Tag Archives: ammo

Tula and Wolf…. gone the way of Chinese ammo?

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In case you missed the news, the Biden-figurehead administration has put the kibosh on the importation of Russian guns and ammo. On its face, it seems like a repeat of the Clinton-era Chinese gun/ammo ban.

Life Goal #267

I would imagine the smart money is creating new packaging an trucking all that Tula ammo over into some border country where it will be relabelled and imported in a grey-market fashion.

I have very few guns in 7.62×39, a pair of AK’s and a pair of SKS, and I bought my ammo a long time ago. Plus, the 7.62AK guns were never more than a tertiary level of backup for me. When the wheels fly off of civilization, it’s gonna be .223 and 9mm topping the charts.

But, it’s further evidence that things like imported ammo are ‘uncertain goods‘. Can a US manufacturer make 7.62×39 ammo? Of course they can. Can they do it cheaply to the point that it’s worth competing with the literally billions of rounds the Russians and Chinese have produced and already recovered their capital outlays on? Heck no. Thats why no US manufacturer has ever really gone heavy into 7.62AK production. As a result, American shooters became dependent on cheap imported ammo. Which is now neither cheap and nor imported.

This is not to say that having an AK or SKS or Ruger American in 7.62 is a bad idea logistically, it just means that, going forward, it’s less of a good idea.  As I said, I’ve stocked a goodly amount of 7.62, and I know people with tens of thousands of rounds of the stuff sitting in their basement, so in those cases there’s no real reason to ditch your AK. But, if you didnt have an AK, and were thinking about getting one today, you might want to rethink the ammo situation and perhaps get a .223 AK or just skip the AK and grab an AR.

Lesson to be learned: a consumable product, like ammo of a particular caliber, that is not supported domestically and is available almost only though imported channels is not something that can be considered as ‘reliably sourced’.

If youre a survivalist, shouldnt you already have your ammo?

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Guns and ammo remain a bit hard to find these days. I am absolutely aghast at the prices 9mm, 223 and other calibers are bringing. I started preparing against an unsatisfiable demand like this many years ago. I am very much not concerned with my own gun/ammo/mag situation. But…I find it interesting how many people who identify as ‘preppers’ or ‘survivalists’ are frantically trying to source this sort of stuff. I suppose if you’re a relative newcomer to the game it would be understandable that you’re a little light in the ammo department… but I read some discussion forums where people have long histories of being ‘preppers’ and they’re moaning about how that can’t get ammo. Not sure how that works. Guns and ammo are, literally, the first thing most people buy when they decide to get into preparedness. How can you have been a survivalist for any length of time and not have a goodly amount of ammo on hand? Ok, yeah, if you had a house fire…or your spouse took it all when she ran away with her boyfriend…or your meth-addict nephew stole it all outta your garage…or a hurricane washed it all out sea….maybe I could understand it. But otherwise….nope.

Whats the local market like here? Armscor 9mm, which is pretty low tier stuff, is clocking in at around $0.75 per round. I see .223/5.56 going for$0.90. I haven’t even got a number for .22 LR because I almost never see it. Magazines are still fairly abundant, but the guns themselves are getting scarcer. Primers may as well be made out of unicorn farts. Oddly, shotgun shells aren’t terribly scarce. As I’ve said before, the Current Situation is proving a few things out…like the fact that this nation runs on .223 and 9mm. (But if you have a .40 S&W, you’ve got a better chance of finding ammo then pretty much anyone.)

Everything I read says not to expect the situation to change this year. And thats before the Biden gang gets their deranged mitts into all the ‘commonsense’ legislation they want to put forth.

For the umpteenth time in the last year, the Current Situation is making me think that my ‘unconventional’ lifestyle may not have been a bad idea…especially in regards to the stockpiling of ammo. Interesting times.

The gaping void on the shelves

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I was looking at the ammo shelf in a local store yesterday and it was, naturally, picked over pretty hard. Of the ammo that was left it was a box of this, three boxes of that, two boxes of the other….nothing left in any quantity. As for what was missing….that pretty much tells the story.

Hit any preparedness forum and you’ll see the endless posts about “What calibers should survivalists standardize on” and you get the usual list. But, simple observation of the shelves shows that this nation runs on 9mm and .223. QED.

Serendipity

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Right place, right time:

Rem. 158 gr. JHP….2600 pieces at $0.06 ea.

I have a case of AA#2 powder, a five gallon bucket of fired .357 brass, and a Dillon Super RL1050….looks like its time to put my .357 needs to rest.

Depth of scarcity

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Friend Of The Blog ™, Tam, over at View From The Porch, has a post up about the ammo shortage and it’s depth.

In other words, supply of cases and primers and the like starts getting sketchy because, firstly, handloaders scarf up the existing retail supply and, secondly, the majors have to start deciding how they’re going to allocate their own supplies of primers, cases, bullets, and the like.

