The "Where is everything?" thread -- guns, ammo, primers, powder, etc.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Academy Sports had a lot of 40, some weird brand of 45 and a load of 4.6 x 30 - well, the latter is such a popular caliber.

[cslinger]

What the hell is 4.6x30 ????

[LockedBreech]

Originally Posted by cslinger

What the hell is 4.6x30 ????

It is a proprietary round that is chambered in the HK MP7. It's essentially their competition to FN's 5.7x28 - small, hypervelocity bottleneck cartridges good at penetrating barriers.

[Machineguntony]

9miller, thanks! I just bought 10,000 .224!

Happy reloading indeed!

[kozak6]

Sure. Except, the 4.5x30mm cartridge is notable in that there isn't a single commercially available firearm in the US chambered for it.

[mshpx645]

Buying 10,000 bullets for reloading IS HOARDING to the rest of us who also may drive 200 miles to get 200 bullets.

[Beentown71]

Its not hoarding if you are going to use them. I will shoot that much .223 in a year so why not get the price reduction for buying bulk?

[Machineguntony]

I guess people are sensitive to the issue of hoarding because of the shortage.

10,000 bullets is nothing. I'm going to shoot that through a machine gun, so it'll go fast. Also, the seller was selling in packs of 5,000, so I bought two packs. The shipping and insurance on the first pack was $39, but an additional pack was only $5 extra shipping and insurance, so why would I not buy the second pack?

Right now, I'm paying component costs of $9 per 50 reloads of 9mm. That's insultingly high. If I could, I'd buy 20,000 9mm bullets to bring down the costs, but the midsouthshooters sold out.

With prices as high as they are, everyone has to buy in bulk, in an attempt to keep costs down...which might be why there's a shortage lol.

[LateNightFlight]

http://www.midwayusa.com/find?sortby...ses=In%20Stock

[gaseousclay]

With prices as high as they are, everyone has to buy in bulk, in an attempt to keep costs down...which might be why there's a shortage lol.

unfortunately, this isn't keeping costs down. with every gun owner and their mother buying bulk ammo it's driving the cost UP because it's becoming harder to obtain raw materials to keep up with demand. I think the cost will continue to go up and gun owners will price themselves out of the market. I wonder how much longer gun owners will continue to blame the government (or anti's or whatever other bogeyman) for the shortage. gun ownership is now becoming a pass-time for the wealthy

[SgtLumpy]

Two years ago, if someone had a years worth of ammo, they weren't hoarders. But suddenly, when others aren't able to drop by Wally's and get a $3 box of 22s, those who bought in bulk are seen as the cause for the higher prices and the lesser availability. That kind of reasoning doesn't work for me.

Companies that use a lot of fuel invest in the stuff needed so that they can buy fuel in bulk. Then they fill up their trucks at the barn instead of dropping by the QuickTrip every time they need to fill up. That doesn't drive the cost of gas up when I fill up, one tank at a time.

Those shooters who have a few thousand rounds, and those trucking companies who have a few million gallons of diesel, are able to absorb some of the day to day fluctuation in prices that happen naturally in any free market. Those who buy one at a time are more at the mercy of those fluctuations.


Sgt Lumpy

[gaseousclay]

Two years ago, if someone had a years worth of ammo, they weren't hoarders. But suddenly, when others aren't able to drop by Wally's and get a $3 box of 22s, those who bought in bulk are seen as the cause for the higher prices and the lesser availability. That kind of reasoning doesn't work for me.

people weren't hoarding to the same degree that they are now and stock was plentiful 2 yrs ago. I don't begrudge the gun owner that goes out and buys a couple of 500 bulk packs of .22 ammo. it's the guy going out buying thousands and thousands of rounds when he clearly doesn't need thousands and thousands of rounds. i'd venture to guess that a lot of gun owners like to shoot for fun and plinking with .22 ammo provides that fun. this is no longer the case anymore. what i'm seeing are a few greedy individuals going out and buying everything in sight because they can. I have 200 rounds of .22 ammo that I purchased last August. I haven't touched it because I can't replenish what little stock I have since everybody continues to hoard. fear makes people do strange things and claiming you're not part of the problem is part of the problem.

[JMP]

Last summer, I came across a deal for Federal bulk pack .22s so I bought a lot and haven't needed to buy more yet. I also was at the right place at the right time for powder and bullets and already had a lot of primers because of the last panic. I was and am lucky to have what I have but supplies are starting to dwindle and I have started looking for more. If I buy now what I did last summer, some people on here would accuse me of hoarding but last summer they wouldn't of blinked an eye at what I bought.

Is buying in bulk hoarding because there's a shortage or is it not hoarding because that's the way I've always done it? In my mind, the hoarders are the people buying that don't plan on using what they bought but plan on storing ridiculous amounts for whatever reason. I also don't like it that people are buying and reselling for profit but I can't really hold it against them either as long as people are paying their prices.

