Thread: This is F**ked

Scalping has been around for as long as money. It’s been a part of our economic landscape since Roman times, probably before.

Broadly speaking it is quite an unpleasant approach to commerce, one that never fails to get the backs up of those who desperately want or desperately need (big difference) whatever it is the scalper has for sale. But like it or not, it will never go away. It’s part of the free market economy, always has been, always will. Patients will usually overcome, because the supply and demand balance is always changing and before you know it what you want will be available from where you normally buy it.

Something I think about quite a lot is how comfortable we have become and how unprepared we are for when the shit hits the fan. The primer shortage isn’t a matter of life or death, but there’s all sorts of things we are entirely dependent upon that would quickly become a matter of life or death if they suddenly weren’t available anymore. If something happened that seriously broke the supply chain (war, natural disaster, etc) then we would see scalping on a scale that would make those in need desperately angry. And they would be absolutely fuck all they could do about it.

The moral of the story is to plan ahead, on a practical level. Make changes to simplify what you do where you can. Shoot smarter, use different rifles / ammo / components. Trade stuff like some of the fellas are doing on here. When I could see what was coming a couple of years ago I simplified what I do - I bought lots of the same cheap softpoints in place of expensive & hard to find latest & greatest, bought bulk one-fired brass, a big-ish powder purchase so that I have one powder that covers both hunting rifles (2208). I bought two 1,000 boxes each of SRP and LRP at the regular price after a warning that things were going downhill. Is that unfair? Course not. It’s good planning.

Dropping the nice to have fancy cartridges has been a blessing in disguise really, I realise I didn’t really need them in the first place.

I get that this doesn’t shoot the competition shooters and I feel for those fellas. But for hunters there’s a lot we can do to ease the pain of poor supply.