Ammo shortage...over?
 

I just went to walmart on my lunch break, and they had 12 50-round boxes of 9mm (Federal and Winchester), nine 100 round boxes of .40 Winchester White Box, plus a dozen boxes of Federal .40, along with a bunch of miscellaneous .45, .38, .380, etc etc. I bought my limit of 6 boxes of 9, had my friend by 3 more (he only wanted 3 boxes of .40), and am going back after work to get another 6. Supposedly they had put the shipment out yesterday!

How is everyone else doing in the ammo department? This is the first time I've seen FMJ on the shelves in three months! Did I get lucky, or is this a trend?

.9mm FJM is still averaging .50 cents a round on the aftermarket side (gunbroker etc), not the .20 cents I just paid...if I wasn't so happy to have some to shoot, I'd think about flipping it!

Over, no but getting better. I'm still having a hard time finding .40 at WW around here. Bass Pro hasn't been any better either.

It's possible for more than one reason imo. I believe the people who've been hoarding massive amounts of ammo have finally exhausted their need/want for more rounds at the moment. Also, I think the common denominator is the economy as a whole. People (my self included) just can't afford to blow through as much ammo simply due to financial reasons.

Good topic to discuss. I believe that part of it was the paranoid hoarding idjits and the other part was 1960s-style heroin inflation syndrome. Once the quantity goes down and prices go up... the quantity can go up all it wants but the prices will remain the same. Is the silly GWOT really responsible for why 5.56 doubled in price? I find it hard to believe that we're going through that much 5.56 over there. I've been twice.

Gun-Deals.com is a great way to snag online wins, but you're still dropping a ton of money.

All around DC is short on ammo in stores. I've looked. The two Wal-Marts close to wear I live don't even sell guns/ammo anymore.

Yes. Since the WOsT got started, we have had to supply not only our forces, but also to supplement the British, Czech, Polish, French, etc....ammo supplies, plus supply the Iraqi and Afghan armies and police, since neither nation has any working ammo production capacity. Trust me, dealers are feeling the pinch just as much as consumers. We're paying, at the wholesale end, 3x what we were 18 months ago, and that 18-month-old figure was 3x more than we -had- been paying before the wars got started.


Edited to add: As for the shortage, the dearth caused by the Sept-March sales blitz may be easing off, but don't look for prices to come down much. I've still got suppliers calling me offering a wholesale price for 800rd tins of 5.56mm that's $85.00/tin MORE than I'm currently RETAILING the suckers for.

I was up at Clark Bro's recently, they seem to be pretty well stocked in everything except 10mm, though the prices were ridiculous. 20 rounds of .380 Hydra-Shock was running about $45. One of those 500 round bricks of cheap Winchester .22 was $55.

Pistol/shotgun ammo is pretty easy to come by in all parts of NC now. It was rough finding FMJ pistol ammo for a while - all of the "Appalachian Americans" were snatching it up as fast as they could, though the more expensive 'premium' ammo could be found in abundance. Go figure. Outside of Fayetteville its still pretty hard to find 5.56, 7.62 and primers. All of the local dealers I've talked to say its not uncommon for a guy to walk in and buy all of the 5.56/7.62 ammo in stock, along with 10,000 primers at a time.

Remember last year when you could order 1,000 rounds of 62 gr. 5.56 ammo for $150?Thems were the days.

I haven't been able to buy .45 or .223 in 6 months. And I check every week. :(

Must be an area thing, prices are still pretty good where I live.

I load my own, and keep plenty of components on hand at all times.

Clark Brothers, eh? That's in my back yard. And their prices hurt my soul.

Yeah, Clark Bro's has always been a bit pricey but their gunsmithing is phenomenal - and reasonably cheap considering the area. I recently had them replace a pinned flash suppressor on my M4 with a pinned PWS compensator. Not exactly splitting the atom but they were the only gun shop in NOVA that could do it (fuck Blue Ridge Arsenal). If memory serves it took about 3 weeks (they are booked up) but they did great work and only charged me around $25. Oh, and I got a free sticker.

Seriously, Blue Ridge Arsenal is like elitist fat camp lately. B.R.A. is actually a clever acronym for what they need... something to secure those man titties.

They're so used to white collar yuppies and Fairfax gangstas (doo rag + Desert Eagle) that they don't realize how fake they sound.

"I've operated for years as a law enforcement professional." "Operated? Operated what? A box of fucking twinkies?"

I think their whole staff can do maybe 10 pullups collectively.

Got a real hard time taking a "professional" seriously when they're that outta shape.

I've got like E1 brains and I get the feeling I could best some of them.

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I miss 2000. A box of 50 UMC yellow box 9mm was like $5.99 at Wally World.