I really do think we are our own worst enemy as far as the shortages go.

[LateNightFlight]

If I were a scalper sitting on an inventory I paid retail for, I'd be nervous.

In the last week and a half, I've been able to get 4 bricks of .22 and a brick of 17HMR at regular prices, through regular retail channels. Compared to prior months, this is a phenomenal achievement! MidwayUSA has been great, but I was also present when a pallet of ammo arrived at my local gun shop - an awesome thing to see these days!

For me, 4 bricks of .22 isn't hoarding, it's life returning to normal. I'm done for now and I'm happy. We can go back to deciding who gets to pick the movie - who picks the restaurant - who does the dishes and everything else that needs to be decided based on who shot the best group or knocked down the most cans. Will I try to gain an unfair advantage by secretly practicing? Yes. Is that cheating? Don't judge. You'd cheat too if it meant you wouldn't have to sit through another chic flick.

I don't know that we could say the dam is breaking, but I see some seepage. Fingers crossed. Let's hope this is the beginning of the end for this supply drought. ~Feeling Encouraged~

[Tom Servo]

If I were a scalper sitting on an inventory I paid retail for, I'd be nervous.

There's a lot of that going on now. I've got a shelf chock full of AR-15's, so there's no real incentive to offer top dollar on used ones. We're turning away a lot of unfired LNIB rifles because the owners want to recoup at least a portion of inflated prices they paid at gun shows during the panic.

We saw the same thing in late 2009. It's amazing how quickly this turns from a seller's market to a buyer's market when the panic subsides.

[Skans]

I saw boxes of 9mm, 40S&W, and .45ACP brass-cased (forget which brand) and bulk .22LR ammo just sitting in the case at: Reeves Ace Hardware in Clayton GA. this past week. Limit 2 boxes per customer on the 9mm, .22 and .45ACP.

I didn't even buy any - just don't need any right now, and this tells me that there are about to be a bunch of ammo hoarders who will be looking to offload their Walmart ammo......hmmmm, I'd say by mid to late August.

[bob443]

To Tony Montana, who bribes cashiers to buy 30,000 primers, but doesn't hoard because he shoots machine guns; you may shoot machine guns, but you hoard as well. And don't pretend you don't. You can go through 30,000 rounds pretty quick in a machine gun, but most do not. You have maybe a couple shoots a year, 6000 per. You may shoot a couple of times other than that, maybe 1000 per. But you've got a multi multi year supply of primers there, unless you are in fact an infantry squad. If you are in fact an infantry squad, then I stand corrected. Please accept my apologies. (Co. D, 2/134 whoaah!) (Oh, and just so you don't take offense; skip ahead, I maintain a pretty good stash myself.)

To the scalpers; HA HA!! If you've been paying retail at walmart and selling at retard on gunbroker, you are about to find out if your 22lr is edible. As in you are going to have to eat it. Either that or miss a couple of truck payments. I am looking forward to the day when those of you sitting on 10's of thousands of rounds you never had any intention of shooting are trying to find anybody who'll give you 2.5 cents per round, because you can buy it for 5 cents at wally world and pay no shipping. I guess my 'stash' was just about the correct amount, because I'm down to about 1500 rounds, which would last me almost six months if I couldn't find any more. The good news is that I could have bought some from either Midway or Cabelas today. It is available now, through normal retail channels. I haven't even looked at wally world since around Christmas. I hear it occasionally sits there longer than a day now(wally world in a small southeast Iowa town). Don't know; it's summer and I probably won't be back in a retail establishment of that size until at least October. But my 'ace in the hole' has never been 'out of stock'. He'd never let that happen. He's running low now, to be sure, which means he has but one or two pallets left, but he'll be buying a lot of it in the next couple of years; at heartbreak prices, on estate sales, where ever he finds it cheap. He'll sell it cheap too, until there's a shortage. Then he'll sell it at established retail prices, but only to people he knows.

You can rest assured, when the price on gunbroker finally breaks, or people are passing on it at the sportsman's auction, I too will be the bidder of last resort. And my stockpile level will be two or three times what it once was. I never intended to find myself with only 1500 rounds of 22lr on hand. I started with about 4000, and have had to curtail my target practice a bit, at least on the rimfire stuff which was probably about 90% of it. I won't ever find myself in that position again. And my reloading supply level is likely to double or triple now too. Once everything is available at normal prices again.

If you have a couple thousand invested in 22lr and are selling it at the flea market or online; good luck to you. I hope you made enough during the boom to cover the bust, or at least aren't using money you needed to get back this year.

