Wednesday, April 22, 2009

License to Reload?

Go Time approaches.

It seems like every few days I'm reading about some new attack on the Second Amendment. Clinton wasn't this aggressive in his wettest of dreams. The fact is all these tactics are indeed having their effect.

Yesterday I was over at Bass Pro. The boys there at the gun counter told me they'd been averaging 120 handgun sales per week since December. That's a lot of firearms boys. But get this... the last 2 days? Practically none.

Why?

No ammo. People ain't paying 700 bucks for a fancy new firearm they can't shoot. It'd just be an expensive, extremely well engineered paper weight. For the first time ever... a shortage of ammo is negatively affecting firearm sales. Not good.

I also took the time to talk to them about their Primers. Seems like you boys that like to poopoo rumors better start perkin' up. When a company as big as Bass Pro can't get CCI small rifle primers... there's a problem.

And yes... I'm well aware that Cabellas "appears" to have them... but if you'll take the time to add those primers to your cart you'll see that they are on backorder. You can't get them.

Bass Pro has no idea when they are gonna get some. Neither does anyone else.

The good news is... I have a line on .223... but no... I ain't sharing.

40 comments:

Clint said...

I saw that the only ammo that can be reliable gotten at the present is oddball stuff.

I have been stockpiling .303 British for the rifle that I used to have before it fell down the well.

Should have some arriving today.

Heck, I saw that Ammunition to Go was even out of .22 stuff.

How bad is it when they can't even keep up with .22?

Underwater Operative said...

Off Karen De Costers Blog:

http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/ItemListing.aspx?pagesize=1000&catid=646

Nate said...

.40 and .45 are just as bad.

The shortage is bad. Very very bad. Bad enough that I'm thankful I have some oddball weapons. In fact I'm considering getting a couple more.

Underwater Operative said...

Yep. I just got off the phone with my wife. She told me she was on her way to Wal-mart to pick up a few things. I told her to buy any rounds we could use. Thankfully my wife knows what rounds we can use. :-)

Nate said...

I'll wager walmart doesn't have any. They haven't had any here for months.

Rumor is they are pulling all their ammo off the shelves in June.

Clint said...

Walmart here has some shotgun shells and a few options for oddball rifles. Thats it.

Luckily, the economy is turning around since Dr. Hope told us so:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/6385905.html

Or maybe not.

huckleberry said...

Found 7 boxes of .308 last night at a Big 5 out near the desert.
Bought em all.
I'm probably on a list somewhere now.
Plenty of shotgun shells everywhere I've looked, but everything else seems like a distant memory.

trk said...

Academy Sports shelves were empty the other day. They said it sells out as soon as their delivery truck shows up.

Raggededge said...

Just bought 300 rounds of Remington .223 55g MC at Wally World. All they had. Not the greatest load, but it will do.

Still looking for .40S&W

Josh (the sexiest thing here) said...

I was talking to a gunstore owner in rural Alabama today...and he couldn't tell me what was really going on...but he intimated that something was going on...

Josh (the sexiest thing here) said...

BTW, this commenting system sucks.

Clay said...

I found a 250 round mega-pack of .45, .40 & 9mm the other day at Academy. Must have hit them at the right time.

Mutly said...

Stopped in at Cabelas. Only oddball stuff. They used to have plenty of boxes in common sizes 300, 600, 1200 count of their guaranteed reloads. That aisle is empty.
While this is tangential check out HR875 and the National Animal Identification system. Seems that at the same time they're going after ammo they're pushing hard to mess with food as well.

PORCUS said...

My dad reloads and says the same thing about primers...you can't get 'em.

I'm stocked on .223 and shotgun shells for foraging. I'm absolutely at 'emergency level' on pistol ammo. I can't afford to go to the range.

Apparently Obama has promised the Mexicans that the Senate will vote on a treaty Bill Clinton signed back in 1997. It never went to the Senate for a vote back then...its been gathering dust waiting on a Dem president and a compliant senate.

The treaty effectively does and end-run around the Constitution (and Heller). It bans handloading, requires registration of guns, puts 'microprinting' requirements on civilian ammo, and opens the door for US gun dealers to be extridited and prosecuted in Mexico when one of their guns ends up south of the border.

"Go time" doth approach indeed.

Nate said...

There is a rumor going around that OSHA has shut down CCI.

Anyone heard anything similar?

Anonymous said...

If you have a line on the ammo Nate, I hope you have more than a line, if you get my drift. This is one of those situations that has developed that if you have a line, buy it immediately, because if you stop to think, it ain't going to be there when you come back.

Yeah, I read something yesterday on another site. I hope it's just a rumor.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Nate. Anon was me. I can't remember what my google password is.

Susan

Clay said...

I just tried to call CCI via the contact number on their web site, but got voice mail. Didn't have time to dicker with it.

It's 1-866-286-7436

Luke (alias "Lines With Chrome") said...

Great tool...


www.ammoengine.com

Mikesbo said...

Academy has moved .223, 7.62x39, and .308 behind the counter, with signs in the aisles saying as much. That is, if they had any.

Walmart has empty shelves.

Sportsman's Warehouse is shutting down in Texas.

Haven't looked at Cabella's.

