Posted on 02/02/2009 10:37:56 PM PST by STD
It's way past time for the "Boo Hoo" crowd to finally get out of bed. The fear mongers living on banker's hours, will waste no time "jamming" my figurative 1st Amendment right to calm down their whining. I know most posters here were not promoting fear, they were only drawn into reporting what they experienced.
Doom, doom and still more doom; my vocal weapon against those preaching fear falls apart once the heart of the soldier next to me deserts his post. Suddenly, a few more men cravenly turn with him. Now, fear spreads to squads, platoons, companies and battalions. They all show their backs to our common foe. Armies become "every man for themselves" routs when one single man's heart fails. Virus' begin their attack the same way, killing one cell at a time. The histamines released from one cell initiate a cascade, soon they trip the alarm in the chemistry of fear. Fear causes a primitive instinctual "fight or flight" mechanism to kick in.
Rigorous training is designed to overcome and promote a different set of values. Immediately following orders and directional commands are essential to avoid the alarm bells and cowardice.
It only takes a few cowards on the thin green line. The messenger in me here at FR needs active listeners to get themselves ready for the future. Please set upright calm people here at FR about the business needed to protect and defend our precious liberties!
Amen and Amen
Really, 500 bucks? GTFOOHWTN! Impossible
Wal-mart 1 has no centerfire rifle or pistol ammo and has not for since late October. It is in the more upscale part of town. The Dept Manager told me last week that he quit even trying to order it. Shotgun is plentiful and the Skeet\trap club is close by.
Wal-mart two the Department Manager told me two weeks ago that he gets his orders filled from the distribution center at about a 50% rate. (BTW the Distribution center is here in town.)
Wal-marts three and four all have reasonable stock of both pistol and rifle ammo but not if you are looking to buy a thousand rounds. They have possibly 200 rounds of most calibers and shotgun is well stocked.
Both Scheel's, Cabela's and Sportsmans Warehouse were wiped out of ALL common pistol ammo during the last month. Sales inventory is grabbed up instantly and common rifle ammo is snapped up as well. The Gun Dept manager at Cabela's told me he started doubling his orders in November and only receives about 75% from his suppliers. Both Cabela's and the Sportsmans receive powder on Tuesday it is ALL gone by Wednesday am. Cleaned out.
Components are hard to come by and it is a right place and time kind of thing. I have way more hours into obtaining ammo than I care to think about due to the current situation.
The last gun show was the weekend before Thanksgiving. The largest ammo distributor was wiped out of 5.56 and 7.62 by noon on Friday the opening day of the show and he told me he brought 2x the normal quantity. AR, SKS and other common guns were in good supply but prices were in the $1800 to 2500 range fro brand name Ar's.
I have that same rifle with a Leupold NM scope and a folding stock on mine.
I do wish for a Sadlak mount and a bipod.
Try Cabelas for ammo and components, I was able to get some Winchester .308 cases from them. there was a week delay shipping but they came through, however I cannot find any #34 primers so I am using some CCI 200 instead, I will be recessing the primer to prevent out of battery fire.
Hopefully the supply will catch up with demand, I would shudder to think of many people trying to reload with wrong components or substituting powders, people can get hurt.
And I will not buy reloaded ammo from anyone unless they can conclusively prove the quality of it, who knows, for all you know you might just be buying a huge can of bullets loaded with sawdust.
Also keep in mind a good trick during wars is to leave behind reloaded ammo but filled with explosives instead of powder, could happen here in America by our enemies.
Someone could make a good buck by manufacturing steel cased 7.62x39 and 5.56/.223 here in the US or maybe CCI could make it with aluminum cases. I know they make pistol cases with aluminum but haven't seen bottleneck rifle cases.
But now that the price has jumped if you can even find it, I'm considering on stocking up on US-made Boxer-primed 7.62x39, getting a brass catcher, and ordering a set of dies.
Reloading for Russian short - whooda thunk it?
The last gun show in SF was on 17/18 January. Next will be 28 February/01 March.
7.62x39 was selling for $.27 per round in quantities of 1000. I spoke (briefly, he was a bit busy) to one of the guys at the booth who said that they hoped they would sell out of 7.26x39 and .556 on Saturday but had another truck coming down for Sunday so they expected to be good both days.
I’ve written ad nausium about the supply chain issues of the major retailers and the fact that Walmart, being in the political cross hairs of the libs, may not be there for the consumer this time. I will spare you a full repetition other than to say that online vendors and local gun shops will probably be the best bet for people wanting to ensure they have adequate ammo stocks.
I would not characterize the prudent accumulation of weapons and ammunition at this time as a manifestation of fear. Uless anyone can show me a reason why firearms or ammo will be less expensive, adjusted for inflation, in 4 to 8 years than they are today I would consider it an investment. It ain’t gonna spoil and if the price of ammo does drop then, as they say on The Box O’ Truth, it’s still fun to shoot stuff.
A sales guy at Walmart told me their distribution center isn’t ordering ammo, because they are afraid that there will be a huge tax added, and no one will want it. They don’t want to be stuck with tons of the stuff.
Classic case of price/demand inelasticity. But when the ammo bubble bursts and the prices come back down, you’ve still got ammo. That’s something.
Intellectually, I know you're right about this, but I have a really bad feeling about the "non-market" influences on guns and ammo are going to make this bubble a lot different.
If not, I'm going to have to study up on homemade powder production and used primer reconstitution in addition to boolit casting.
Be careful of the Yugo surplus brass stuff that's around now. Mildly corrosive, which isn't a problem but it's Berdan primed so you can't reload it, in a practical way, at any rate. About the same price as the Russian steel.
I don’t think wallyworld is a good guage. The ones around here don’t sell guns anymore and supposedly all are going that way. Very little ammo of any sort.
The expensive American stuff would be worth buying, I think, just to have the option to reload it later - assuming the brass isn’t launched into low-Earth orbit or outright mangled by an AK or SKS’s “enthusiastic” case ejection. A brass catcher for plinking and practice would be workable, but you can kiss that brass goodbye while shooting 3-Gun or somesuch.
I agree. The days of cheap ammo at Walmart are about to become a thing of the past.
In the future our sources of ammo will be:
-- Specialty sporting goods chains who have a vested interest in shooting sports.
-- Local gun stores.
-- Gun shows (targeted for elimination by the geheimpolizei)
-- Individual reloaders (limited capacity, targeted for elimination by the geheimpolizei)
-- Online retailers. (don't be surprised if they are next on the gun grabbers hit parade)
I suspect that the reason we are seeing a lot of online retailers with "out of stock" notices is that more and more they are serving as the suppliers of choice for local gun stores. If the online wholesaler has limited stock they'll fulfill orders for a gun store that orders 200,000 rounds a month before they tackle orders for a guy who buy 1000 rounds a year. There is ammo out there but the market is doing what markets do when there is a perceived shortage of anything.
Sounds reasonable.
Yeah. Since I reload it’s cheaper to buy once fired than new brass cased ammo. Everything is pretty available except 7.62x39 ‘cause most of what is sold is the cheaper steel but I have a closely guarded source or two.
I’m going to hit National Gun Day, the big gun show in Louisville, at the beginning of next month to pick up my ammo. I need some .223, 30-30, and .45ACP.
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