Powder, brass and primer famine in your area too?

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Float Pilot

Float Pilot

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Jul 27, 2007
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Kachemak Bay Alaska
This morning the wife and I drove 75 miles up the hwy on a shopping rip and I stopped by 3 or 4 shops looking for 308 brass, some 30 caliber bullets, primers and hopefully some H-4895.
NOTHING WAS ON THE SHELVES.

The kid who worked at Sportsmansw*orehouse told me that four or five guys have figured out when their shipments show up and they buy everything that comes off the truck and the put it up on the internet sales sites within hours for a huge mark-up...

I managed to find one bag of 44 Special brass that had fallen down behind a counter....

Talk about a waste of {$4.07 a gallon} gas....

My weekend and mid-week hand-loading and shooting sessions are really slowing down....
 
At the moment, most shelves are bare when it comes to certain ammo and reloading supplies. Things will get back to normal but how long that will be is the real question.
 
I have to admit I got caught without a supply of suitable 223 powder last month. I was able to make a trade with a friend for a pound of H335 for a pound of powder he needed. There seems to be no powder locally and primers are invisible too. There is hardly anything available locally although there is a trickle of ammo at most stores. My local dealer is getting 1 case of everything except for 22LR ammo weekly.

He has 5000 CCI LPP but nothing else and no resupply hope any time soon. He also has 1 pound of 800X left on the shelf and that's it!
 
My sportsman's had some aa2460. Not the powder I wad hoping for but I got some data for it. They also had a couple 1k boxes of lrp mag. I don't want a k so I grabbed 200 to get me started.

Cabelas had a few boxes of .30 Cal amax so I got one of those. Couldn't beleive the cost of some of those 30cal bullets though.

I'm all set to start my adventure of .308 reloading once my shellholder gets delivered. Good luck.

Sent from my CZ85 Combat
 
Powder and primers have dried up here, I'm glad I stocked up. Bullets are still available for now, I put in a order to Penn Bullets for .358,.44 and .45acp but it will be while before I see them.
I will be shooting my 22lr more, I have a good supply of those.
 
Fire_Moose said:
Cabelas had a few boxes of .30 Cal amax so I got one of those. Couldn't believe the cost of some of those 30cal bullets though.
Click to expand...
One possible defense is, some of those expensive bullets were probably premium hunting bullets and not plinking bullets. 30 Cal Nosler Partition bullets will cost you A LOT more than Sierra GameKing bullets. I agree though, some of the prices on premium bullets will make your eyes pop out! (think Swift!) Even though some of those bullets are extremely good I see no reason for over $1 each but they do get that. (just not from me) Bad enough Nosler Partitions are 70 cents each. Thank goodness their Accubond bullets are 50 cents each and Sierra GameKing bullet which stop Deer quite well are only 25 cents each.
 
I stopped in to the only LGS in this area of the state, and was amazed at the LACK of components. There was no brass, few bullets, and almost no powder on the shelves. I have never seen this store with such depleted shelves.

Oh, and I will add that when I arrived, there were so many families entering the store, I had to check to make sure it wasn't a movie theatre instead of a gun store. The store was packed with people buying everything in sight. There was even a sign posted on the gun safes saying that there was a 120-days wait before orders could be filled due to the unprecedented demand for them.

Thank God I have plenty of everything I need, and know where there are smaller, less well known stores that have plenty of components in-stock.
 
Yes, the famine is everywhere. My LGS is out of just about every powder but the 231 and 296. The had it in 1lb and 4lb containers and no one seemed to be buying it.

I don't understand that.

No primers, no rifles at all. the last time I was in there (a week ago) the entire rifle rack was empty but they still had semi-auto pistols in the counter.

I also did get caught short on Universal but have about 12 lbs of various other pistol powders that will have to take it's place until I can find some.

That may be a while.
 
Small pistol primers are no where to be had!

I asked the guy behind the counter "Do you guys have primers?" .. "Yeah, what kind" ... Before I could even say the word "Small Pist--Yeah that's an easy one, nope"... :D

They did have a single box of 1000 small rifle primers, that I promptly stole for regular retail price. :) They had a few 5000-primer boxes of Winchester Large Pistol primer, though.
 
The LGS seems to have plenty of primers ($40 per 1000). Not so much bullets. Powder is fairly picked over, but if you really need it there's something that will work there to keep you shooting (for handguns they had a lot of Alliant Herco and Blue Dot - neither were prime choices for me so I decided to wait a bit longer).
 
