surprised by shooting supply prices

[YanmarFever]

Re: surprised by supply prices

Word on the street and in the gun forums is to expect at least a 30% increase in reloading supplies in June. They are blaming the war effort ,the Chicoms, and the East Indians for the increase.

I can't find .223 sprn 55 grn. bullets anywhere. I settled on the spitzer and Midway only had 300. I bought them all. I have got to get me some .308 brass now.

Get it now if you are able. That's my advice.

Oh Ya, Magazine prices are due to increase as well. That's what I hear anyway.

I bought from an ammo warehouse that supplys dealers, and they were out of .223 also.
They said dealers were buying all they could get.

no conspiracy here

 

[Soundguy]

Antique ammo or pre-1950 stuff would make me nervous. ..

Please.... There is a huge amount of WWII surplus ammo on the market.. and some older.. As long as it has been in a controlled environment.. or otherwise sealed ( battlepacks, span cans, wax paper lined crates / waxed muslin lined packs.. or waxpacks.. etc.. ) it should be fine.

Look for visible signs of corrosion. Probably the biggest thing to look out for is corrosive primers when looking for that corosion.

Heck.. I've got a few guns that there is no 'modern' ammo.. only thing I can feed it is nazi marked ammo...

Soundguy

 

[Biggreen]

It sure is going up! Try shooting 200-500 shells weekly for sporting clays between me and my son. Need to be shooting more but cant afford it. I have 3 reloaders and about 15000 empties but now I am jsut buying the 1oz. Remington Game loads.

 

[Unclebuck257]

There's been a serious shortage of 223 ammo for well over a year now, compared to the amount that used to be available to buy. I hear tell it's due to the Iraq War, but I don't know. Makes sense though considering what caliber our troops are shooting over there. All metals are up in price and that will impact us reloaders and non reloaders alike.

 

[redlevel]

I've got a bunch of powder, mostly Unique, and a bunch (fifteen-twenty thousand?) primers, small pistol-large pistol-magnum pistol, that I bought up during the last Clinton scare in the early '90's. Good bit of loaded ammo, too. The primers are stored in sealable surplus ammo cans, as is the ammo, and the powder is in the original cannisters. It has lived in a heated/ac house all that time. I figure the only ammo that you need to worry about after 10-15 years is rimfire.

 

[RobJ]

Please.... There is a huge amount of WWII surplus ammo on the market.. and some older.. As long as it has been in a controlled environment.. or otherwise sealed ( battlepacks, span cans, wax paper lined crates / waxed muslin lined packs.. or waxpacks.. etc.. ) it should be fine.

Look for visible signs of corrosion. Probably the biggest thing to look out for is corrosive primers when looking for that corosion.

Heck.. I've got a few guns that there is no 'modern' ammo.. only thing I can feed it is nazi marked ammo...

Soundguy

I agree, in the early 90's I believe Hodgdon was selling the surplus WWII+ powder over the counter. I think by now it's all new stuff. But nothing wrong with it if stored properly. The only concern is the use of corrosize primers and berdan primed cases that and not worth the trouble.

Rob

 

[DieselPower]

Actually Bruce Hodgdon (1911-1997) started his business in 1952 by borrowing on his life insurance to purchase WWII surplus gunpowder. He used a boxcar for storage because the farmer who owned the large abandoned dairy barn on the farm he was finally able to rent wouldn't take the chance of letting it be filled with powder. An ad in the American Rifleman, and a very large gamble that there were enough people loading their own ammunition to consume the first 50,000 pounds of rifle powder, started an international business that has survived and grown for over a half a century. If memory serves correctly they actually started to manufacturer their own powder in the early 60's and were no longer selling surplus military powder.

 

[RobertN]

Well, we did a Boy Scout Troop shooting event; I used 1/2 of my lead and primers, and a bit of powder for the Hawken. Overall, we figure we went through about 8,000 rounds, about 7,000 or so 22LR. The rest was .50 Hawken black powder, 22 Hornet, 7mm TCU, .270, .243, 30-30, 9mm, 10mm, 38spl, 44mag, 45-70, .30 carbine, and a few others. The 22LR was about $10/500 rounds, the rest I fear to add up

It sure is going up! Try shooting 200-500 shells weekly for sporting clays between me and my son. Need to be shooting more but cant afford it. I have 3 reloaders and about 15000 empties but now I am jsut buying the 1oz. Remington Game loads.

 

[DieselPower]

Got a update to my Corbin bullet swaging catalog today and the price of swaging bullet jackets have gone up also. All lead wire and block prices were the same. Just the copper bullet jackets that went up.