Which Cartridge Would Survive?

[WrongHanded]

This is a thought exercise. No need to panic....yet. And we're only talk handgun cartridges here.

Considering the panic buying and general ammo shortages we've seen in the past couple years, along with the reduction in raw material availability compared to the rise in demand, I got to wondering:

If such shortages continued over a longer period of time (various reasons for this), it seems likely to result in prices continuing to rise, and only the most common cartridges continuing to be available on a regular basis. Given such a scenario, we'd likely see market forces drive many handgun cartridges into a mass extinction of sorts. Where I can imagine only a few cartridges would remain popular enough - during a market shift towards affordability and availability - that the handgun chambered in them would continue to be produced. And as we've seen with Sig recently, production would stop for the less popular cartridges. Which would further narrow the market on cartridges.

If such events did unfold, I see the 9x19mm as the front running survivor. Its use in Military and LE applications, along with its surge of popularity in the civilian market, guarantees its success. The cost of materials per cartridge are low, and for SD and HD use it is certainly capable enough that even those with other preferences would be willing to convert to it eventually.

This would kill the .40S&W (for real this time), the .357 Sig, the .38spl and also probably the .45acp. Where material costs factor in, the .45 would simply not be an economical "bang for your buck". And so I see the 9mm replacing all of these cartridges completely.

However. Due to the growing number of people recreating in nature, I believe there would still be space for one other cartridge. A woods cartridge of some sort. It would make sense that to stay relevant during the cartridge mass extinction, it would need to be significantly more powerful than the 9mm, and already common enough to have a strong footing in the market. It would also need to not be so overwhelmingly powerful as to be unappealing to a great deal of gun owners.

I see the .357 Magnum, 10mm Auto, and .44 Magnum as being the three likely candidates in this handgun cartridge niche. But I'm not sure which one of them would win the race.

How do you guys feel about it? If the market dictated only two handgun cartridges remained, what do you think they would be?

 

[Zendude]

.357 would be my guess as at most in demand of the magnum cartridges.

 

[Hartkopf]

If the problems continued and we took things to their logical conclusion, 22LR would be an extremely popular handgun cartridge. (you didn't say centerfire only)

As far as a wood cartridge, I think 45ACP might stick around with any old cheap FMJ ammo. Of course any cartridge with cheap FMJ is better than throwing rocks so no telling what will survive.

 

[C.R.]

I bet one of the last two will be a .22

 

[.455_Hunter]

There are far too many weapons in existence chambered for a full variety of cartridges to just be "abandoned". True oddballs- Yes (.41 AE, .25 NAA, etc), but definitely not .38 Special/.357 Mag/.44 Mag/.45 Colt in revolvers and .380/.40/.45 in automatics. I would say that even "third tier", like .25 Auto/.32 Auto/.32 S&W Long/.38 S&W/.41 Mag/.44 Special would still be available from specialty sources- lots of guns out there.

 

[Howland937]

Military and LE use aside, what's currently the 2nd most produced handgun cartridge? I think there was a thread on THR recently about the amount of ammo exported to allied nations. I believe they mostly field the same calibers we do, but I don't know for sure. Their usage may be a factor, but in the end I don't see any reason to expect #2 in domestic sales popularity to be rendered obsolete. So whatever's #1 and #2 now will still be, even if that's all there is.

 

[jmr40]

I can do almost everything I need to do with a 9mm pistol and an assortment of ammo. If I need anything bigger 10mm is my choice.

 

[jstert]

22lr for sure, rimfire anything is way less regulated in the unfree states and u.k. etc. if this be any guide. 9mm is likely to stay. probably 45acp and 38sp remain too, though rarer and pricier, for historical reasons.

funny thing is, i bet that 45lc lives on long: a bit because it is a woodsman’s rifle cartridge but more because it is seen as mostly shot by “quaint old guys dressing up in cowboy gear out of cowboy guns.” there are no breathlessly panicked 6pm tv news stories spouted my know-nothing mouthpieces starring 45lc single action revolvers in the ‘hood too. i could certainly manage (albeit unhappily) if my only allowed centerfire handgun were a beloved ruger blackhawk revolver.

 

[mcb]

The plausibility of the whole thread is highly implausible. We are still making brass cases for cartridges that have been obsolete for many many decades. I just tooled up for 455 Webley for example. If the shortage of raw materials were to reach a point were it would be plausible to reduced to only a few cartridges society as a whole would have collapsed into any one of variety of post apocalyptic scenarios.

