I keep looking for good news, but can’t find a thing anywhere. In fact, what I am getting is we will be lucky if ammo starts to appear at decent numbers sometime mid 2021.
So I did a quick check up (again) of my reloading supplies and dropped some coin on a couple of items I was short. I was somewhat surprised that you could sill find reloading supplies at all. The bad news is that Reloading kits are scarce or plain out of of stock. Both Dillon and Lee kits are gone from the shelves of places like Midway USA.
Can you still think about reloading? yes, an as usual, I will start with the basic: Get a book Like The ABC of Reloading so you can get an idea what it is involved and if you feel like doing it. It will also serve you as guide to figure out what you need to do your own kit and what to get, from press to primers.
Or better yet, you really do not feel like it is something you want to do, and then you are only out less than $20.
300 blackout became more expensive than 308 about 2 months ago, and even the cheap stuff is well over a buck a round now.
Match 308 stayed pretty steady until recently, and now it’s starting to creep up as the stocks of 308 ball start to dry up.
I don’t think reloading will help this time, people are already having trouble finding primers.
It’s really weird to look at the “handgun ammo in stock” category at Brownell’s. They have one brand of 9 mm (surprisingly actually); apart from that, mostly exotic stuff like .500 S&W, .454 Casull, and .50 AE.
We’ve done this run on ammo and guns before, eg 2008, Sandy Hook. Both took at least 2yrs to come back to anywhere near normal, albeit much higher pricing on finished ammo and components after normalization.
I think it was Mr. Guns N Gear that spoke to insiders and says we won’t see abatement of this instability until 3rd Q 2021. I concur. Sadly i’ll be skipping some matches until this level out.
Once in a while I wonder how large the capital investment is for manufacturing ammunition in sufficient quantity to meet demand for mainstream types. It could make an interesting second career after I retire from software engineering… 🙂
You can find ammo if you look around. Only this time pretty much all the online vendors are asking $800-$1,000 for a case of 5.56 or 9mm instead of just cheaper than dirt. The savings you would get from buying online has pretty much evaporated. And as long as you are not looking for 5.56 or 9mm at least right now you can actually find stuff if you look. That and oddly .38 special.I don’t even bother at the big box stores because that’s what everyone else is going to do.
What’s happening is all the manufacturers have not been ramping up production. They’re worried that it will be a repeat of 2016 where there’s just a glut of supply when the panic dies down. And I have also been shooting a lot less.
Then people are all saying “you should get into reloading“. And then they complain because they can’t find primers.
Re .38 Special – a guess would be a lot of later-to-the-party first-time gun buyers, and we’re down to snubbie revolvers as the least exotic arms left. (Versus say a SAA or a Thomson Contender.)
I have reduced training to where I am only shooting .22LR. I have plenty of that. I am holding the rest of my ammo as emergency reserve in case the election kicks off the boog.
It brightens my heart that Americans are buying out the ammo manufacturing capacity… Tells me they are practicing and stocking up. Isn’t that what we want?