I don’t know if Tam is old enough to remember the Great Primer Scare back during the Slick Willie administration, but it was, in some ways, a nice warm up for the present situation.

I have an 06 manufacturers FFL, so I get more than the normal advertisements from vendors. I also get advertisements directed at manufacturers, where you buy your brass and other components by the fibre drum. There is, indeed, a bit of scarcity running around.

Many folks feel that reloading is the answer to these ammo shortages, but thats like saying cooking your own hamburgers is the solution to no burgers at Wendy’s because of a beef shortage. If larger manufacturers can’t get the components to keep up with demand, neither will you. Usually.

I say ‘usually’ because, as an individual, you have more maneuverability than Remington or Speer. You can literally troll Gunbroker and pick up 100 cases here, 400 cases there, and another 250 cases from a garage sale down the street. And if you’re willing to expend a little sweat, you can almost always just find brass growing under feet at the range.

But, overall, if you shoot any of the ‘common’ stuff like 9mm, .223, .40, etc, you’re probably going to have a hard time finding it and when you do the prices may not be to your liking. If you reload, you’ll have a bit of an advantage because ammo is often snapped up before the components are since reloaders are outnumbered by non-reloaders.

Tam’s a smart cookie, and the nature of her profession is such that she has, no doubt, a stockpile that would suit her needs in virtually any crisis. But she’s also savvy enough to know that meat doesn’t come from a pink tray in the supermarket and .45 230 FMJ doesn’t grow on a tree in the stockroom at Bass Pro. Amateurs talk strategy, pros talk logistics.

Having been chicken-littling for the life of the blog, I’ve already gotten most of my ammo situation squared away. So much so that the only time I really buy large amounts of factory ammo anymore is when an uncommonly good deal turns up.

When will things get back to ‘normal’? Years, dude. If you don’t have the ammo you want right now then your biggest quandry is do you a) buy the ammo now at the inflated prices or b) risk waiting for prices to drop and availability to increase? If you choose plan A you’re gonna get the sandpaper joystick where the sun don’t shine…but you’ll have ammo. Plan B saves you money when you finally do buy, but that purchase might be two years down the road, if at all.

And then, there’s Plan C….have purchased all this crap years ago and it’s quietly sitting in ammo cans in a safe location just waiting for Der Tag. I’m a Plan C kinda guy.

 

A decent deal

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It was one of those deals where you had to buy a significant amount of product in order to make the deal and get the good price. But…it worked out.

$0.15/round. Delivered. Farctory FMJ 115 Ball. And it’s off to the Deep Sleep.

I do a lot of reloading, but for end-of-the-world purposes I try to stock factory ammo. Why? Because if all the fiction novels and zombie movies are correct, and we are trading ammo like currency, no one wants a ziploc baggie of reloads from some yahoos garage that may or may not be loaded with fireworks powder. Factory ammo in factory packaging will be, IMHO, more desirable than mixed reloads from someone who may not know the difference between Bullseye and IMR4350.

Not quite the good old days….

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But remember a couple years ago when a brick of .22 ammo was like finding a four leaf clover? And those insane prices? Yeah, well….

Trivia:knock off the bottom row of this endcap and you get an accurate representation of how much .22 ammo I have in Deep Sleep.

Not as great as when it was ten bucks per brick, but at least its available. Did I buy some? Of course! Because theres Ammo To Shoot and Ammo To Store. I have plenty of Ammo To Store but Ammo To Shoot is always in flux.

Plus, someday I might get $60/brick like I did a few years ago. 😉

 

Blasts from the past

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Here’s why my Roth is underfunded:

But, with most .223 running around $0.32/@ it seemed like a nice way to get some blasting ammo. For you young bucks who are too young to remember, back before Slick Willy was flavoring his cigars with brunettes we could buy cheap Chinese guns and ammo. How cheap? You could get an SKS and a case of 7.62×39 for about $125-150. Seriously. My UPS guy hated me. Quality-wise it was…interesting. At one point even Chinese gunpowder (hey, they invented the stuff, right?) was on the market very briefly until it turned out that it was basically fireworks powder..it had a burn rate measured in Planck time. Their ammo was a mixed bag…always dirty, often underpowered, but always cheap. Kinda made Wolf look like Federal. All those SKS rifles you see these days were purchased because ammo was nine cents per round.

But, if you were just going to the range to break rocks and make noise…well, it was a pretty good deal. I know a lot of people who salted away cases and cases of this stuff. Not my first choice for Der Tag, but some ammo is (usually) better than no ammo.

This stuff? I’ll probably just use it for playing around with the Mini-14’s.Box says brass case but believe it when I see it. As Uncle Duke says…