As much as we love to talk about cartridges that have died, in practice there are very very few cartridges that are actually dead. I would challenge the readers here to give me an example of a single centerfire (boxer or berdan primed) cartridge that is currently impossible to reload for.

If you still make 10mm Auto, then we still have 40 S&W
If you still make 357 Mag we still have 38 Special, 38 Long and 38 Short Colt
etc.

Variety is the spice of life!

 

[MistWolf]

If a reduction in raw material became critical enough to kill calibers, the survivors would be those using a polymer case.

 

[ThomasT]

The plausibility of the whole thread is highly implausible.

I'll go with that. But for the OP the 9mm may well be the last man standing. But I personally prefer my revolvers because they don't throw my valued and highly reloadable brass all over Hell and half of Georgia. For me the 38 Special will be the last man standing.

 

[WrongHanded]

The plausibility of the whole thread is highly implausible. We are still making brass cases for cartridges that have been obsolete for many many decades.

You could consider it a kind of run-off election. Take .357 Sig for example: Does it really cost twice as much money to produce 50 rounds as it costs to produce 9mm? I highly doubt it (though I don't know how much work goes into making a case). Yet pre-pandemic it did cost twice as much for range ammo. Which made it very unattractive to potential buyers. Less demand means less production, which means higher per-unit prices, which means less demand. Make a range of similar consumables expensive enough, and those lagging behind will (over a long enough period of time) lose popularity to the point of being obsolete.

So, yes brass is still produced for unpopular cartridges. But is ammunition still produced? And at what cost? How wealthy must one be to indulge themselves should prices continue to rise? Then comes the question of production guns. A decade or two down the road, if scarcity were to continue or worsen, don't you think we'd see attrition in the production market regarding cartridge selection?

I think we've seen very prosperous times, which have allowed us the luxury of an amazing selection of products. Hopefully it will continue to be so, which is why this is only a thought exercise rather than a "what cartridges should I invest in?" thread. But if that were not the case, we could easily see the production markets reduce options, based on consumer demands and preferences.

 

[WrongHanded]

I bet one of the last two will be a .22

I honestly hadn't thought about .22lr, partly because it's not widely considered a defensive round, and also because I don't typically associate it with pistols (because I only shoot it in rifle). But yes, I'm sure it'd still be kicking.

Feel free to discount .22lr as a given.

 

[Miguel Loco]

If you're a real shooter...you've been reloading for years. Which means that you have plenty of brass stored up for the calibers you have. Cases don't last forever......but most pistol cartridges will last though many reloads. I haven't used "store bought" ammo for many years. All I need is primers and powder....the rest I can do myself. So to me....it doesn't matter much what the manufacturers are doing. I've got enough supplies to keep me going for many years. It's only "obsolete" if you're at the mercy of the market.

So if you're one of those people that leaves your brass laying on the floor......thank you VERY much!

 

[WrongHanded]

If a reduction in raw material became critical enough to kill calibers, the survivors would be those using a polymer case.

That's a good thought. Alternative case materials could well become common.

 

[WrongHanded]

If you're a real shooter...you've been reloading for years. Which means that you have plenty of brass stored up for the calibers you have. Cases don't last forever......but most pistol cartridges will last though many reloads. I haven't used "store bought" ammo for many years. All I need is primers and powder....the rest I can do myself. So to me....it doesn't matter much what the manufacturers are doing. I've got enough supplies to keep me going for many years. It's only "obsolete" if you're at the mercy of the market.

So if you're one of those people that leaves your brass laying on the floor......thank you VERY much!

Okay. Where reloaders are concerned, you're certainly correct. But I'm talking about production ammo. I'll use .41 Mag as an example. It's already considered a reloaders cartridge. Production ammunition is quite limited and as such is relatively expensive. This encourages new gun owners to either take up reloading to feed a new gun chambered in a cartridge that is relatively expensive and hard to find, or just but a 10mm or .44 Mag instead. Either way, the established reloaders are fine, but commercial ammo production continues to dwindle. This also effects the production of firearms. If there's no demand for guns chambered in a less popular cartridge, production will probably cease.

 

[AJC1]

That's a good thought. Alternative case materials could well become common.

The recycability of brass and just its value will keep it in circulation. Now if we actually did any recycling stateside that would Matter. The value of plastic cases is zero and it's an environmental contaminant. I see zero brass at the range laying on the ground, just steel and plastic hulls.

 

[WrongHanded]

The recycability of brass and just its value will keep it in circulation. Now if we actually did any recycling stateside that would Matter. The value of plastic cases is zero and it's an environmental contaminant. I see zero brass at the range laying on the ground, just steel and plastic hulls.

