Ammo Shortage ? Primers ? See Video's

[Ignatious]

My first post in this forum was in this thread. No issues here.

Glad that I've been around long enough to know some of the back channels for supply of necessities. Modernly, people get freaked when the Blue Rhino is out of tanks. I don't use that over priced distributor unless my tank is almost out of date. I still refill at the place with the scale. It's cheaper too.

And as far as hoarding, I don't consider it hoarding when it's simply planning ahead. This is like the anti's 'why do you need a gun? What are you afraid of?' I'm prepared for a hurricane, doesn't mean I'm afraid of them. Does it mean I'm hoarding? A well stocked pantry is simply a good plan. I certainly don't want to be out among the panicked sheep as they buy out all the ingredients for French toast because the weather man said the 's' word, or especially when a hurricane is bearing down on my town. I maintain Gerry cans of fuel that get rotated, and buy extra of whatever when I see it at a good price. I buy some stuff just for bartering should it come to that. I have not filled the guest room with TP like some people might think when they get an inkling you have stock. When that shortage started, I overheard several people saying 'the preppers are buying everything up, that's why there's a shortage.' I counteracted with 'the preppers already have theirs, it's in the name. It's the panickers that are causing the shortage.' I saw one guy at the grocery store with an entire cart full of meat. Completely wiped out that cooler. OK, if it floats your boat. I left because the lines were ridiculous. Again, the pantry remains at serviceable levels. Grew up in the woods. We didn't go to the grocery store just because we needed some butter. There had to be a list.

I spend a lot of time 'cultivating' people to be independent. They don't realize that's what I am doing. Just planting seeds to get the thought processes rolling and let them see things differently than what they have been taught. Sometimes it just takes a nudge to get someone on a different track. Like talking about hurricane preparedness. Or having some dry goods that can last you a week or two, and some water too. I'm not a prepper despite what it sounds like in my ramblings. We used to call this 'living.'

I will have to venture out tomorrow to see if any of the big boys are restocked with anything. Makes for a nice drive through the country. Nice to hear there's some reasonable prices out there.

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[ssgross]

And as far as hoarding, I don't consider it hoarding when it's simply planning ahead. This is like the anti's 'why do you need a gun?

before all this, many of us would buy in small amounts whenever we were at the store. I knew I would always use it, and it's nice to never need special trips out - just like it's nice to always have a second gallon of milk in the fridge (or 3 if you have kids like me). I would also do 1-2 big...biiiiiig Grafs orders a year (in line with bonus schedule) proportional to how much I shoot. I've shot less during covid, and was banned from shooting for several months.
I'm sure many of you bought reasonably like this pre covid, and now like me your normally rotating supply has turned in to a hoard. I figure I have 2.5 years of unworried recreation shooting left. I'm going to start rationing next month to stretch that to 4 years.
If anything, this is the opposite of hoarding, because I refuse to buy at these prices (sans the small rifle primers. I only had 1 brick left and planned to compete high power this summer, covid willing) - I'm not placing any burden on the current market's limited supply, and I placed no excessive demand on the past market's supply either. The have-not grasshoppers will always despise the have ants and blame us for their lack of prudence.

---------- Post added at 09:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:32 PM ----------

I have not filled the guest room with TP like some people might think when they get an inkling you have stock.

I ALWAYS had an extra 18 pack of TP in the attic. Where I grew up mom went to the big store only once a month and if we ran out...we were out. So she always had a bit extra just in case we all got colon-flu at the same time. That small amount of non-hoarding prudence literally saved my behind from the family cloth, by just a day or two.

[ssgross]

I took my own medicine and did some homework myself. In this case I weirdly found wikipedia to be the best summation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging
Sounds like if there is a worldwide constraint on the supply of primers (e.g. NO primers being supplied for sale by themselves from any manufacturer), and demand is through the roof in at least 1 country, than the going auction price is the only fair/reasonable offer for sale in existance.
The economics of the ammo crisis are very different from the toilet paper crisis. I'm sure that will be my next rant - I'll just say we we were a day or so away from all out "family cloth" https://www.buzzfeed.com/terripous/w...-you-use-it-an, and were rescued by a surprise UPS shipment of charmin from my brother-in-law who lived in a mostly unaffected area of the country.

[USGI]

Curious, can't imagine why either...

May have had something to do with having a very low number of posts at the time? - Bob

[browningautorifle]

a very low number of posts

Probably that.

[vintage hunter]

[DaveHH]

It just seems like yesterday that we went through the same thing. Then everyone was blaming DHS for ordering 40Trillion rounds of whatever. Now I think it is just 6 or 7 million new gun owners showing up. I think that maybe the manufacturers are playing it close to the vest because of the election situation and now that the results are in they are playing it even closer.
It is my understanding that there are no more lead smelters in the US as lead was moved into a danger scale on the level of plutonium. I am not all that sorry for the folks who are out of supplies. The lesson should only happen once to stick and if you ignored the lesson well.......There was plenty of opportunity to stock up on primers, powder and ammunition.

There used to be serious surplus ammunition hoarders. I remember reading about the 1st Cav capturing the regimental cache of an NVA unit west of Plei Me in 1965. It was 68,000 rounds of small arms ammunition. There were guys with a platoon worth of M1 rifles that had more than that in their garage. Probably not many more like that today.

[browningautorifle]

The lesson should only happen once to stick ...There was plenty of opportunity to stock up on primers, powder and ammunition.

That would be correct Dave. I learned and have my share here, we did have lots of warning signs from the past.

[ssgross]

I popped in to cabela's while I was waiting on my wife...scored two boxes of Hornady 308 150 FMJ/BT bullets! Curiously, the glass case has been always fully stocked with Kimber pistols all through the pandemic. Everything else flies off the shelf.
It was a normal day...sometimes the shelves are bare of 30cal bullets, other days there are a few boxes of several types from several manufacturers.
Powder was the same way until 3 months ago. Now there is nothing, anywhere. I find it hard to believe. If primers really are the bottleneck, as extreme as they say it is, I would expect surpluses in the other components. If powder manufacturers have ramped up production like everyone else, but aren't selling to even a big boy like Graffs...then where is all the powder going? it's not going into ammo because there aren't enough primers! Unless everything is equally short.
Black powder supply sure isn't stressed. I may build a flintlock from a kit this year.

[emmagee1917]

Years ago I got out of black powder and into machine guns . I had a can of 3F or 4F left over and loaded up some .45 230 grain ball and ran it through one of my Thompsons . Worked fine .
Chris