Thread: Cartridge and Rifle Camberings Availability.

Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings @-BW-,
There is a very simple answer. PANIC BUYING IN THE US. It has been well documented and is driven by the US election cycle. The current one started in the US in early 2000 when it started to look possible that Tump may lose the election later that year. Manufacturers keep production steady to keep costs down and profits up and concentrate on the high profit lines as they know that every boom ends in a bust. As the panic slows down shelves are restocked but at the end of the supply chain we are the last to see this happen. Local stockpiling by firearms users to ensure their supply and hoarding by some make things worse. It really is that simple. Things should ease through this year and into next depending on the US Mid Term results but expect the cycle to return in early 2024.
Regards Grandpamac.

Indeed.

The 'why' posed in my comment was not to say why is there a shortage but more to state if there exists a sentiment of ''there is no shortage'' then why are the shelves empty. As I believe that yes indeed, there does exist a shortage, the scale of which is mostly subjective but we don't have access to stock we have in the past.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

for the hundreth time...there is NO SHORTAGE if folks stop blasting away at paper or hoarding ammunition...... if a fella fired 3 to check zero,3 to confirm zero that leaves 14 in a box...even if he fires that same 6 rounds on range and 1 round to kill a deer he gets just about 3 deer per box of ammunition which is piss poor going really... makes firing 2 to check zero a bit more attractive...and punching paper with the rimfire or centrefire and cast loads just that much more so.
the days of mag dumping for the hell of it may be gone for the time being (pretty hard without a semi anyway) but with a LITTLE prudence there is more than enough to go around.....heck you fellas took the piss out of toilet paper hoarders....... for good reason.

If you don’t have it, can’t buy it, and there’s very small amounts on the way, I’d call that a shortage mate.
How people use a box is meaningless if you can’t get it on the first place

Greetings All,
I think that the learning here should be that for whatever reason there are periods where supplies are short. These are cyclic and vary in severity. The current cycle is likely to have been extended by Covid. I believe that the cycles are due to panic buying in the US driven by the electoral cycle but others may differ. As the cycles are predictable to an extent they can be planned around in ensuring we have enough components to get us through the dips. It really is that simple. The political situation in the US is becoming more unstable and the mid terms will give us some idea of what to expect in 2023, hopefully a period of more calm. We will see.
Regards Grandpamac.

It's pretty covid specific

Well regardless of the cause, I’ve personally seen some positive in it.
It’s made me revisit my expectations of accuracy from my firearms, and freed me up some time and mental space. Given the lack of components, I got smart when doing the load development for my model 7. Picked a load that would be safe, was getting up the scale of velocity, and was within a known ‘sweet spot’ for the combination. Result, zeroed and load development done in 9 rounds. It’s also made me give up on the chase of accuracy. The load just described was right on MOA, which is more than good enough for the cartridge and it’s use.
I only have two centrefires, a 308 and a 358 Win. I bought 1000 primers a while ago and split them with a mate. A kg of powder for each case, and I’m sorted for at least 10 years. Maybe 15.
What I’m saying certainly won’t suit everyone, but the situation got me thinking and subsequently the rationalisation of my gear has me happier.

Originally Posted by Hunter_Nick

Well regardless of the cause, I’ve personally seen some positive in it.
It’s made me revisit my expectations of accuracy from my firearms, and freed me up some time and mental space. Given the lack of components, I got smart when doing the load development for my model 7. Picked a load that would be safe, was getting up the scale of velocity, and was within a known ‘sweet spot’ for the combination. Result, zeroed and load development done in 9 rounds. It’s also made me give up on the chase of accuracy. The load just described was right on MOA, which is more than good enough for the cartridge and it’s use.
I only have two centrefires, a 308 and a 358 Win. I bought 1000 primers a while ago and split them with a mate. A kg of powder for each case, and I’m sorted for at least 10 years. Maybe 15.
What I’m saying certainly won’t suit everyone, but the situation got me thinking and subsequently the rationalisation of my gear has me happier.

Greetings @Hunter_Nick,
Your load developement is pretty much what I do although I do have rather more than two centrefire rifles. I have loaded for the two cartridges that you have and they are both super tolerant of loads, shooting well with almost anything.
Regards Grandpamac.

The current component shortage as has been said isn't so desperate for hunters. A very different story for target shooters, 1000 of anything lasts months, not years. Bergers are unobtanium, I've been forced to shoot Sierras while waiting for Bergers to arrive. I won't even bother moaning about the prices..