Yeah, it's pretty unfortunate that a lot of casual outdoor shooting results in brass being discarded rather than recycled.

But it does seem plausible that if brass became scarce for the purposes of ammo production, someone would come up with an alternative. Whether recyclable on not. And people would buy it if it worked and wasn't prohibitively expensive.

 

[AJC1]

Yeah, it's pretty unfortunate that a lot of casual outdoor shooting results in brass being discarded rather than recycled.

But it does seem plausible that if brass became scarce for the purposes of ammo production, someone would come up with an alternative. Whether recyclable on not. And people would buy it if it worked and wasn't prohibitively expensive.

Every place I have been it's either bagged and sold or sold as scrap. Some may be trashed but I've never seen it. I just wish we had the capacity to recycle stateside. We were selling all the materials to other countries.

 

[gyp_c2]

Different take.
I'd think that all military cartridges will be the first to go!
Ala' the southern hemispheres' ban on them for civilians.
If that happened, the .357, .400, and .22LR would be left.
30-30 and rimmed cases and I can only hope, the 30-06 for rifles.

 

[UncleEd]

9mm is the WORLD'S most popular cartridge.
It has been for decades and decades with
military and police and civilians. The number
of guns made for it is nearly beyond count.

I don't see anything changing regarding it.

For me, the .38 Smith & Wesson Special, so
many guns have been or are made for it,
sometimes in the guise of the .357 Magnum
revolver models. But at heart they are
.38 Special shooters.

I don't see anything changing regarding it.

These two mid-bore calibers have been the
easiest for a majority of shooters to master
throughout their lives.

And then the .22 LR. Again the number of
guns made for it and the ease in using it
make it a survivor.

I don't see anything changing regarding it.

 

[mcb]

I

You could consider it a kind of run-off election. Take .357 Sig for example: Does it really cost twice as much money to produce 50 rounds as it costs to produce 9mm? I highly doubt it (though I don't know how much work goes into making a case). Yet pre-pandemic it did cost twice as much for range ammo. Which made it very unattractive to potential buyers. Less demand means less production, which means higher per-unit prices, which means less demand. Make a range of similar consumables expensive enough, and those lagging behind will (over a long enough period of time) lose popularity to the point of being obsolete.

So, yes brass is still produced for unpopular cartridges. But is ammunition still produced? And at what cost? How wealthy must one be to indulge themselves should prices continue to rise? Then comes the question of production guns. A decade or two down the road, if scarcity were to continue or worsen, don't you think we'd see attrition in the production market regarding cartridge selection?

I think we've seen very prosperous times, which have allowed us the luxury of an amazing selection of products. Hopefully it will continue to be so, which is why this is only a thought exercise rather than a "what cartridges should I invest in?" thread. But if that were not the case, we could easily see the production markets reduce options, based on consumer demands and preferences.

If you make 10mm you still make 357 Sig. If you reload, reloading 357 Sig cost you negligibly more than 9mm. Again if society get to the point were it can only support a very limited selection of cartridges it will have all ready collapsed. That is different than market forces reducing the market to only a few calibers, but the market likes variety so that is unlikely to happen in all but the worst economies (see previous statement). But if the equipment exists to make X cartridge, it exist to make Y cartridge. Any selected cartridge basically takes all the same steps to make as any other cartridge. It's not harder to make the reamer for 455 Webley than 9x19mm. Its does not required any special equipment to load 38 special compared to 45 ACP. Yes, you will pay more for unpopular cartridges, as finished ammo on the market, due to supply and demand but from a reloader's point of view the reloading cost are almost completely based on the cost and amount of raw material used. And there will almost always be someone to come along and fill small niches.

IE the 5mm Remington Magnum was about as dead a cartridge as you could get. It was a rimfire cartridge which made it extraordinarily difficult to reload and there were very few rifles made in it since it was a proprietary (non-SAAMI) cartridge from Remington. Only Remington made guns and only for a few years 1971-1973. They quit making guns; a few years later (1982) they quit making ammo. The cartridge was dead, or was it? A small company saw the need and made a center fire conversion for the 5mm Remington. Two and half decades later (2008) Centruion (Aguila) bought the 5mm Remington reloading equipment that by some accounts was left outside in the weather and refurbished it and has run one or more new batches of this dead cartridge.

Again, as fun as it is to talk about dead and dying cartridges I challenge the thread to point to a "dead" center-fire cartridge that if a shooter wants to can't find the resource to reload for.