Well sure, just about everywhere is seeing some shortages now.
I was surprised the other day when a friend who owns the local general Store said he was running low on 22LR and was almost out of 22Mag.
I have to remember tomorrow to see if he has any 45 Colt left.
 
The last trip I made (Friday) I was needing magnum small pistol primers and also a suitable magnum pistol powder.

On the primers, they had 4K CCI 550's. Not to be greedy/hoarding I took one box of 1000. The price was reasonable.

On the powder my old standbys (H110, 2400 etc) were wiped out. I took my burn rate chart as a reference since I figured this would be the case. Ended up with Ramshot Enforcer as the replacement. I went through my first set of reloads yesterday with good results. I'm looking at the bright side of this as an opportunity to try something I would usually overlook.
 
I was wasting some time waiting for my son this afternoon, and wandered into the Cabelas retail near me. ZERO on the primers. ALMOST zero on the handgun caliber bullets I use (9mm and .45) though there were a few bags of 100 count Remington 9mm 115gr RN FMJ. I don't use these, I get the more cost effective plated bullets. What surprised me the most was the heavy quantity of powders they had on the shelf. I was expecting nothing there. They had Unique (some sort of new label on this stuff, I didn't recognize it at first), Clays, Bluedot, WSF, Trail Boss, numerous rifle powders... I really am not in need of powder or primers right now, so I didn't pick anything up. I'm out of .45acp pills right now, but that's because I just loaded up the last few hundred I had, so I am in a good spot to wait right now for things to level off. I'm pretty well set with 9mm plated 115's for a while too. Got smart after the last shortage and stocked up. Will do that again when this one ends. They had lots of rifle bullets - LOTS. But none of the bargain stuff except in the less popular calibers.
 
Well this all means there are a number of new firearms owners and reloaders along with those that are trying to profit off the situation. Good for the 2A in general but bad on those that try to profit excessively. Locally there are spotty ammo sightings but reloading stuff is really sucked off the shelves. I believe it seem it is worse than the last one at least around here anyway.
 
the only thing I can't find right now is small pistol & small rifle primers.
Hey, I'm a handloader.. I can sub a mag primer and work the load back up... I don't mind..

some brass is in short supply, but you can usually find it if you know where to look..
I found some .356 Win brass for a guy on MarlinOwners by simply knowing "why" to look there..
 
Float Pilot, that's too bad. Maybe you could try to convince that LGS to hold what you want for you instead of what seems to be perhaps some inside scalping going on.. and or limits per customer. People like that sicken me.
 
Float pilot,

I would bring this to the store managers attention. I was told by the local Sportsmans manager that they all are doing the same thing as the one here does. That is, when they are getting ready to open the day after the shipment arrives they have been handing out numbers and rationing all hard to get items ( .223, 22lr, 9mm and reloading stock). It seemed fair and it allowed just about all of the customers to get something they need. Of course, it depends on what if anything was in the shipment. I have been looking for a #16 hornady shellplate and .223 dies since before the crazy crap started.
 
I went to a local gunshop today and bought a pound of IMR 4064 and a pound of IMR 4350. When the salesman ran up the charges the cost was $40 a pound. He gave me the song & dance that they had purchased the powder from another retailer and also had to pay the hazardous fee for shipping. I went ahead and bought the powder but told myself I would be a fool to ever go into that store again!
 
Float Pilot said:
The kid who worked at Sportsmansw*orehouse told me that four or five guys have figured out when their shipments show up and they buy everything that comes off the truck and the put it up on the internet sales sites within hours for a huge mark-up...
Click to expand...

That's what I've heard from a few places, too. The stores that I like have taken steps to prevent that (limits on purchases, primarily), but many - especially the big box type stores - have not. And some others have just gotten in on the gouging.

I understand the entreprenurial spirit, but the guys who use the fact that they don't have to be at work at 10am on Wednesday (or whenever the truck arrives) in order to gouge their fellow shooters are really starting to tick me off.
 
The best place I've found to get supplies is here on the gun forums. Sure there are still people wanting to gouge but you have to know when to say no
 
Empty shelves where I live. Some folks are just starting to get into reloading thinking it will cure their ammo shortage. They buy presses, dies, scales, etc., and then find out they can't find any bullets, primers or powder.

My solution is to stop shooting until this blows over. Good time to go fishing.
 
I buy my guns locally, but not my components.

I have 15K SPP on hand purchased when the gettin' was good (about 2 years ago) and 15K of LPP I bought from Powder Valley last month. Difference in price between the two was about $5 per K with shipping and hazmat included.

Shooting 150 rounds or so per weekend, I should be good until a Republican is back in the White House ;)
 
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