I got my Graf and Sons sale flyer the other day. In it they had surplus Lake City .223 brass for sale, the first time in a while. They also had some Lake City bullets. If the ammo supply was so dire the Lake City arsenal would certainly not be selling brass, and bullets, to the handloading trade.

Tungsten is another crucial component of ammo, milspec especially. Tungsten deposits here in the US were declared off limits during the Clinton administration for reasons of forest conservation. That may be the right decision (I don't think so) but if the issue is the price of hot lead, this is a strong contributor.

Interesting, but hardly surprising. The mainstream media has an astonishing lack of knowledge about firearms, the military, and any related issue. Unlike the post WWII generation when many young men returning from the military took jobs in the media, today's media is overwhelmingly liberal. One can search newrooms in vain trying to find anyone who has ever served in the military or who owns a firearm, to say nothing of having any specific knowledge about firearms apart from that gathered by watching movies (if that's your main source of information, you barely know from which end of the gun the bullet exits).

While fighting a war certainly burns a great deal of ammunition, I suspect we'd find that the Vietnam war used a great deal more ammunition than the current war is using (what was the figure? 50,000 rounds expended for each enemy KIA?), yet as one who lived through the Vietnam era, I can't remember any ammo shortage then, nor have I experienced an ammo shortage now. Check the common catalogs such as Cheaper Than Dirt and it's immediately apparent that there is no shortage of ammunition in any caliber. I would suspect that virtually any local gun store can also procure any common caliber in any quantity one might wish.

In addition, police agencies that are using .40 S&W ammunition (a very common police caliber these days) will surely find that their price per thousand is substantially higher than the price for the same quantity of 9mm ammunition. But this has always been the case. The prices are higher yet for .45 ACP ammo and rifle ammunition, but again, this has always been the case. The 9mm round has simply been around much longer than .40 S&W and there is a far greater supply of the ammunition available around the world, thus prices are lower. Supply and demand, not the machinations of the evil Bush administration.

It sounds like this was a story too good to check. It certainly maintains the preferred media line on the war. I suspect it will also turn out to be a story that is too good to correct.

Quick correction. .223 is not the same thing as 5.56. 5.56 is loaded to much higher chamber pressures than standard .223 win. You can fire .223 from a weapon chambered to 5.56 but not the other way around. When you do fire .223 from a weapon like the M16 series, you loose a lot of lethality, and a lot of range. That and standard .223 does not have the steel penetrator. The stuff you see on cheaper than dirt.com and it says 5.56 surplus, it is not surplus. It from boxes that have been broken open and issued out. Then at the end of the deployment, the spare rounds are turned back into the ASP, if the crate has been broken open, then it can not be issued out. SO they sell it as surplus.

megapotamus, Tungsten for 5.56x45 is only used in M855 lead free, and the M995 AP round. We do not use much lead free, and as a matter of fact I think the only time I have ever used lead free was in Okinawa because of their strict regulations on expending lead based ammo.

There have been very few instances where I have actually seen the black tip M995 because there is a major loss of lethality in flesh when compared to the M855 ball round.

I'm in law enforcement so I think I can talk about this with some authority. .223 ammo was hard to get for about a year and a half. Ammo makers at the SHOT show last year told me it was a combination of the war and China buying up raw materials. Prices have increased and in fact doubled for .223 and 9mm training ammo over the last 2 years, though they seem to be coming down some finally. Duty ammo has never been a problem (except in .223 though again that has eased). Something else to consider it that many officers have to buy their own practice ammo (and more than you would think their duty ammo) to stay proficent. They have to used (in many cases) civilian resources everyone else uses. Between that and agencies hoarding up I think that drove some of the shortages/price increases. The sad fact though is the days of $100 .223 practice ammo is LONG gone and will probably never return.