 

[WrongHanded]

Again, as fun as it is to talk about dead and dying cartridges I challenge the thread to point to a "dead" center-fire cartridge that if a shooter wants to can't find the resource to reload for.

The thread isn't about reloading though. I understand exactly what you're saying, but I'm talking about consumer production of ammunition and firearms.

The .455 Webley is a good example. Can you reload it? Yes. But can you go to a gun store and buy a firearm chambered in it along with a couple boxes of ammo? Not from what I've seen.

How about .45GAP? Glock still makes the pistols (I think). Maybe there's some ammo available somewhere. But it's fading fast. Once Glock stops producing the guns, the ammo won't be too far behind.

Again, I understand the point you're making, but I'm addressing the consumer market. Reloaders don't make up much of that. Every year that passes creates a new crop of gun owners. Most of them will buy what is common and affordable, chambered in cartridges that are common and affordable. If scarcity and higher prices are added in, we could easily see a number of currently popular cartridges marginalized. Which longer term could mean they stop being produced.

Even given the current market and economic trends, how long do you see .357 Sig, .41 Mag, and .327 FM being available as production ammo and firearms? 10 years? More? Really, I'm genuinely asking, because I don't think they'll still be available in gun stores in a decade or two. Just on the used market.

 

[AJC1]

The thread isn't about reloading though. I understand exactly what you're saying, but I'm talking about consumer production of ammunition and firearms.

The .455 Webley is a good example. Can you reload it? Yes. But can you go to a gun store and buy a firearm chambered in it along with a couple boxes of ammo? Not from what I've seen.

How about .45GAP? Glock still makes the pistols (I think). Maybe there's some ammo available somewhere. But it's fading fast. Once Glock stops producing the guns, the ammo won't be too far behind.

Again, I understand the point you're making, but I'm addressing the consumer market. Reloaders don't make up much of that. Every year that passes creates a new crop of gun owners. Most of them will buy what is common and affordable, chambered in cartridges that are common and affordable. If scarcity and higher prices are added in, we could easily see a number of currently popular cartridges marginalized. Which longer term could mean they stop being produced.

Even given the current market and economic trends, how long do you see .357 Sig, .41 Mag, and .327 FM being available as production ammo and firearms? 10 years? More? Really, I'm genuinely asking, because I don't think they'll still be available in gun stores in a decade or two. Just on the used market.

Because I see limited utility and huge amount of resources, the big cartridges I would expect to go first. 500 mag, 460 and others that are more novelty than utility. The resources that are limited will be the major factor. Powder is not hard to find or get. Every round needs a primer. Efficiency and profit per amount of material will play big.

 

[mcb]

The thread isn't about reloading though. I understand exactly what you're saying, but I'm talking about consumer production of ammunition and firearms.

The .455 Webley is a good example. Can you reload it? Yes. But can you go to a gun store and buy a firearm chambered in it along with a couple boxes of ammo? Not from what I've seen.

How about .45GAP? Glock still makes the pistols (I think). Maybe there's some ammo available somewhere. But it's fading fast. Once Glock stops producing the guns, the ammo won't be too far behind.

Again, I understand the point you're making, but I'm addressing the consumer market. Reloaders don't make up much of that. Every year that passes creates a new crop of gun owners. Most of them will buy what is common and affordable, chambered in cartridges that are common and affordable. If scarcity and higher prices are added in, we could easily see a number of currently popular cartridges marginalized. Which longer term could mean they stop being produced.

Even given the current market and economic trends, how long do you see .357 Sig, .41 Mag, and .327 FM being available as production ammo and firearms? 10 years? More? Really, I'm genuinely asking, because I don't think they'll still be available in gun stores in a decade or two. Just on the used market.

Being that I have been a reloader since grade-school it's difficult to imaging being a firearms user and not a reloader. To me that is simply part of being a firearms owner. None-the-less setting reloading to the side for the moment. My favorite local gun store has 455 Webley on the shelf not cheap but it's there. It's also fairly easy to order online from multiple resellers. With the internet there are very few smokeless centerfire cartridges I can't order ammunition for. They quit making firearms in 38 S&W firearms in the late 60's early 70's and yet Remington, Winchester, Magtech, PPU, Buffalo Bore and Buffalo Arms (black powder even) still offer ammo for those handguns. Again there are very few cartridges that I can't get ammo for from the internet. The niche markets are rarely left un-serviced in a healthy capitalistic system. The technology to make a popular cartridge is the same as an unpopular cartridge you just have to find someone that thinks they can make a buck servicing that niche market.