It would seem that the great ammo shortage is coming to an end. Perhaps heralded by AR manufacturers offering credit plans to buy new rifles, it would seem ammo sales are poised for a resounding and sickening bottoming out, like a rotten melon striking the ground at terminal velocity. Kept in check only by the uninformed public’s myopic purchasing at the bitter end. Recently I witnessed cases of 223 at 7.99 per box “on sale” at Cabelas going nowhere. Then bought 500 rds of 22lr for 21.00 at a LGS. One online auction site shows 1,185 offerings of 22lr (somewhere near 1 million rounds) most with no bids. For the retirees that were subsidizing retirements (no one blames you it was good while it lasted I’m sure) with this source you may want to shift back to the hedge fund market and realize that 10 cents per round is a trifle ridiculous once the supply comes back. Some online wholesalers have 223 back at 315.00 per 1000. The bust has just begun, the country has collectively blown their load and the dogs have come to collect the leavings of the broke and misguided purchases of the panic driven masses. Just like Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow the dysentery and wasting will be soon besetting the industry. Barring another manufactured crisis (can’t let a good one go to waste) this is only the beginning. As Warren Buffet is fond of saying buy when everyone is running away and sell when they are running back. Hope everyone is seeing some relief and enjoying it.
Powder,
Still looking for reliable sources of various brands of powder. Once that comes back all will be well. You can now get brass, primers, and projectiles pretty easily but pistol powder is still scarce and many brands of popular rifle is still slow to come back. Once I can go buy H110, Clays, HP38, Varget, and 1680 whenever I want it again then I’ll be a lot happier.
Have you tried Gene Sears in Oklahoma? They have had a decent amount of powder recently.
My local shop got an 8#er of H110 yesterday, so it’s coming back around.
The “shortage” isn’t over yet — not by a long shot.
.22lr is still in short supply, and as far as I’m concerned it will be until I can buy as much as I want from regular online retailers (Midway? Brownell’s?) at regular prices.
Huh? I can’t even backorder LRPs at regular online retailers.
What’s “easily”? When things were “normal” (pre-BHO), I would buy primers and various powders all from one vender to save on HazMat fees. Now I think I’m lucky if I find a vendor accepting backorders for powder and primers…
I concur with the .22lr statement. While I have found .22lr at “normal” pricing, picked up some Remington Tunderbolt for 2.5 cents a round about a month ago, I still can’t decide, "Oh, I want to go try to burn the barrel out of my 10/22 and buy five bricks for ~$110 and head to the range.
As far as primers. One LSG I frequent seems to have a good stock of primers, though since I don’t currently reload I don’t pay attention to them. Their powder selection is short though. Have been thinking about investing in some primers and powder though, just buying it, and putting it away for a rainy day, or the next panic. Or perhaps for when I do decide to start reloading.
Sigh, maybe I’ll start doing some research come tomorrow and try to figure out what I need.
Primers have been pretty easy to get for a while. They’re full retail price, but you can get them.
Powder is just starting to pop up a little. I’d say another full year before prices and inventories normalize.
Concur with the .22lr being a bitch to find at the right price. Primers and some powders are in good supply if not (ever ) going back to normal.
Where?!
I don’t want to hijack this thread, and I know there’s a “Where can I find” thread elsewhere, but I can’t find CCI #34s in stock anywhere, and most of my regular online sources won’t even let me backorder…
Well… I can usually find A primer in any of the 4 categories (Large/Small - Rifle/Pistol) by dropping in at Cabelas or looking at Midway, Grafs, etc.
Now getting a SPECIFIC flavor of primer might not be so easy. It took us a while to score some 210M primers… For God knows what reason Match Large Rifle were a little work to scare up.
This is part of my problem… the next Cabela’s is a 7 hour drive.
This is my point… back in the good old days (rocking my chair), we could easily find specific flavors, in fact we could match specific flavors of primers to specific flavors of powder to save on shipping and HazMat.
When it’s like that again, then we can talk about the shortage coming to an end…
Yeah… we’re still a year out from being able to get whatever you want I guess. You can, however, get enough to make your gun go bang.
I don’t believe there is a shortage of twenty-two.
Speculators are still scarfing it up as fast as Wal-Mart gets it so they can resell it at the gun shows.
Yep. It’s not a shortage of .22 LR. It’s an abundance of fukking RETARDS.
I can walk into no less than 4 mom & pop stores right this very minute & purchase virtually any primer right now. It’s been that way for months. Russian primers may be slightly harder but either Midway or Wideners has them. Same with bulk projos. Powder is a little harder to get but not impossible. The price of it just needs to come down to last years. I personally consider the shortage over. At least for anything that I need.
This…Although I would point out that some of those “cognitively challenged” people are the ass clowns paying the higher prices which perpetuates the situation.
Yep. I remember the last panic… although not nearly the size of this one… Rimfire was off the shelves too. I don’t get it…
If ammo availability/cost is so tough that all I have to shoot is rimfire, I’ll just stay home.
If I had to guess why rimfire is in higher demand it would be that more of the ones being sold are more conducive to higher round count range sessions, biggest example the M&P 15/22. Plus the Barackalypse scares 1 & 2 plus the rest of the years between are cumulative on top of all other guns sold before, so all that expanded demand with near zero expansion of production facilities.
If anyone needs Remington .22LR subsonic, I know a place that has plenty. EDIT: OOS.
Yes. This is and oppurtunity, I know. But dammit, how long is this shit going to go on? As long as there are people to buy it, it will continue. Quit feeding the troll and it will go away.
I really need some .22lr but I am not paying troll prices…