bare of anything resembling a "military style weapon". Not even any old C&R pieces to perk my interest. Several dozen new bolt actions and shotguns.
Ammo was thin. He had about 10 boxes of Tula 223 behind the counter, 8.98/20. But mostly what was left was odd calibers. I did pick up a couple of boxes of 357 mag for my Ruger SP101, price was a touch high but I grabbed some .357 BOOLITS with the intention of making the most out of the spent brass.
Helped him with a computer problem, checked out, and headed down the road to Pekin Gun.
Pekin Gun, by far, usually has the widest selection of firearms in this region, putting big stores to shame. They had thousands of guns last November when I was in there. But the shelves on the right, where the EBR's normally reside, were picked clean. There was a couple of older items; believe I saw an M1A, a couple garands, etc. But the prices weren't compelling.
They were picked clean of ALL "high cap" handguns, except for a big shipment of Glocks that arrived yesterday morning (approx 2 dozen in the cabinet). Prices on the Glocks were very reasonable. They also had dozens of 1911's, including some higher end pieces that I started drooling over before I checked myself.
They still had a lonely BAR semi auto replica, priced over 4K. I'd been eyeballing it for awhile, being an avid WWII collector, but that price tag .. ugh. I just can't stomach paying over 4K for what amounts to a really heavy 30-06 rifle. It's been sitting on their shelf for well over a year. At that price it'll probably be there another year.
Reloading components at this store were picked clean, they did have a decently large supply of handgun ammo, about 30 cases or so. I was there to check on consignments though, and didn't ask what the price was (cases were not marked with a price tag.)
I asked about consignments, and was told they are NOT taking any at this time. That's a 110% reversal of normal process. Not sure why, and they didn't offer any explanation. I speculated that maybe they don't want to have merchandise in their store with high price tags; they're still selling everything that comes in with a standard (reasonable) markup.
Anyway, that's the two that I checked on. Not inspiring, there's just not a lot out there to buy.
In the end, I'm glad I shoot a wide range of calibers, it really helps at times like this when the "common" stuff is all dried up or prohibitively expensive.
Dave's Trading Post was my first stop - they're always heavy on reloading components and I was looking for some BOOLITS.
My old friend Dave was picked clean. Shotgun primers out the wazoo, but no others. The powder shelves were almost empty, a few cans of Titewad and other shotshell powders that bore no interest to me. He had two lonely cans of IMR4064 and one can of AA4064 marked at about $20 a can - I liberated the 2 lbs of IMR4064 for some 7.5 swiss reloading. Normally he's got several hundred pounds of powder in stock; at this point, maybe has 30 pounds.
Bullets? Man slim pickings. There were NO 223 or 308 or 45 or any other common caliber in jacketed form, although he still had a (substantially smaller than before) pile of lead cast bullets; maybe 30,000 or so (normally has a LOT more). The only thing plentiful that I was interested in, he'd recently picked up a whole mess of 7mm projectiles (140gr spitzer), about 4,000 of them, at an estate sale, and had a really good price on them (15/box). I picked up some. Whoever passed away must have really loved 7mm!
Handgun cabinets still had a few revolvers and maybe two dozen semi-autos. I was really surprised to see the revolvers so heavily depleted. Very few small frame autos.
Rifle / shotgun rack was bare of anything resembling a "military style weapon". Not even any old C&R pieces to perk my interest. Several dozen new bolt actions and shotguns.
Ammo was thin. He had about 10 boxes of Tula 223 behind the counter, 8.98/20. But mostly what was left was odd calibers. I did pick up a couple of boxes of 357 mag for my Ruger SP101, price was a touch high but I grabbed some .357 BOOLITS with the intention of making the most out of the spent brass.
Helped him with a computer problem, checked out, and headed down the road to Pekin Gun.
Pekin Gun, by far, usually has the widest selection of firearms in this region, putting big stores to shame. They had thousands of guns last November when I was in there. But the shelves on the right, where the EBR's normally reside, were picked clean. There was a couple of older items; believe I saw an M1A, a couple garands, etc. But the prices weren't compelling.
They were picked clean of ALL "high cap" handguns, except for a big shipment of Glocks that arrived yesterday morning (approx 2 dozen in the cabinet). Prices on the Glocks were very reasonable. They also had dozens of 1911's, including some higher end pieces that I started drooling over before I checked myself.
They still had a lonely BAR semi auto replica, priced over 4K. I'd been eyeballing it for awhile, being an avid WWII collector, but that price tag .. ugh. I just can't stomach paying over 4K for what amounts to a really heavy 30-06 rifle. It's been sitting on their shelf for well over a year. At that price it'll probably be there another year.
Reloading components at this store were picked clean, they did have a decently large supply of handgun ammo, about 30 cases or so. I was there to check on consignments though, and didn't ask what the price was (cases were not marked with a price tag.)
I asked about consignments, and was told they are NOT taking any at this time. That's a 110% reversal of normal process. Not sure why, and they didn't offer any explanation. I speculated that maybe they don't want to have merchandise in their store with high price tags; they're still selling everything that comes in with a standard (reasonable) markup.
Anyway, that's the two that I checked on. Not inspiring, there's just not a lot out there to buy.
In the end, I'm glad I shoot a wide range of calibers, it really helps at times like this when the "common" stuff is all dried up or prohibitively expensive.
