Are we headed for another component Drought? The club I belong to recently tried to make a group purchase of reloading components. I had ordered large and small pistol primers and a jug of 2400. None was availible. Came home and started looking on line and found these were scarce. A lot of other things were either low or out of stock.
Are people starting to panic again?
No facts, just my opinion...I think that there will be a run on components. If you have noticed, companies like Ruger are so far behind on orders, they stopped taking them. They have already exceeded their annual production goal by August of this year. I would bet many others are doing the same especially in the handgun / pocket pistol market. -- As such ammunition will be at a premium.
As I understand it, the primer manufactures supply ammunition contracts first, before selling primers as components. So as the demand for commerical ammo goes up, our supply of primers goes down.
As for powder, a high volume component supplier in my area explained that powder shortages are not really a product of ammo demand or politics, but rather that of shipping. Many of the powders are manufacured overseas. As cargo ships are delayed due to weather, inspections, etc., the local supplies fluxuate. As long as powder imports remain steady and on time, powder supplies generally remain stable. -- Thats not to say that local demand has no affect on it, just not as much.
Jon
I think there's a run already on .22 ammo. I went to 5 different distributors trying to find CCI Blazers. I ended up calling a friend in SC to get a 5K case for me from a gunshop in Columbia. When it comes in, I'll drive down for a visit and pick it up.
We will cause a run. There are threads like this on every board. I may not be able to get a particular brand primer locally. But I can still get every size. Same goes for all other components. Powder Valley is showing all CCI primers back in stock. Apparently some powders are out of stock but this seems to happen normally anyway. And I have no issues buying any type of .22 ammo I want.
IMO we are going to make this a self fulfilling repeat of 2008.
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There's more then a passing resemblence between ammo and the stock market. The Americans tend to sell their stock at he bottom of the market and buy at the top. They do the same with ammo and components. Shooters should get together, buy powder and primers when times are good and the suppliers are willing to cut some slack.
My buddies and I bought lots of primers, both types of pistol and rifle all Winchester. If I remeber correctly it was a total of some where close to 180,000 primers. Powder came a few weeks later, I think it was five cases of four canisters of Bullseye, Unique, H110, mostly Unique since it's the most useful. My share of this buy should last me for 10 years.
I buy 22s most every week just have them, some times it's for trade and other times my preferred rimfire ammo. Shotgun shells I buy when Walmart has them on sale in the fall. I'll try to keep 20-30 100 round boxes.
Jim
Cast boolets are the true and rightious path to shooting bliss.
Yep! we are our own worst enemy !Originally Posted by dragon813gt
Frank G.
I restocked everything I shot up during the past 'shortage' plus a bunch in a big group buy while everyone was sleeping last spring. I waited as long as I could for prices to come back down some but got in there before the next panic buy began.
Gear
I'm with Gear , this past winter seemed like prices had returned to where they should be considering inflation and metals market . Through the last couple of shortages I didn't buy a scrap of components at the high prices , I left then stuff for the guys that really needed them . Sorta silly the way I do that ain't it ?
Jack
Seems to be mainly just small pistol primers here in Vegas that are short. I guess I'll have to make another PV order here soon.
Just made a run for supplies. They had the three different powders I needed and only Winchester small primers. I'm good for the reloading season.
But did that come at a price is the question?
I've been through several "runs" on reloading components since I became a steady-demand shooter in the late 1970s. I share the views of others here that much of that nonsense is created by panic buying, and that many (not all) retailers just love to feed the frenzy by jacking prices through the roof. I flatly refuse to purchase components at panic prices, and always have an ammo supply for hunting seasons and prep sessions "in reserve". The net effect of these idiot-wind "shortages" for me is to curtail or halt my recreational shooting--'cause I'll be d--ned if I'll pay exorbitant prices for consumables. It's just plain DUMB. And I can fish pretty much all year where I live, so there's always something fun to do. To h--l with the rip-off artists.
I don't paint bullets. I like Black Rifle Coffee. Sacred cows are always fair game. California is to the United States what Syria is to Russia and North Korea is to China/South Korea/Japan--a Hermit Kingdom detached from the real world and led by delusional maniacs, an economic and social basket case sustained by "foreign" aid so as to not lose military bases.
Amen, Al well said.
things look good here i was just at my cabelas there stock was good
kids that hunt and fish dont mug old ladies
I remember when the shortages happened in 2008 and the complaints would look something like this "because Obama got elected my local gun shop hasn't had primers in stock so when I saw that they had them today I bought 20000 of them" I was amazed that these people couldn't see that the reason nobody had them in stock was not because of Obama but because of people buying 20000 primers at once because they were afraid they would go out of stock again. Meanwhile beginning reloaders like me had to wait 6 months after getting our final piece of reloading equipment to buy one pack of 100 primers because of the guy sitting at home with 20000 primers collecting dust in his closet.
What about those government orders for millions upon millions of rounds of pistol ammo? One newspaper article said that Homeland Security had an order for something like a billion rounds of ammo to be spread the next couple of years, and other agencies from Dept of Education to IRS or ordering large quanities of ammo. This isn't even counting what the military orders. Government orders alone should cause a component shortage.
Stock up periodically and one doesn't have to be concerned with threads such as this
Plus ... have an excellent reloading supplier within a 1/2 drive that sells out of a chicken coop - no joke! Gene has more inventory than the major commercial sporting goods stores except lead ingots which he never carried
Regards
John
Tough to find SPP in the Memphis area, although I did add a brick of Remington 1.5 this weekend. This was the only brand of SPP I have seen for a while. After reading this thread, I wonder if I should have picked up another brick or two.
Plus 1--
If the prices were fair, I would never say "Don't buy"--just don't pay rip-off rates to get componentry. Maybe the retailer had to pay through the nose to get supplies at some point--that seems to be the case at one local shop, the guy still wants $3.50/100 for his dust-covered primer stocks selling in the rest of the known world for ~$2.15. If another "shortage" occurs, maybe he'll get well after all. Sooner or later, all of these shortages come to an end, but customer goodwill is difficult to regain once violated.
I don't paint bullets. I like Black Rifle Coffee. Sacred cows are always fair game. California is to the United States what Syria is to Russia and North Korea is to China/South Korea/Japan--a Hermit Kingdom detached from the real world and led by delusional maniacs, an economic and social basket case sustained by "foreign" aid so as to not lose military bases.
My original post was not to create a panic or run. My problem was I needed primers. Try to get some through a club buy and was told everything I wanted was not availible. I went on line and was able to find what I wanted but with the Hazmat fee they came to $33.00 per thousand. and were hard to find. the original cost was $25 to $26. per thousand. Unfortunately I did not have enough funds set aside to purchase more stuff to lighten the Hazmat fee.
I just wanted to know if anyone else was ezpeiencing this. BTW, I could have gotten the primers locally but they were $35.00 a thousand.
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