Watchlords

My younger son, who is a huge re-loader, is gradually plowing thru his stash of small pistol/rifle primers. Many years ago, at a gun shows, we bought at least 50,000 primers in various sizes. Over the years, we are down to "hoarding" status now.
We bought bricks of .22 for under $10. AND believe me, we bought many, many dozens of them. Over 25 years go, when a local store went out of business, I bought 15,000 rounds of CCI Mini-Mags at a ridiculous price and I'm still using them now. I used to buy 12-pound kegs of Red Dot for both shotgun and target loads for pistol at unthinkable low prices back then.
My FFL guy said that small pistol primers are going for $100 a thou, if available ---- we bought in at $10 a thou (many years ago) and the price stayed stable for several years at $10.
Whatever the reason the huge increase and the lack of supply has a lot of 'conspiracy theories' at least on my part.
Apparently when Remington (in New York State) went belly up, primers began to get scarce as they made a lot of ammo under their name at the time.
Maybe it's like with the start of the Covid Crisis and toilet paper was like gold and you couldn't find any.
Wearing my tinfoil hat, I believe it is a long planned plot to remove guns from society. Eliminate the 'ingredients' for reloading and eventually the supply of ammo will be non-existent.

Occam's razor suggests panic to be just slightly more plausible than conspiracy.

I still have a couple cases of .40SW and better than 2K rounds of Korean surplus 30.06 in en bloc clips.

I haven't bought a new gun in a long time but somehow a Benelli M4 is calling my name - 12GA remains easy to come by.

About half of what remained after my Great Sell Off now resides in Thailand. Getting a license over there was pro-forma for the longest time but they recently tightened it up to restrict new ones only to Thai citizens. As a consequence my wife owns a SW Mod 29 and a Beretta Silver Pigeon III. Much to her surprise.

codguy wrote: ↑

January 11th 2021, 10:56am

Let us know how the aluminum cased stuff works.

I have a (sizable) stash of brass cased Wolf Gold .223, purchased when it was cheaper than me reloading the sum of the components.

Best Christmas gifts I gave this year was some of my stored ammo to close friends/family members......... dam near brought tears of joy to the recipient's eyes.

I too bought several thousand of these when you could get them for about $250 or so per thousand. Don't know what they are going for now but I suspect it's a fair bit higher.

Looks like prices have just doubled - again. That $50 box of 9mm is now $100 - and up: https://www.cheaperthandirt.com/ammunit ... f1ca22b7a1

looks like someone finally listened to chris rock.

I wouldn't expect prices to come down in the next 4 yrs. Hell they may triple from here, if you're going to be allowed to purchase ammo at all.

Watch Noob wrote: ↑

January 20th 2021, 12:37pm

I wouldn't expect prices to come down in the next 4 yrs. Hell they may triple from here, if you're going to be allowed to purchase ammo at all.

Ah, echos from the last Democratic POTUS panic. As I recall, ammo and firearm stocks sored as did prices. And they never returned to their prior levels despite the fact that the Brady Law expired under Clinton and were not and are still not in place after his terms and those of Obama.

Falstaff wrote: ↑

January 20th 2021, 9:55am

Looks like prices have just doubled - again. That $50 box of 9mm is now $100 - and up: https://www.cheaperthandirt.com/ammunit ... f1ca22b7a1

Ammo might be a better short term investment than my Blockbuster stock.

biglove wrote: ↑

January 20th 2021, 5:24pm

despite the fact that the Brady Law expired under Clinton and were not and are still not in place after his terms and those of Obama.

And now for some factual facts;

- The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (aka Brady Act, aka Brady Bill, aka Brady Law) imposed a 5 day waiting period for handgun purchases.
The Act was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993 and only disappeared in 1998 when the nationwide NICS (instant background check) made it obsolete.
Act was only about a 5 day waiting period.

- The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act ( aka Assault Weapons Ban of 1994) prohibited the manufacture & sale of new firearms with certain cosmetic features. It also prohibited the manufacture & sale of new high capacity (over 10 round) magazines. Existing firearms and magazines were grandfathered and the Act had a 10 year sunset clause thus expiring in 2004 during the George Bush Presidency.
The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act was also signed into law by Bill Clinton.

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"Panic" buying always happens for fear politicians may try to restrict firearm sales and/or possession which has happen before. Every time someone mentions gun control (like a Robert Francis O'Rourke), ......the American public justifiably reacts .
This time around, calls for defunding the police and the burning down of US cities also contributed to a mad dash of firearm purchases. I personally know of three households that never cared for firearms and are now first time firearm households. Multiply that by ???
All the additional first-time owners in the US need ammo and the huge purchasing run began.
This is the main reason for the shortages (and higher ammo prices) imo.

But what do I know.......I just pick up firearm info from the daily fish-wrapper.

Mark1 wrote: ↑

January 13th 2021, 4:38am

I too bought several thousand of these when you could get them for about $250 or so per thousand. Don't know what they are going for now but I suspect it's a fair bit higher.

That same case is now selling for between $700-$1000......... if you can find them. Hard to believe $1.00 per round for .223 ammo!

Didn't think I'd ever see 9 mil at $2-$3 a 'bang.' At that rate, this price will be a bargain later this year.

Guess no more fun days at the range despite having thousands of rounds stashed. It was one thing to blow through $250 in ammo for fun but now ammo has to be hoarded "just in case."

biglove wrote: ↑

January 21st 2021, 9:54am

Guess no more fun days at the range despite having thousands of rounds stashed. It was one thing to blow through $250 in ammo for fun but now ammo has to be hoarded "just in case."

Sadly, it may very well be a "Life Or Death" scenario for foreseeable future. RIOTS (or protests, LOL) will continue till citizens tire of being raped, beaten, fire-bombed, displaced and then having to pay for it all.