Final thought; in the mean time it has been very interesting to watch how Americans, quietly and without being told to do so, rearm themselves even as our government contemplates the usefulness and relevance of the bill of rights in the modern era. There's such balance in nature. Don't need that kind of gun? Don't need that many bullets? HA! If I only had to worry about defending myself against criminals they might be right. When the government finally decides they've had enough of us uppity peasants with our dam free speech rights and our dam privacy and our dam guns; it will be time to remind them that an armed subject is a citizen requiring respect.

Pray that our leaders take note of that fact before we come to that state of affairs. Civil war is such a drag on the economy.

[SgtLumpy]

people weren't hoarding to the same degree that they are now...

Actually, we have no way of knowing. People who are prepared might very well be less likely to verbalize it.

Faced with a sudden bulk buy bargani -OR- faced with the possibility that the price of or availability of anything, not just ammo, might take a turn for the worse, a wise end user would be nuts not to stock up.

If I had the money today and someone offered me enough ammo to last for the next 30 years at a bargain price, I'd sure buy it. If that makes me a hoarder, then I'm a hoarder. But I also don't have to camp out at Wally World for my three boxes at a time.


Sgt Lumpy

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Denny had a nice editorial on hoarders in SWAT. I just got some 9mm from Cabela's. I'm basically replacing what I shoot in matches.

For MGTony - curious - what gun are you shooting?

[gaseousclay]

Actually, we have no way of knowing. People who are prepared might very well be less likely to verbalize it.

Prepared for what? You guys and your paranoid fantasies keep throwing this word out as if it were the second coming of Christ. And for the record, it's not hoarding if there's an abundance of ammo. There was an abundance of ammo two years ago and now there's very little. I just don't understand how some of you believe your own BS. "I just bought 10k rounds of 22 ammo, but I'm not hoarding. lol"

[LateNightFlight]

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/180...cm_vc=wishList

[LateNightFlight]

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/181...cm_vc=wishList

[LateNightFlight]

I was going to post the primed 300 AAC Blackout brass that became available, but by the time I double checked the link, it sold out. I got some, finally. I've only been waiting 4 or 5 months. I got a whopping 300 pieces. In this market, I feel like a hoarder

MidwayUSA's inventory depth on the 22lr I posted yesterday must have been pretty good. The cheaper stuff sold out not long after I posted the link, but the 60 grain sub sonic was available all day and well into late evening.

I really like the way Midway has handled the crunch. They put limits on high demand items and held their prices down when they could. I've cross checked sites for supply and price periodically with some jaw dropping discoveries. For example, I found CheaperThanDirt.com was 2-3 times higher than MidwayUSA for some items "Cheaper Than Dirt" is anything but. The problem with Free Market Forces is that consumers are the other half of the equation. Going forward, I don't see any reason to have a bookmark for ShearerAndDirt, and I suspect others will share that sentiment.

While I couldn't get many things the moment I wanted them, between my search linked bookmarks and email notifications from Midway, I've been able to get much of what I was looking for with a modicum of patience.

[LateNightFlight]

Now sold out, but be sure to check back frequently. Here's why:

I've run into this a number of times. After an email notification that says a product is available, it's sold out by the time I get the email or put it in my cart and try to check out. But a little while later, it's available again.

As their crew unloads stock, they put it into the system and it's immediately available for purchase. Then it appears sold out. BUT, if they've received multiple pallets from the same manufacturer in the same truck load, there may be a delay before the additional inventory on the next pallet appears in the system. Frequently, something that becomes available but sells out quickly will suddenly become available again after some interval - when nobody's looking and everybody's assuming they missed it. Keep that in mind and check back frequently during the day if you experience an available/out of stock condition.

[Closing The Gap]

While out running errands the wife and I stopped by our local Dunhams. We walked to the gun counter with hopes of finding some 9mm target ammo for her 92fs since she was running low. She was down to about a weeks worth(4 boxes). I turned the corner, looked in the ammo cabinet, and to my surprise I saw 5 boxes of Remington green box. The guy working the counter said "can I help you?". I said "sure I'd like to grab the 9mm in there". He said "which one? the 50rd or the bulk pack?". Bulk pack? I didn't see a yellow box. He pointed to the 2 brown cardboard 1000rd loose bulk packs sitting there. It had been 6 months since I've laid eyes on a box with that quantity I just didnt believe it. We chose to only take the one even though she couldve used both to get her through the rest of the summer. It wasnt a horrible price. $225. I think that seeing those quantities on the shelf in the afternoon that things are vastly improved even over just a few weeks ago.

For those whining about hoarding im curious are you going to blame the ammo makers for shipping 1000rd boxes? All I can say is once the flow increases we will have enough on hand to outlast another drought like this and more. We were clearly unprepared with our 1000rds per caliber minimum at the ready.