Gun show re-loaders had no .308, but had some 9mm, .40, .45acp, and a couple other pistol rounds. The main ammo guy there, who usually has a lot of eastern bloc stuff, was a no show; first time in the past 3+ years.

I did see several Saiga-12's, AR's and AK's, which surprised me. It's probably because of the lack of ammo.

A buddy told me 22-250 was actually going down in price.

Anonymous said...

I read back during the afgan-russian war, 308 was selling in the field for $3.50 a round.
(Afgan's are very capitalistic).I wonder what it will get up to in this next donnybrook? Match grade is over a buck a piece now. I guess you can always pay more later.Guns, ammo, & food. Thats what the only way to beat the beast.......Maybe. Its going to be a good fight though....mthead

Clint said...

My .303 British came in this evening. Next payday I am going to go for a big haul on it.

Tallen said...

Perhaps it's time for civilians to move on to directed-energy weapons? Instead of buying or hand loading ammunition you just clip in a rechargeable battery or perhaps an array of capacitors.

Underwater Operative said...

Tallen I was think along the same lines after reading some of the articles on Drudge related to AI Combat troops. pinpoint EMP weapons to take down SS AI's.

Anonymous said...

Walmarts in Ohiya are the same; empty shelves with the exception of shotgun ammo.
When something comes in, it's gone.

Last time I was there, some dangerous extremist(heh) bought all of their 9mm ammo at 8.96 a box - 1100 rounds worth.
Dunham's wants 20 a box, but they don't have any.

The extremist also bought the only to boxes of 40 and 45 they had.
Alas, no rifle rounds at all...

toothy

Anonymous said...

That should have been "two", not "to" boxes. Sorry.

toothy

Nate said...

alternative methods are being researched.

John Williams said...

"There's storm clouds gathering."
Sarah Connor, last scene, last line, Terminator

Clint said...

I just got a line on a little more income coming in by June. Anyone wanna guess where it is going?

Anonymous said...

The easiest "alterative" to create would be a gun that uses a gas for a propellant. Rather than powder.
Or a mix of both. Like a 22LR, with a shot of nitrous oxide. Even if you could just add O2 too a normal gunpowder. It would burn more completely. But something that shot with "natural" gas, or better yet: H2+O2=H20, would be the easiest to create in the field. As water is easy to electrolize. Then you just need plastic coated steel bullets, and your in business......mthead

Clint said...

I just saw that Texas was following Montana's lead in the federal gun exemption law. Well, at least Texas has a law proposed.

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/html/HB01863I.htm

The Barbarian said...

I know of another extremist who cleaned out Walmart shotshells and the local gun stores .22LR this morning. Wally is out of eberything now, said the big central warehouse is empty as well.

The local gun store is rationing ammo - a box of 45acp per day, a box of .40S&W per day PER GUN - thas right, you have to buy a gun to get a box of ammo. And no rifle ammo.

They said they felt sure that the situation would improve in 6 months: "It HAS to...". O contraire moose breath. They hadn't heard the CCI story.

huckleberry said...

I think I'm going to miss football the most when TSHTF...

Clay said...

I just talked to a guy at CCI's Technical Services, and he said if OSHA had shut them down, they were a lot of people working in the plant today that didn't get the word. He said they're cranking out everything they can, running 24/7. It all gets snapped up as soon as it hits the stores. Said his profit-sharing was kicking ass.

Told him I had heard a rumor that they'd been shut down. He said they hadn't seen hide nor hair of OSHA, but that Elvis did stop by for lunch the other day.

Nice guy....good sense of humor.

Mikesbo said...

"Last time I was there, some dangerous extremist(heh) bought all of their 9mm ammo at 8.96 a box - 1100 rounds worth"

<$10/box? I've not seen that for a long time.

The local Megalomart has been limiting ammo purchases for over a year now. They used to have Winchester 115gr ball for $4.63/50rd box...

Kiwi the Geek said...

You... changed... I am in shock...

You have permalinks! Yay!

Should I be prepared to start reloading .22LR? I only have 4 bricks, and of course I want to practice. Between practicing and my limited income, it'll take awhile to build up a good store, and I don't have awhile.

How much should I practice? As in, how do I know when I'm good enough to stop wasting ammo?

Kiwi the Geek said...

Nate, you need to go in the options for the comments and tell it to include the date on each comment. So people know when the thread is dead.

And what happened to the rest of my name?

Underwater Operative said...

Went to the gun store yesterday and asked for some no.34 & no.41 mil-spec primers. The guy said, "good luck findin' any" All the surplus has been sold and everything coming off the line is going straight into a round.

Mutly said...

Swung by Cabela's again last night. They had a pallet of ammo they were stocking onto the shelves. Common pistol sizes were all gone, except for one box of .40 S&W.
They had probably 1000 rounds each of 454 casull and 357 sig.

In rifle there was 223, 308, and 30-06. I didn't really look for anything else.
I also didn't have time to inquire about primers which they keep behind the counter. The counter folks were all busy.

Erik said...

Seems like ammo creation would be a good business to get into right now. Of course it would probably take a good several years to get thru the government red tape, at which time the shortage may be over (or no sales allowed at all)