May 15, 2010
Ammo Shortage Continues
It started before Obama was elected, and shows no signs of abating.
Anecdotal, but while ammo is still in somewhat short supply, it's not nearly as bad as a year ago.
I ordered 9mm, reloaded, from Cabela's and they had it in stock, it took about a week for .45ACP (Magtech).
Last year I ordered .45ACP, .40S&W, 9mm and .357Mag and it took nearly 4 months to get all of it. They had none, not even reloads, in stock.
This year, it took less than a month.
As for guns, a year ago my favorite gun store had no scary black guns on their scary black gun wall, they had on M-1 carbine and a plastic AR for police practice.
Now? It's full of all manner of scary black guns, not just AKs and ARs but Steyr's and other really scary, black guns like a few bullpups.
I've also noticed that 7.62X39 is easier to get with some people even having cans of it, you couldn't get the cans anywhere last year, and .223 ammo is plentiful again.
The only thing I've really seen is that AKs have gone up. I got a WASR-10 for $350 and a 75rd drum from Cheaper than Dirt for $90, now they're $450 and $200 respectively.
ARs appear to be about the same price, but that might be because of all the new $2k+ high end stuff like the Bushmaster ACR and the Sig 556 and whatnot.
Posted by: Veeshir at May 15, 2010 08:43 AMJust went to Wallyworld yest and they've lifted the restriction on how many boxes per day you can buy.
I haven't had any trouble getting .45 ACP, 40 S&W, or 7.62x39 locally.
Posted by: Willy at May 15, 2010 10:15 AMAt our local WalMart, they have a 50 foot aisle bristling on both sides with ammo. It looked fully stocked to me last week. I'm not buying that there's a shortage.
Posted by: Kevin at May 15, 2010 01:31 PMThe real shortage I did face was reloading supplies. For the first six months, more like a year actually, after buying a reloader, I could not find large pistol primers, powders were hit or miss (and Vithavori, or some such, is still nearly impossible to find but it was always a limited supply item and the numbers of both shooters and reloaders has hit the roof). Now, I have thousands of primers for large, small, small magnum pistol primers and a few thousand large rifle primers, along with bullets galore. The brass is merely from spent storebought ammo.
Ammo, for me, was never all that limited (except in very liberal Iowa City, though not in the right (literally) parts of Iowa. And now in Utah, ammo is also never in short supply (perhaps in Salt Lake City it is?). Anyway, that was my take. Oh, and prices on all of it is dropping, if slowly.
Posted by: Doom at May 15, 2010 11:31 PMI haven't noticed any shortages since...well, since I started reloading, 35 years ago! :-)
A few boxes of bullets, primers in 5000 count lots...no worries.
Posted by: Sharpshooter at May 16, 2010 10:35 PM