11 Pounds

[Vince]

Stopped by a Sportsman's Warehouse today.
In the Reloading section I noticed that no primers were in stock and only eleven one pound containers of various powders. This panic buying and hoarding is starting to tick me off.

 

[Oldtrader3]

I went to three gun/sporting goods stores yesterday and I bet there was not (11) pounds of powders, excluding blackpowder substitutes in all (3) stores total! I could not even buy some MTM plastic pistol ammo holder, they were sold out locally!

 

[sask boy]

Our shops here are almost out , Daryl advised his powder shipment was supposed to be in 2 weeks ago. All he gets for a answer is it is in transit :twisted:
I have ordered 5 pounder of RL-15 that should do me for the rest of my shooting days :shock:

Blessings,
Dan

 

[DrMike]

We are end-of-the-line here in Canada. When supplies dry up here, they won't freshen up until the supply line begins delivering in the States again. To make things worse, when the supply does loosen again, because we are essentially a small buyer, powders don't start moving until the big buyers (diamond mines in the far north) need supplies. The intermediaries don't want to pay freight on small transfers. This is why I advised those needing components in Canada to stock up last fall. In the normal course of things, their is significant ebb and flow of powders. Brass, bullets and primers are similarly cyclical, only not so pronounced.

 

[FOTIS]

Few weeks ago I took my daughter to her gymnastics competition in Colorado Springs. I hit every gun store from Cheyenne to Colo Springs. At cherry hills mall in the Springs (my last stop) I found the 2 last boxes of remington 22 LR's. That is sad.

 

[russ808]

Over here one store who had 223 rounds was selling it for $700.00 for 1000. I guess it will be up to $1.00 a round soon. Primers, Primers, we don't got no stinken primers.
Russ

 

[HTDUCK]

Stopped in my local store today to make a payment on a layaway.
They had 5 lbs ea of RL17 RL19 and RL22. Also had a couple of cans of RL25.
Some shotgun powder but not a lot.
Tula small rifle magnum primers for 223 were in stock about ten 1000 sleeves on the shelves but $55.00 ?
Ammo? Only common rifle calibers. The pistol ammo? All but gone.

 

[Elkman]

Just so that I could stay up with the times, I hit both of my local suppliers. No powder, no 22 shells, no primers. Thanks to several of the posters here, I have about a 2 years supply of powder and enough of everything else to last my life time.

 

[onesonek]

Some powder is flowing in this neighborhood, but sporatic in Mfg.,amounts, and types. Primers a few at each shippment as well. Not sure on the brass, but the stocks I seen looked sad. Didn't question any ammo either.

 

[Oldtrader3]

Bill, I have (2) pounds each of IMR 3031, 4064, 4350, Hodgdon Hybred 100V. In total I have (11) pounds of various powders including (3) pounds of pistol powders. Plus, I stocked up on everything but small pistol primers the last time around and have a 1000 of Mag LR, LR, SR, Mag LP primers. As usual, my weak link is small primer, pistol loads for the.380 and .40 &W but I have some factory loads for those as well.

 

[Guy Miner]

About the only thing I got caught short on was small pistol primers - because I seldom load them anymore. Have solved that issue.

Typically I buy my main rifle powders (H4350 & Varget) 8 pounds at a time, and primers at least by the thousand, if not 5000 at a time. Supplies of all components are looking pretty good for me and I could likely keep up my normal loading and shooting for quite some time.

Am also slowly working my way through 8 lbs of Unique, and have quite a few cast lead handgun bullets on the shelf.

Interestingly though - I don't find myself in any big hurry to shoot up the supplies I have on hand and have reduced my loading/shooting a bit. A little worried about future supplies I guess.

It's also neat that something like my .204 Ruger or the .223 only goes through 25 grains of powder per shot, instead of 50 or 75.

Feeding my old .300 Rem Ultra Mag 95 grains per shot taught me how fast a big rifle can go through powder! :shock:

Guy

 

[DrMike]

Feeding my old .300 Rem Ultra Mag 95 grains per shot taught me how fast a big rifle can go through powder! :shock:

Guy

Isn't that the truth. The older I get, the more I appreciate the standard cartridges, and the charge weights are a major reason for my appreciation.

 

[AzDak42]

Jeez, I was thinking about posting that it isn't as bad as I'd feared.

Locally, I could go out and pickup 1lb cans of Benchmark, H1000, Hunter, Big Game, Varget and a few others from accurate and IMR. I put a big jug of Varget on order and had it in hand at a local shop in a few days.

Primers are still as scarce as hen's teeth, but powder is out there, just takes some digging.

 

[Mortis]

Stopped in Tulsa this morning at Sports World.... one of the bigger gun stores in town.

They had about a dozen cans of powder......none which I use....and 5 bricks of primers... none that I need.

Bullets were nearly as bad.

They did have 22LR..... Blaser's.... limit 1 brick per customer.

Healthy supply of 410 ammo tho, which has started to get scarce. Picked up 2 boxes of Federal 3 inch #4 shot...

 

[russ808]

Mortis
To bad you are not there for the Tulsa gun show. Should be wild this year.
Russ

 

[Elkman]

I don't find myself in any big hurry to shoot up the supplies I have on hand and have reduced my loading/shooting a bit. A little worried about future supplies I guess.

I have had the same thoughts, I will be cutting back a little until I get some more powder then I can get back to normal.

 

[BeeTee]

I wonder sometimes how companies like Nosler deals with these boom & bust buying trends. They could sell many times their annual production in just a short time, but then what happens to their market once the panic is over, end users have many times what they need and the pipelines are full? Would they then idle their production facilities and lay off workers? I suspect Nosler and most others just keep plugging away at their normal pace, but I wonder.... Anyone from Nosler want to comment? BT

 

[PJGunner]

Was planning to make the rounds to help a snowbird friend who goes to our church find a couple of boxes of 9MM. Turns out the first place we hit had some at a fairly decent price. :shock: This guy has the reputation of charging California prices. While my friend was getting his ammo, I was looking at the components on his fairly well stock shelves. I can see why. Converntional cup and core $10 over normal prices and premuim bullets like Noslers $15 to $20 over normal and Barnes TSX bullets $25 over what I'm used to paying. The only powder he had on hand was one very lonely pound of Unique and he was asking $40 for that. The cheapest AR he had was $2150, very stripped Bushy. No handgun under $400 regardless of caliber. The $400 gun was a used .22LR that was a trade in. Dunno how that dude stays in business but I guess P.T. Barnum was right. "There's a sucker born every minute and two to take him."
Paul B.