There can be little question that the Obama administration will try to assault the rights of gun owners everywhere…eventually. There is already word of an attempt at another silly “assault weapons” ban, which will be no doubt accompanied by the old canard of “we respect the rights of hunters but blah blah blah”. I am not so sure if another ban will go through as there are a lot of Donk senators from states where gun rights is a very large issue.
A more logical approach would be for the Dems to go after ammunition. Right after the election I read in a lot of places about the “Obama bounce” for gun manufacturers and ammo manufacturers alike. I, for one, have been shopping for an evil black rifle and have been stockpiling tens of thousands of rounds of ammo of different calibers for my enjoyment (and/or defense) later on.
The usual place that I purchase my ammo hasn’t raised their prices much, but they have been out of a lot of stuff lately. I just ordered from Cabela’s yesterday, and the prices were just slightly higher than I am used to paying, but I also had to eat the freight. All in all, not too bad of a deal.
I am interested to see in different areas of the country what the ammunition situation looks like, and if you are experiencing any price spikes or shortages.
Cross posted at LITGM.
I hail from Columbus, Ohio, so I’m not sure that the situation is all that different from what you are going through up in Wisconsin.
Are there shortages? Kinda-sorta. The only caliber that is dear is .380 ACP, which is routinely sold out in the gun stores. I suppose all those disabled and elderly students of mine who opted for that particular round are stocking up, as well as all the people who like pocket pistols for their concealed carry option.
I reload a fair amount, but only if you think 1,000 plus rounds a month is “a fair amount”. It has been difficult of late to buy bullets, but I attribute that to new environmental regulations than anything else.
Many of the shooting ranges here in central Ohio are refusing to allow people to use any ammunition that has exposed lead. Full jacketed rounds only! This both drives the price up and narrows the choices available for handloaders. While there is plenty of standard lead rounds available, the FMJ stuff has dried up.
I have also noticed that there seems to be occasional shortages of certain types of powder, usually the multi-use stuff that is suitable for rifle, pistol and shotgun. Dedicated powders, like that formulated for shotguns, is certainly around. Might just be that people are hoarding the broad spectrum stuff so they have what they need no matter what becomes scarce in the future.
So far as I’m concerned, I really wish I was rich enough to buy a few hundred acres of hilly woodland in order to set up my own range. Then I could make my own lead bullets, and shoot them off as much as I would like.
James
California here.
Supply is tight, but my local range says they buy everything they can get (in part to make sure it doesn’t go to their competitors ). Yesterday 45 ACP FMJ was $22 or $28 for a box of 50, depending on the brand.
If this comes to pass, everybody needs to stock up now and tell their friends the same.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/b79c8t
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
Colorado here. .380 ACP is out in Boulder, and according to a couple dealers, none of the distributors in the state has any. The shelves are bare-looking but you can get either the most popular stuff (.45, 9mm Parabellum, .30-06) or the mostly obsolete (.32 Special). I had an amusing experience trying to buy specialty .22 ammo for some biathletes/match shooters. Midway had it. Just. I wanted 20 bricks, and was assured there was no problem; they had 24. It was (a little) like getting a call from a VP at Exxon Mobil saying, “Mr Dan from Madison, you know that 18 gallons of premium you wanted for your wife’s van? I just wanted to give you my personal assurance that it’s On The Truck and it’ll be getting there in 3 days. Now, here’s your tracking number.” It struck me as curious that a small club order like mine would bring one of the biggest suppliers in the country down to an inventory of 4 bricks. Price was up 50% over last year, though it was still possible to buy the mexican brand Aquila match .22 ammo for about $300/case.
I’m trying to buy 50 lbs of Varget (which I would term a very-good broad-band generic rifle powder) for a junior highpower program, and having no success at the prices I want to pay. Primers are up about 40% but still an amazing bargain.
Our biggest in-state brass supplier was so little interested in my attempt to buy 10K .223 brass for the program that they ignored 2 emails and never returned 2 calls. My business went permanently elsewhere. Cost was about $1150.
Bullet prices seem to have ratcheted up during the period of commodity price advance, and are staying up as the price of the basal materials recedes. Sierra 77-grain .224 matchkings in the 500 box are over $100, up about 50% from previous years.
A camel’s nose was recently sighted in the Division of Wildlife’s Big Game Hunting brochure: a disquisition on lead in game meat, with the assurance that nobody’s connected any dots yet about attrited bullets and human food consumption. You’ll get further details from your CA commenters, I’m sure. The condor/human poisoning issue, like ‘global warming,’ powerfully evokes Twain’s remark that there’s something so satisfying about science; one gets such wholesale returns of conjecture from trifling investments of fact.
As for all the important topics, there’s an applicable c&w allusion: Kershaw.
Minnesota, in the Twin Cities metro area:
In a month, I normally pick up 1000-2000 rounds 9mm, 300 rounds .380ACP, smaller amounts .45, and have consistently over the past two years done so at my local WalMart. Great prices, piles and piles of stock.
Until about two months ago, when I went in to see almost bare shelves. They had three boxes of 50 of some off-brand 9mm, no .380, and no .45’s. Since then, I stop in periodically, and if I get there right after a truck has come in, I might pick up one or two hundred 9mm.
Other stores in the area – the expensive stores – have slightly higher stock – but only slightly.
Local gun shop salesmen tell me they can order however much they want, but what shows up is some arbitrary small number of boxes, almost like an allocation.
In Chicagoland, there seems to be a dearth of defensive handgun ammunition. Where I used to have a wide choice of specific rounds, I am lucky to find anything in high quality JHP at all – and then only a box or two left in stock. However, when I do find something I can use, the price is unchanged.
Practice handgun ammo is still readily available but seems to be slightly higher in price. Lastly, shotgun ammo is on sale all over the place.
Online, there are widespread shortages with scattered good deals still available.
Asf – I am finding almost the exact same situation up here in Wisco. If you can get it, the prices are the same or only slightly higher, especially for .22LR. But the shelves are pretty bare at my usual ammo haunt. I expect the price to go up fairly soon.
You are right about the online guys being out of a lot of stuff. I checked several other online retailers before settling on ordering from Cabelas and I got the same result.