Today's ammo pricing will really put a crimp on my shooting

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bushmaster1313

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When 20 round of .223 went up to $7 and 50 rounds of .38 Special and .40 S&W went up to $20, I was willing to, so to speak, "bite the bullet."

With ammo of almost all types now costing $1 a round and up, and the major online retailers out of stock, I am very hesitant to really bang away at the range.

I see myself shooting very little in the near future.
 
I stocked up on .223 and 9mm before all of this happened. Now that I want to shoot my .308, not a single round can be found. Much of it is on backorder until July-December...
 
it's probably just as well for me... i need to go back to dry firing and practicing magazine changes anyway
 
Won't affect me much as I went from quantity fired to quality of the round and quality of the expenditure some time ago.

For me, ammo became "too expensive" during the first shortage following the ramp ups in the middle east.

Still not happy about it but I generally expend a single digit percentage of what those with whom I shoot utilize and still enjoy the heck outa it.
 
yeah... same here.

I'm lucky and ordered 1k of 9mm range ammo and 1k of .45ACP on election night (folks at work made fun of me for that) and I ordred 200rds of defensive 9mm/.45acp ammo a few weeks later...

that being said: I'm mostly shooting .22LR these days as I would feel bad blasting away 100rds of 9mm when it would cost me at current prices $40 to re-buy the ammo.
 
stock up when you have the chance and the price is right

then just buy what you shoot so you will have same stock always

i bought several thousands of 22lr so i have something to shoot till prices get normal again

and i keep my stock on other calibers as is
 
You don't really need to be that good/practice so much if you can see the whites of their eyes. Heck, a bowie'll do in that case.
 
bushmaster1313 said:
When 20 round of .223 went up to $7 and 50 rounds of .38 Special and .40 S&W went up to $20, I was willing to, so to speak, "bite the bullet."

With ammo of almost all types now costing $1 a round and up, and the major online retailers out of stock, I am very hesitant to really bang away at the range.

I see myself shooting very little in the near future.
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Its why I shoot 22 now and thats no longer as cheap as it used to be.
 
From when I got my first 38 Special S&W and 45 1911 I couldn't afford to shoot factory ammo as much as I wanted.
The answer was to buy a cheap reloading outfit and buy reloading components as cheap as I could find them.
That was 1961.

Not much has changed. I still can't afford to shoot as much factory ammo as I want, so I'm still reloading and I buy reloading components, in bulk, as cheap as I can find them.

The result is ammo shortages mean nothing to me and friends.

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Only problem with that is reloading components are hard to find. Even dies are out of stock.
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They weren't last year when I and others like me were saying, buy, buy and buy some more, all you can afford.

There has been years of warning that things were going to get really bad (look what's in Washington) but most people didn't (or couldn't afford) to plan ahead..
You don't wait until the ship has gone down to look for a life jacket.



.
 
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texasgun said:
yeah... same here.

I'm lucky and ordered 1k of 9mm range ammo and 1k of .45ACP on election night (folks at work made fun of me for that) and I ordred 200rds of defensive 9mm/.45acp ammo a few weeks later...

that being said: I'm mostly shooting .22LR these days as I would feel bad blasting away 100rds of 9mm when it would cost me at current prices $40 to re-buy the ammo.
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Literally within 5 minutes of Fox News declaring Obomo the winner, I had ordered 2,000 additional rounds of .308.

My big mistake was not ordering a bunch more.

I'm happy I got what I got though.
 
Literally within 5 minutes of Fox News declaring Obomo the winner, I had ordered 2,000 additional rounds of .308.

My big mistake was not ordering a bunch more.

I'm happy I got what I got though.
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The very first time I saw obama speak I said, "This guy is a spooky SOB".

About a year before the first election a friend and I were at a gun show trying to decide if we were going to buy a LOT of bullets or a WHOLE LOT of bullets.
My friend said, "If you don't like the price now, you are really going to hate the price next year".
We bought every bullet the dealer had in the calibers we use and sure enough we were glad we did.


I have to admit the speed that the current run on ammo and guns came about caught me (and everyone else) by surprise. It was literally overnight.

Even the clinton ammo, magazine and firearms shortage and high prices took some time to build up.


