So how bad is the ammo shortage?

I went to the grand opening of a new Gander Mountian firearms superstore to pick up an otherwise "unobtainium" Smith & Wesson M & P Shield. I was there 2 hours early and was still around number 70 in line. By the time the store opened, the line was wrapped around the entire parking lot, I'd guess about 300 people. I assumed I wasn't going to get the gun I was after that deep in line until I realized that 90% or more where standing in line, 2 hours early, to buy ammo. I'm a little bit insulated from the whole thing because I usually either shoot .22 (which I still have tons of) or shoot reloads that my dad and I do.

I did decide to pick up a Winchester white box of 9mm and was surprised to pay twice what I did a mere six months ago and be told "you can only have 5 boxes" like they were sure I'd take as much as I could possibly get, at $40 per hundred, for cheapish target loads. Don't get me wrong, I've noticed there isn't much on the shelves in the local gun stores and almost nothing at Walmart, etc. But the line I was in had the aura of a cold war Russian bread line. Several people I talked to were waiting in the line for the second day in a row, as apparently the store sold out the previous day's allotment by 10 a.m. Is this a local issue or nationwide?

as a potential future gun owner. this thread is relevant to my interests.

Nationwide. When the gun ban hit the table in the Gov't- everyone panicked. People started hoarding ammo, guns- pretty much whatever they could get their hands on in the event that Uncle Sam took their precious freedom. Now that it's dead in the water, I would imagine the stocks will come back up- eventually. But any decent rifle or pistol load you can possibly think of is either gone, not Challenge priced, or being guarded like Fort Knox.

Some of the shortage comes from average gun owners who have been stocking up because there is a shortage. A lot comes from the Department of Homeland Security which has been buying up billions in ammo

This comes from FOX.. and if they are onto the story, it must be big: DHS buys 1000 more rounds per person than US Army

And to give you an idea how bad it must be: Here are some guys cutting up the lead keel from a sailboat to make reloads: Keel Cutter

Since Jan I had not seen 22lr on the shelf at any store(including on base), until yesterday. It was standard velocity and about 10% over priced. Yesterday was also the first time I had seen an AR on the shelf since last year.

mad_machine wrote: Some of the shortage comes from average gun owners who have been stocking up because there is a shortage.

Gotta love that logic.

A lot of my friends just make their own. With the super awesome automatic units, you can make a few hundred while watching a movie, easy. Makes sense when you go through 10-15,000 per year...

Last week at Wally World, they had a few boxes of 45. I asked when the last time he had 22 was. "45 minutes ago when the truck arrived." It is sold as soon as it hits the shelf, even with Wally World's limit of 3 or 5, I forget, boxes per person per day. Store 100 did have some Wolf 7.62x39 last week, and some 22 shorts. Besides odd ball stuff like 300 win mag, that was it.

It was pointed out that the DHS bought enough ammo to fight an Iraq war for TEN berkeleyING YEARS. Are they planning on fighting al quida in the heartland?

Failboat, buy while you can. 9mm does show up. Ask the guy at the counter at wally world what day/time the truck arrives from the DC and get in line with the rest of them. Guns are still out there. I saw a Hungarian (FEG) made Browning Hi Power at a pawn shop for $280. It looked new. I figure they had about $150 in it or less. That was a bargain. Hard to beat the classics.

Knurled wrote: Gotta love that logic. A lot of my friends just make their own. With the super awesome automatic units, you can make a few hundred while watching a movie, easy. Makes sense when you go through 10-15,000 per year...

Try and find some primers. Good luck. Ask your friends.

That's most of what they bitch about, yes

But it's still loads cheaper.

So here's what I don't get. People keep saying .22LR is impossible to find (not necessarily here, but people I know), but there is basically no government/military/law enforcement use for a .22 round. I don't think there is any concern about a squirrel invasion is there?

Let see- create a panic, then create a shortage, then spend less on input costs and triple your selling prices...Who is it that the big winner here, anyway?

Like they say, follow the money.

Tinfoil hat thought perhaps, but perhaps DHS and/or other agencies are buying it up to keep it out of civilian hands.

Guns & Ammo has a good article on the subject from someone that was writing at the time of the last gun control act.

http://www.gunsandammo.com/2013/04/02/ammo-shortage/

It's not even limited to loaded ammunition. Dillon, RCBS, Hornady, Lyman, and Lee (yes even Lee) have 6 to 8 week backlogs on reloading equipment. Powder is nearly impossible to come by because people got wise to the fact that stores weren't rationing it then bought it up. Bullets are really to come by, and as Dr. Hess said primers are unobtainium. I'd actually be surprised if I could go buy plumbers lead or get some wheel weights from the junkyard right now.

It's a sad state of affairs currently.

I laughed picking up base model 22" stock M1A for 2500 joking that it better be a National Match for that price. The National Match was sitting next to it for 3800 . People are paying that though just out of sheer panic.

M2Pilot wrote: Tinfoil hat thought perhaps, but perhaps DHS and/or other agencies are buying it up to keep it out of civilian hands.

I can't find a reliable number for how many rounds are sold each year, but DHS buying 100 million can't be much more than a couple percent of the market. Maybe enough to impact price in a skittish market, but not enough to actually keep it away from the public. Is it possible they are buying ammo for local police forces? States and localities have cut their police budgets to the bone in the last few years.

