Ammo and Reloading Components Availability

[USSR]

Some guys say availability remains bad, and others say things are improving. What say you?

Don

[zeke]

Both. While there is no way i would term availability as good, am seeing slight improvements. Bout a week ago PV had almost all the AA powders in stock. As well as H4350 and W748. Course it was at bout 4 am Central time, and all gone later in the day.

Am really glad did that inventory and stocked up on target bullets before the prices got jacked. If things get really bad, still have bout 7K berdan primers, and lots of original 308 surplus in berdan cases.

[hounddawg]

https://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...topic.4034059/

close to 450 posts in the last month by people who have found powder, primer, bullets etc for sale.. If that thread had only 15 or 20 posts I would agree with you USSR

like I said in the other thread there are two paths to take. You can adapt and overcome and be persistent in looking or pay stupid high prices to the gougers at gunbroker and gun shows. Well maybe a third alternative, feel sorry for yourself and take up golf

[Average Joe]

Over inflated prices means not available to me.... I can get ammo, but I'm not paying 5 times it's worth.

[Unclenick]

This is going to vary some by locale, except for online materials. I've both found a couple of things I wanted and a number couldn't get for particular tests I wanted to conduct. Just for the actual shooting of loads I already like, availability for me, personally, is good because I've always kept stock for downturns as a matter of routine. For folks starting out, it is tough. They would have needed a crystal ball a couple of years ago to know they were going to want to handload and what was coming.

[hounddawg]

I can get ammo, but I'm not paying 5 times it's worth

neither would I. I ordered 8 pounds of TAC from Midsouth Friday. $191 but shipping, tax and hazmat took it up to 234. Last night 500 175 gn Barnes Match Burners cost 215 shipped. Both were higher than pre covid but hardly 5 times. Gasoline has went up from less than $2 to over $2.50 a gallon in 6 months and PBR has went up from $14 a case to $18 in the last year also. Don't get me started on the price of beef, if my HOA would permit I would put a hog pen and a chicken coop in the back yard

[USSR]

As for me, I don't have a dog in this hunt; I stocked up in the pre-pandemic days at normal prices.

Don

[Nick_C_S]

Last time I was at my LGS, things looked really grim.

I learned my lesson and stocked up after the last shortage. I'm good to go.

[rclark]

Good here for this household.... But then I reload. Have no idea what the stores have on hand as I don't even look. If it wasn't for these forums, I wouldn't even be aware there has been a shortage of stuff.

[hounddawg]

Sitting fat on primers, now if I could just stop adding new cartridges. I went into this thing thinking no problem and while some of the powders and bullets overlap some do not.

[Electrod47]

I have a feeling things are going to get much worse before it gets better. The shortages don't make any sense in comparisons to previous ones.
Today we have bitcoin and free money being sent to those who may not need it for its intended purpose. A stock market for crying out loud over 30,000 during a period of great unemployment. There's more involved here than us looking for primers to support a hobby. There's an attitude shift going on. Ammo, reloading components and worthwhile, well made firearms are selling at prices that forbid any kind of correction. Like myself I have enough primers etc but to some it would not be near enough. All the items mentioned before are trading like the stock market. Note: Gunbroker and others like it. The shooting public has bought in to this frenzy similar to Bitcoin and is investing deep. People with deep pockets are going to ride this for as long as it seems cool. And poor old grandpa better just count his blessings for what he has

[ballardw]

Originally Posted by hounddawg

neither would I. I ordered 8 pounds of TAC from Midsouth Friday. $191 but shipping, tax and hazmat took it up to 234. Last night 500 175 gn Barnes Match Burners cost 215 shipped. Both were higher than pre covid but hardly 5 times. Gasoline has went up from less than $2 to over $2.50 a gallon in 6 months and PBR has went up from $14 a case to $18 in the last year also. Don't get me started on the price of beef, if my HOA would permit I would put a hog pen and a chicken coop in the back yard

In my hometown gas has gone from $2.18 to $3.23 in 3 months.

Can't really say about reloading components because every time I go to a local store the word is: out.
And I'm down to my last 1,000 of SPM. Really don't want to use the SR for that but may have to.