That will just warm you up for the new berger pricing

Originally Posted by Sakoswarosorted

If you don’t have it, can’t buy it, and there’s very small amounts on the way, I’d call that a shortage mate.
How people use a box is meaningless if you can’t get it on the first place

but I HAVE IT...and can still buy it..... there is still some ammunition on the shelves...... I guess it comes back to having lived through harder times.
our grandparents shot pigs with a .12ga and #4 shot as thats all that was around....as a teenager I would get mum to buy (remember those easy times?)a single box of rounds...and when I was down to last 3-4 get another.... using a single barrel break open shotgun for a lot of those formative years taught me to get in close and make the shot count. I recall a driven shoot up in mackenzie basin 50-60 shooters with all sorts of shotguns,including 3 professional rabbiters..at the end of the day a tally up was had....I came out on top and my buddy a close 2nd and we were both using single barrel guns,our round usage was less too...the professional guys werent overly happy about being shown up by a couple of rookies (previous 3 months I had been shooting rabbits full time) it comes down to this,and ONLY THIS.
There is more than enough ammunition and components for zeroing rifle and hunting....... if you want to shoot a couple of hundred rounds into paper,maybe you might need to take up casting projectiles and look at lighter charges of powder to eak out what you can get...or not.
its like anything,supply and demand,reduce the supply and you up the demand...reduce the demand and supply keeps up if not slows down as no market for it.

and how you use that box is VERY meaning full...... if you consider that box of 20 rounds will feed your household for a year...its heaps...if however you consider its 35 seconds of rapid fire into the berm...yeah nah its never going to please you...its all relative.

You’re confusing the way you’d use your ammo, the rifles you own and buy ammo for, and your past use of ammo with reality bro

by all means go out into driveway and start your V8 wagon,leave it running for 20 minute while you have your coffee and morning dump,then roar off down street wit ha squeal of wheels and rev it up at each intersection ,take off full speed down road,brake hard at next corner,rev it up waiting for lights etc...I will take out bucket of warm water to clear my windscreen,start my 4 cylinder 1600cc and drive slowly to work and back.
we both get to destination but my fuel bill /usage will be less.
to each thier own..my reality is different from yours it seems.
my present use of ammunition isnt a hell of a lot different to the past,except Ive got better at rechecking zero before heading away for a hunt...so may use 5-6 rounds to do so,anything else used is on hunt itself.
more than happy to use the 45/70 a lot...cast projectiles and black powder make it cheap to rum...its only primers that may run short.....unless I really get tightwad and decide to make my own...LOL.

Just an observation. Wandered round the Queenstown H&F on Friday and stood in front of the ammo cabinet for a bit. The usual suspects were on hand, 270, 308, 223, 6.5cretin, even 300 Blackout and a smattering of odds and sods, but no 7mm08. Looked long and hard but nothing, nada, zip.
Also, factory ammo price. I saw some 308 at $119!!! Sure this is only one outlet and I haven’t had to buy any except for two boxes of 223 and a box of 260, which has increased from $60 to $80, so not payed much attention to it over the last few years. 260 was always hard to get and expensive which is one reason I always intended to reload for it but is there any evidence to suggest that another contributing factor to component demand is because of a migration to handloading driven by price?? As MD has so eloquently put it, a box or three is generally more than enough for the average hunter to fulfill their needs for quite some time and even at, say $4/round does it justify tooling up to handload?
As I said, just an observation.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

for the hundreth time...there is NO SHORTAGE if folks stop blasting away at paper or hoarding ammunition...... if a fella fired 3 to check zero,3 to confirm zero that leaves 14 in a box...even if he fires that same 6 rounds on range and 1 round to kill a deer he gets just about 3 deer per box of ammunition which is piss poor going really... makes firing 2 to check zero a bit more attractive...and punching paper with the rimfire or centrefire and cast loads just that much more so.
the days of mag dumping for the hell of it may be gone for the time being (pretty hard without a semi anyway) but with a LITTLE prudence there is more than enough to go around.....heck you fellas took the piss out of toilet paper hoarders....... for good reason.

so theres no shortage for me as a pistol shooter ideally shooting 2-300 rounds a week? or a long range dude training before a big comp? i shoot multiple times a week, but id only hunt half a dozen times a year

I'll share similar sentiment to the above comment.

When primers go from $80 per 1k to $300 per 1k in the space of 9 months. When there are very few shipments on the horizon, when it's $20 difference with current pricing between reloading and factory 9mm per 1k rounds.

When you have people absolutely pillaging any new shipment and then $1 reserving the items on tardme, when there are certain projectiles you haven't been able to get for 2 years minimum as their not getting here.

You know there is a serious supply issue with various compounding factors.

The point is it's largely irrelevant how you use you're ammo but the clear cut reality is prices have increased substantially and it's harder if not impossible to get certain things.