I've come to the conclusion that the people I most want to meet IRL from TFP are the members of this thread. :)

Well, you can find me in a van down by the river outside D.C. most weekends. I'd like to get together and do drills out in Winchester, VA or something. Be cool to arrange a "TFP shoot" or something equally fruity, but nobody seems interested since the first one failed like a Janet Reno centerfold in Playboy.

I got in an argument at BRA not too long ago over something stupid involving the military. I know how gun-store clerks are and I usually avoid that type of discussion altogether, but I asked if they could order a particular part (which my unit is currently using) and I got a lecture on how nobody in the military uses it because it is a piece of junk and I should just use brand-X instead. I don't like to play my cool guy cards, but in this instance I couldn't hold back and ended up verbally beating the clerk about the neck and shoulders with them.

It's a pity, we were willing to send a lot of business their way.

"Nobody in the military would use that. It's not nearly expensive enough and the cool factor is only +1."

Yeah, they're dipshits. They size people up like elementary school bullies, talking down to me when I come in with a beat up Romanian SAR-1 AK. Somehow their attitude magically changes if I come in with an AR, a Misfits hat with my blood type on the side, and my almost-tacticool cheapo hiking boots.

Makes me wish I lived out in the country where plaid is the uniform and Winchester 94s are the assault rifle of choice.

*Waves hand* Remember me, I still want to shoot with you. I believe it only failed because we actually didn't set a date for it.

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The two wal-marts in my area are totally out of ammo of any kind. The two pawn/gun shops near me have next to nothing. One guy tried to sell me some ammo in a plastic sandwich baggie. I may know next to nothing about guns, but that just seems ultra shady to me.

One hunting store about 30 minutes away from my house as all kinds of ammo and guns. Going to take my gun there soon and pick up some ammo, clips, and a cleaning kid soon.

Consensus on a much bigger gun forum I read is that it's getting better, but the jacked up prices are here to stay and it will be a while before you'll see fully stocked shelves again. The big problems are Wal Mart employees who buy it all and offer to sell it to you for double the price out of their cars, and the gun store owners who have someone camp out in the sporting goods department, buy it all, and bring it back to the gun store to mark up 2-3 times the Wal Mart price. It should be legal to shoot those people.
Lucky you, everything I've heard points to about a year's worth of backorders on primers.

all i've bought lately were .22 shells.

here in gorgia, the .22 were always in stock. everytime im near the wal*mart i buy two of the 500 or 333 round boxes.

sad thing is, im almost out of 30-30 ammo, and completely out of 7.62 and 20 ga. ammo. (skeet, gets the best of me everytime)

so, i suppose i'll have more feedback on the situation after i check the local stores.

my cousin just informed me that the local hardware store has everything from .22's to 300 mags constantly in stock, and always has trough the "shortage"

come on down.

The issue isn't hunting ammo, it's target range ammo like 9mm, .40, .45, .223 / 5.56mm, 7.62x39mm, and .308/7.62mm.

I have no problem finding .270, .30-06, etc. Nobody (I've ever heard of) takes a .270 to the range and cracks off 100 rounds.

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I just bought 2k rounds of 5.56 off AmmoToGo and it was a pretty pleasant experience. Shipping costs blow... but big box prices help.

Tempted to buy a case of ammo online and sell it at a gunshow to some yuppie for 150% the price. They never seem to care.

they have it all there. but this is a small town, and its a small hardware store, so you pay a little bit extra for the ammunition.

i never really go into the larger super-stores. but when i do, i'll check out the selection.

my cousin uses cheaperthandirt.com to buy most of his ammo. he seems to be happy with the prices and selection.

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Yeah, I'm going to start camping out in the outdoor section of local Wal-Marts. Be that guy that cleans the place out.

I've got schools to attend and they're very hungry.

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All you have to do is be divorced and go play in the desert a few times. It's totally a hit of the Easy Button.

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The problem with shooting sports is that they're slowly becoming as expensive as golf. That's all bad.

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No kidding. I keep looking at presses and I'm thinking that'll be my evening activity when I'm in my late 30s, have another house, and have the time to sit on my butt for a few hours and workout my crank arm. One of my army buddies had a press and used to stay up late reloading .45 ball ammo. He had it down to a science.

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That man isn't getting laid, is he? Although with that much ammo... he's still probably pretty happy.

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So that's why other cultures keep the extended family all in one house.

How difficult is hand loading? I've met a few who have but never got around to asking them for the details.

From what I've experienced:

It's easy if you spend the money on a good progressive bench setup and are patient.

You have to be really careful with those decimal points, but other than that... it does most of the work for you.