[5whiskey]

While I understand some people who shoot f class, are retired and this is their primary hobby, or have no kids at home may have hours to scour the internet for the 30 minutes of availability after there is a powder/primer drop somewhere are optimistic; I don’t have the luxury of that kind of time. I also don’t have money to burn. So what I have is what I have for now. Fortunately BP is still available and I love shooting BP. I also have a good supply of reloading components, but that won’t last forever.

I also shoot oddball stuff and a lot of milsurp rifle rounds. If I only loaded .308, well heck there are dozens and dozens of powders to choose from. .30-06 out of a Garand? 7.7 Jap? Suitable powders (With reliable data) aren’t quite as abundant.

It’s guys who shoot collectibles and odd cartridges who will still be out 2 years from now. Those components will become available several months (if not close to nearly a year) after Tac, varget, cheap .224 and .308 projectiles, and SPPs stop flying off the shelves.

[Geezerbiker]

I was in the same boar for a long time with 7.7x58 Arisaka. When I started loading for it, all the load books I had access to had load listed about half way between a .30-30 and a .300 Savage for power. Now the load books all show much hotter loads. I worked up to using .308 Winchester load data and now all the books show hotter loads than that.

My 7.7 loads with .308 data and IMR4064 killed deer plenty dead so I don't see a reason to go any hotter with it...

BTW, I stopped by my local BiMart store and the had only .243, .257 and .338" bullets on the shelf. I have plenty of bullets in .243 and .257 and I don't yet load for anything in .338...

Tony

[hounddawg]

While I understand some people who shoot f class, are retired and this is their primary hobby, or have no kids at home may have hours to scour the internet for the 30 minutes of availability after there is a powder/primer drop somewhere are optimistic

been there done that on the kids and working so I understand. While I can't do anything about Larry's profit margins here is a link that may help with the internet scouring. This thread is being maintained by shooter for shooters by those of us that have time. You need a bit of luck on the timing but stil better than looking at 37 different vendor sites.

https://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...topic.4034059/

on the bullets have had luck finding some using Ammoseek

https://ammoseek.com/reloading/bullets/.243-diameter/

hope these links help

BTW I willrepeat, I do not think things are anywhere near normal but they are certainly better than there were 5 months ago

[higgite]

I think availability is improving slowly. Prices, not so much.

[eflyguy]

I've purchased 1700 rounds in the past two months at what I consider "close-to-normal" prices, including 200 rounds at my local WalMart (the rest online, three bricks from different sources.)

Is it back to normal? No. But if you're patient and unwilling to pay foolish prices, it's out there. My local WM has ammo half the time I've been in the past few weeks, although only once something I would use.

[Brian Pfleuger]

The trouble with your poll is that the selections are not mutually exclusive.

It's entirely possible for "Availability remains bad" and "Availability is improving" to both be true. Not only possible, but actually seems to be the case.

I am definitely seeing more items available and staying available for longer, but when "longer" means 5 minutes instead of 15 seconds, it's still not good.

[dahermit]

Originally Posted by USSR

Some guys say availability remains bad, and others say things are improving. What say you?

Don

In my instance, I do not question if or not primers are available... inasmuch as I will not buy them until or if the prices comes back down to something reasonable.

[Schlitz 45]

I bought a 1000 Federal magnum small pistol primers yesterday for $31-limited to one, & they also had CCI magnum large pistol primers for $39. I feel it's going to continue to get better buying in person-not so much on line.

[Wag]

I saw a box of Thunderbolt .22 LR today. 550 or 500 rounds. They wanted $150.

I think I still have about 1,000 rounds of some flavors of .22 LR so I passed.

--Wag--

[BillyBoy 57]

Found small rifle primers today , $40 a thousand cci.

[hounddawg]

#21
Wag
Senior Member

Join Date: October 22, 2010
Location: Rio Rancho, NM
Posts: 841
I saw a box of Thunderbolt .22 LR today. 550 or 500 rounds. They wanted $150.

where, in a LGS or on GB? I still most of two cases I bought years ago after the last shortage when a local store was selling bricks for ten bucks each. Great for pistol plinking but that's about it.