I spend a good bit of time hanging out at the small local gun store. Still, in the hour I was there yesterday about five people called and five others came in looking for AR's or ammo. The store was long since sold out of both.

Good luck finding what you need.
 
M2 Carbine said:
From when I got my first 38 Special S&W and 45 1911 I couldn't afford to shoot factory ammo as much as I wanted.
The answer was to buy a cheap reloading outfit and buy reloading components as cheap as I could find them.
That was 1961.

Not much has changed. I still can't afford to shoot as much factory ammo as I want, so I'm still reloading and I buy reloading components, in bulk, as cheap as I can find them.

The result is ammo shortages mean nothing to me and friends.

45incans.gif

45and38reloads.gif

45ACPinammocan.gif

hotweatherreloads.gif



They weren't last year when I and others like me were saying, buy, buy and buy some more, all you can afford.

There has been years of warning that things were going to get really bad (look what's in Washington) but most people didn't (or couldn't afford) to plan ahead..
You don't wait until the ship has gone down to look for a life jacket.



.
Click to expand...
Honestly I never thought reloading stuff would be impacted by such panic buying. Ammo yes but I never thought dies would be in short supply.

Personally I've been picking the required pieces to start reloading and nearly have everything except a trimmer and dies for 300 win mag, .303 British, .223, 44 mag, 30-30 and .357.
 
Question to the reloaders.
I recently bought some 32 ACP and 9mm Blazer Brass from an online retailer.
The Blazer was $10.50 a box of 50.
This was ammo was placed in a nice colorful box and packaged in the little plastic tray just like all commercial ammo is packaged.
So if one already had the reloading equipment is it even possible to reload a box of 50 as cheap as I just bought it??
Somehow I just dont think so.
Now once we start going to $20-25 a box then probably so.
What sez you guys??
 
Honestly I never thought reloading stuff would be impacted by such panic buying. Ammo yes but I never thought dies would be in short supply.
Click to expand...

It looks to me that a lot of LEE stuff is out of stock, my guess is because of the price point and I wonder if this stuff will ever get used.
 
I have several thousand bullets (pistol lead), pounds of powder, thousands of clean brass... but getting scarily low on primers....

I will have to curtail my shooting until I see some primers hit the market. I still don't understand why they are in such short supply, even with people stocking up. Primers cant be that hard to make :-(
 
I tried to take the reloading plunge. I ordered a kit. Back ordered. Around one month to get it. No primers, powder or inexpensive bullets available. No bullets at all for .223. .30-06 dies are scarce. I've been saving brass for years with the intent to reload so I'm OK there, except for .223. I always gave those to guys who currently reloaded if they asked for it.

This sucks. I'm ready for it to be over!
 
People in my area must not know how to reload.
I went to my LGS that has reloading stuff... and they were stocked!
40$/k is their normal price, and they didn't raise it after this madness started.

Sterling Arsenal on the other hand...

I started with a Lee single stage 6 months ago. Recently I've bought a Lee Pro 1000 and have gone into 'full production.'

I have a server rack in my work room where I reload, and usually I'll play pandora while I'm working the press, and watch TV on the monitor while I prime.
 
So if one already had the reloading equipment is it even possible to reload a box of 50 as cheap as I just bought it??
Somehow I just dont think so.
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A good rule of thumb is, reloads (with your brass) costs about half what the same factory ammo costs.
Except now with the greatly inflated cost of store bought ammo reloads cost much less.

If you look for buys on components and stock up the cost will be less.

At present my centerfire handgun ammo costs about $3.50 to $6.00 a box.

Due to finding sales on good JHP defense bullets at gun shows I can load 1st class handgun defense loads for about $2.50 a box of 50 rounds.

Such as blasting .223 FMJ rounds cost me as low as $1.50 a box.


It takes some time to accumulate a good stock of components but once you do you will be shooting very inexpensively compared to store bought ammo.


Put it this way.
I've torn both my shoulders, so won't be able to shoot or reload for months. A lady friend, I'm helping with her shooting, just got under the wire buying a AR but she can't find any .223 ammo.
I told her,
Don't worry about it. I have plenty of .223 components. I'll teach you to reload and you can reload all the .223 you want for free.:)
 
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