Posted on 04/11/2013 1:10:34 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Try going to your neighborhood Wal-Mart to buy some .22 bullets for target shooting, or a couple of boxes of shotgun shells, and you’ll discover what hunters and gun enthusiasts have been muttering about for months now: The shelves are bare.
Manufacturers are operating flat-out but can’t keep up with demand, as consumers snap up every box of ammo as soon as it comes on the market. Wal-Mart limits buyers to three boxes when they’re available, and Cabela‘s is limiting online orders to one box per day of the popular .22 long shells increasingly used as cheap ammo for target rifles and pistols.
The buying frenzy is understandable here in Connecticut, where the General Assembly recently tightened gun regulations in response to the Newtown school massacre. The new law includes a $35 permit to buy ammo that requires a background check and is good for five years — until the legislature decides it can shorten the term and increase the fee as a new source of tax revenue.
But why the national shortage? Here’s my theory: Bullets are easy to store, non-perishable, and they hold their value or even increase in times of crisis. So they’re a lot like gold or any other commodity that has served as hard money through the ages (or even the canned mackerel fillets that serve as currency in U.S. prisons....
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I’ve heard it said many times that ammunition will be used like money after the collapse (TEOTWAWKI), but I have never heard what the exchange rates are. How many .22LR for a .357 Magnum? Or for that matter, a 30-06? Does anyone have a chart?
Interesting that I have heard this same thing from people here who deride others for having gold (you can’t eat gold). Its pretty hard to eat ammunition, too. After all the game is slaughtered very shortly after TEOTWAWKI, the only way to turn it into food is to use it aggressively (not in self defense which is what everyone says they would use it for).
BTW, if stored properly, the 10 year limit for .22LR ammunition (read the article), is totally BS. I got a really great birthday present from my father back in 1963. It was 10,000 rounds of Federal .22LR. I shot up most of it before I went away to college. I put the remainder in a government .30cal ammo box and stored it in their basement, up high on a shelf.
I found it about 35 years later. I have been shooting up a few chambers full every year since then to see how long they will last. I am still shooting them (they are almost gone) and have not had a single misfire yet. I will probably run out before they age out.
Just remember, store them properly. Away from heat, cold, and wet. If it ever does become money, I am rich.
Just thought of something. By purchasing bonds the FED is driving the bubble in assets like real estate and stocks.
By purchasing ammo the Feds are driving the bubble in ammo.
In some ways these are opposites - in the first case they are producing a surfeit of dollars and in the second a shortage of ammo - but in both cases it sure seems like deliberate market manipulation on a very large scale that has the effect of disrupting how markets normally function.
The ammo bubble will pop...Loud...Most already have all they’ll need and then some...Many have horded to the point they’ll probably attempt to sell some off for a profit at some point, but may find by the time the do, prices will have dropped like a rock.
This kind of thing happens will all types of products, homes etc. When the demand starts to subside...Whammo..
Not if, it’s a matter of when..
I found a brick of ‘Mowhawk’ 22lr just yesterday. I took all of the rounds out of the little boxes and combined them into a single container. ... The little green and yellow boxes are collectibles.
Yup, sure sounds like the Drone King may be furthering a little surprise he has in store for us, and soon — especially since he’s made it known that we absolutely, positively must have a civilian auxiliary force that’s as strong and capable as the army or marine corps (and, I suppose, is answerable only to him). If that doesn’t scream he’s planning a coup, I don’t know what would!
THAT, and your whole post, is very interesting information, thanks. Hadn't heard that about Blue Dot before, but then, I'm not a real reloader. I've only just recently tried to assemble an inexpensive and easily portable kit I could use to hand reload in the field, if that ever became necessary. Unfortunately, purchasing powder and primers at the moment seems to be a real problem and everything is on hold.
Anyway, I wonder if Federal Premium is admitting they use such unstable powder and priming in their ammo? If so, I'll just make sure I shoot up all mine in the next ten years and not buy any more of it! I have a quite a bit, but not so much it'll be a problem sending all of it downrange over the next decade.
I doubt that Federal is using Blue Dot for any of their ammo (I don’t know that for an absolute fact though)
Most of the time, the factories use different formulations than what is available to us peons.
Don’t know why that would be, but that is the generally accepted ‘truth’ on the reloading forums
Blue Dot powder GAINED in power... Enough to show some significant pressure problems.
As a result load the Blue Dot using 88% of max. published loadings as MY “red-line”. It’s a Safety thing I figure. Gauge guns, rifles, and pistols don’t seem to mind.
Brass, lead, and copper. I sort of doubt it. You'd need a supplier of powder, and either primers or the chemicals to make them. I suspect that given the "explosiveness" of the intermediates, one would need to find/hire a genuine expert in handling of same.
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