When I was in the Army I never shot fewer than 350 rounds in a year, and usually much, much more. And as an officer I always carried an M4, soldiers with full auto M249's and, M240B's, and M2's would go through ten times as many rounds as I would.

Yeah, S6, but it ain't a lousy 100 mil. Try 1.6 BILLION.

that is the problem.

You combine the talk of a gun control law with DHS buying up millions of rounds, and an already skitterish public, you get an instant shortage as everyone starts buying.

and yes, I would follow the money

So, is the Boston bombing something set up by pressure cooker manufacturers trying to shore up declining sales?

too soon

9mm mak doesn't have a shortage. Nor does 8mm mauser. Just hard to find as always. Gun prices havnt really gone up around here tho. I'm just waiting for the shortage to go away...

Friends have been buying .45 loads online without any issues. Don't now where or how, but they are putting hundreds of rounds downrange.

At this time last year I would go to the range and fire anywhere from 500-1000 rounds of ammo in a SINGLE trip to the range. I went to the range with weekend so my Mom could try out her new SIG. I fired 15 rounds 5.56, 10 rounds .45ACP, 10 rounds 9mm, 25 rounds .22LR and 15 rounds 12 gauge target loads. My Mom fired 30 rounds of 9mm in her SIG. We were the only ones on ANY of the 4 individual ranges we have up there (its a big club). I picked up every last round of brass we expended and also picked up any other brass I found that was in decent shape.

For the shortage yes it is that bad, many manufacturers have such a backlog for ammo that they will not be caught up for a couple years yet. Many gun and ammo manufacturers were saying this last rush was like nothing they had seen before and that it was more like people were preparing for war not just reacting to the panic.

Many of the people buying this go around were not the crazy gun nuts that all the left wingers scream about. Many of the people buying right now have NEVER owned a firearm in their entire life. Every time I am in the shops here local I see these people and normally the shop guys tell them to talk to me before even asking to look at anything. Good thing they all give me deals and set things aside for me . I have even been talking to the head of our club here local about hosting a safety training day for newbies.

For the .22LR shortage that is easy. The most common caliber rifle or pistol in the country is the .22LR. For many people they either think it is enough gun for them, it is all they can afford or it is all they are comfortable with. Also you cannot reload the lil rimfires so people tend to buy it in bulk more often. It is also seen as a viable training and survival round.

The comment about DHS going to war with well anyone but the American people would be a big no no considering the use of hollow point in war is verboten (yes snipers use them, they also know what will happen if caught). This is one of those things that raised so many eyebrows about their stockpiles when they said it was all for "training". As I understand it there are some politicians that have actually started to question just why DHS needs so much ammo and things like MRAPs.

I can still get some ammo here local, but then I know when to go where and even have some shop owners that set aside a stash for me here and there. Funny thing is the one thing I CAN'T find local is .45-70. Recently I have bought 9mm, 45acp, 12 ga target and 00 Buck and 5.56.

It seemed like when the panic first started the first thing to go was anything you could fit in an assault rifle. Pretty much all the .223, 5.56,7.62, .308 ect. vanished. Then when all the pistol ammo went leaving only the 22lr. I was fine with that since that's mostly what i shoot, but then 22lr vanished making me a sad panda.

Part of the reason i have next to no ammo right now is because I refuse to horde and pay extortion prices. I just won't pay $90 for a brick of golden bullets. Hell a few weeks ago i remember 22lr being around 30, 40 cent a round. Its pretty sad right now. Pistol ammo is hard to find, rimfire and 5.56 are worse but getting better but everything is still very high.

Personal opinion, everyone who shoots allot is getting trolled by people who don't like people who shoot a lot. The assault rifle ban never had a chance and every one knew it from day one. It didn't do anything that hadn't been tried before and didn't work. Not a single part of the bill would have kept any of the kids from Sandy Hook or anywhere else alive. It was even written in such a way as to make sure it would tank when it went to the House. The only surprise about the bill was that it never made it out of the Senate.

It was really cleaver political maunder if you admire that kind of thing. Write a bill that takes up the news cycle for almost a month, raises a bunch of money, and gives you something to blame the house for in 14'. Except for the last bit it was a total success while making the price of everything go insane.

regarding the ammo purchases by the DHS: in stories like this, they always seem to leave out the part where they say they are going to buy "up to XXX amount of rounds" and "over X amount of years", thus leaving the impression that they are buying that many rounds this year...

i saw the MRAP thing mentioned, too... the DHS has a total of 17 MRAPS that are used across the country and across all the agencies under it's umbrella.. reports on the big "2700 MRAPS" kerfuffle a while back always seemed to leave out the part where the 2700 MRAPS were owned by the Marines already and that the contract was to refit and upgrade the existing vehicles as they come back from Afghanistan and Iraq..

rebelgtp wrote: (yes snipers use them, they also know what will happen if caught).

Say again?

In reply to Osterkraut:

Due to the nature of how snipers traditionally work if they are captured they get tortured and killed if not killed right off the bat. They are demonized due to the way they operate and the havoc they can cause on morale. This kind of throws any supposed punishment for the use of "inhumane" ammo such as hollow points (check out the Hague convention) out the window. Granted they may carry a selection of other ammo types depending on the objective of the mission, however a match grade hollow point is the bread and butter.

Heck I have heard of snipers having trouble getting their match ammo due to it being marked as not for combat. Though I believe there have been some legal justifications made for the ammo. I will tell you an ot SMK will go splat on a steel plate when some other stuff I have will punch right through