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Run on Ammunition?

The US produces 2 billion + rounds of .22LR per year. There are factories making nothing but .22 ammo that run 24hrs a day. Pretty amazing.
 
R.Mackey said:
Rock salt has no place in a shotgun except in old wives' tales and second-rate James Bond movies.

Seriously, I assume you're joking, but in the off-chance you're not, lose the rock salt. Now. It will have virtually no effect in a defensive situation, and if you're unlucky you can wind up charged with building a Destructive Device or similar violations. Use factory ammo, and only factory ammo, always, for defensive purposes. It isn't worth the legal risk.

Likewise, birdshot will be nearly useless. (This guy's whole site is awesome, by the way. I love a good amateur experimenter.) Save it for sporting clays.

In a defensive shotgun, the rounds 99% of you want are reduced recoil, 2-3/4" buckshot, anything from #4 to 000. Period.
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It's mostly a moot point since we no longer have the gun. Still, the reason those rounds were chosen were specifically because they'd be non-lethal, because the most likely situation they would be fired would be relatively close range (maybe 15-25 feet), and the desired targets would be adequately driven off.

I'm not disagreeing with your recommendation of 2-3/4" buckshot-- my friend in ABQ uses precisely that because it has a low likelihood of penetrating neighbors' walls but still hurting an intruder to his own home-- but our reasons for having what we did were more than just trying to copy some Bond film or TV cliche. The choices were also first suggested not by me, but by a former Marine friend of the GF whose judgment I trusted since he was recommending this specifically for my GF. Knowing the kind of guy he was, he probably would have recommended a handgun for me. I wouldn't be surprised if he made the shells himself. Still, it's a moot point any more, between the new location and the fact that neither of us are comfortable with a gun in the house-- her because she dislikes guns, me because I feel no need for one (since we moved)-- there's not a lot of likelihood the issue is going to come up any time soon. I'll keep what you said in mind, though, in case things change again.
 
I'm not worried about any possible runs on ammo, but I did order enough 50 cal API to last a few years. 1350 bullets makes for a heavy package. With hazmat and shipping it ends up being about $450.00 or 33 cents each. It will take between 6 and 45 pounds of powder to load them all as the powder charge varies between 30 and 235 grains depending on the case used. :)

Ranb
 
You... reload .50 BMG armor-piercing incendiary ammo..? Should I be jealous or concerned?

I once knew a guy with a Sugg-50, and he had a heck of a time getting non-Milspec ammo, things that were actually accurate.
 
You might want to be concerned that if you do not get yours soon, the feds might direct that old military ammo be destroyed instead of sold to recyclers who in turn sell some of it to shooters for re-assembly. :) You will have to move away from the PRK if you do not already own one though.

The surplus API I bought was the cheapest available. It even has to be run through a sizing die before reloading. Hornady Amax is over $2 per piece, and that is the cheapest match grade stuff. The API passes through the steel target and makes a bright flash. Sometimes I am able to find the copper jacket a few feet away from the plate. The penetrator typically goes into the dirt berm a few feet depending on how tough the target is. Shooting plow blades is a no-no, they merely crater the steel and bounce off.

Ranb
 
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For what it's worth, just ran by the local firearms merchant again...

Low-end and second-tier .223, .30-06, .308 is completely gone, even worse than last month. The expensive ($30+ a box) stuff is still there. Not a single round of 12-ga buckshot in the house. They did, however, get a large shipment of .40 S&W, not a caliber I own but popular with the tacticool kids, and a good amount of .45 ACP.

More interesting is what is left. 9mm Para is still plentiful. So is .44 Rem Mag. If you are watching this run on ammunition as a rehearsal for the Rapture or whatever, pistols and carbines chambered in these calibers would be a good way to go -- .44 lever action rifles are pretty effective out to 200 m, more than enough in most urban settings.

Some specialty .22 LR came in. No CBs but Maximags are back in stock. Only a few big bricks of cheap stuff left.

Weird times.
 
R.Mackey said:
More interesting is what is left. 9mm Para is still plentiful. So is .44 Rem Mag. If you are watching this run on ammunition as a rehearsal for the Rapture or whatever, pistols and carbines chambered in these calibers would be a good way to go
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I was at a gun show today and saw a Beretta Cx4 Storm chambered in 9mm. Remembering what was said here about availability of 9mm rounds I considered breaking S&W's .40-cal monopoly in my house ("tacticool"?) and grabbing this fine piece of machinery, since it was (shockingly) reasonably priced at $699 including optional rails, red-dot scope, and laser sight but opted against it, largely because my stupid city decided I need to pay $350 to relieve them of the tremendous burden of having to enter my water meter reading that I write down for them on the back of my bill each month and install a radio meter.

I'm also pretty sure a HiPoint carbine I saw for $289 was the exact same one I saw at a different show two months ago for $189. Surprisingly, Garands were still relatively reasonable, one being available for $695, though it did look a bit chewed up. The shows are really trying to screw you on accessories, though, apparently. I found a rail mount that attatches to the scope mount on my RPK for $50. I had the foresight to ring up a friend of mine and had her Google the thing and found CheaperThanDirt sells it for less than half that. Thirty-round AK mags were running at least five bucks more than CTD asks for them, and most were ten or more dollars higher.
 
R.Mackey said:
Rock salt has no place in a shotgun except in old wives' tales and second-rate James Bond movies.

Seriously, I assume you're joking, but in the off-chance you're not, lose the rock salt. Now. It will have virtually no effect in a defensive situation, and if you're unlucky you can wind up charged with building a Destructive Device or similar violations. Use factory ammo, and only factory ammo, always, for defensive purposes. It isn't worth the legal risk.

Likewise, birdshot will be nearly useless. (This guy's whole site is awesome, by the way. I love a good amateur experimenter.) Save it for sporting clays.

In a defensive shotgun, the rounds 99% of you want are reduced recoil, 2-3/4" buckshot, anything from #4 to 000. Period.

In my own rig when expecting company I have three rounds of 2-3/4" 00, followed by two BRI sabot slugs. The only reasons I do that are: First, if the buckshot doesn't scare them off, I may be facing a hostage or barricade situation where I need more precision; and second, for some weird reason I happen to be unusually good with them. Know your load, practice, make it as idiot proof as possible.

Yes, the odds of my ever needing to fire them in anger are vanishingly small. Just a hypothetical. [/soapbox]

To the OP, there is surely a "run" on ammunition, but not an outage. Most of the complaints I see are about cheap surplus ammunition disappearing. This is partly because of the extended Obama Boom, as all the rednecks who think the Guvernmint is goin' to take their freedoms away are stocking up, and everyone who always wanted a Black Rifle is buying now, afraid the ban will return. For heavier calibers, I think we're simply running out of surplus 7.62x51, in particular, and surplus lots are showing up from increasingly exotic places.

Military usage won't affect this. Civilians very, very rarely see current military ammo for sale at all. However, new military orders may limit new civilian production -- there have also been widespread reports of components, especially primers, being harder to find. But most of it is mere hysteria.

I've had no problem finding ammo in nearly any caliber, sporting or military, but then I usually buy slightly better stuff -- say Black Hills blue box .223, for instance.

The only things I've had any trouble getting are 16 gauge (this has been true for years) and specialty .22 LR (this is new, and very weird). Not sure what to make of that.

Stay safe.
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BS, I killed a small buck deer with No. 2 birdshot from a Remington 870. NOT advised and I'd not do it again. It WAS deer season, but I'm a piss poor stalker and impatient so I thought I'd do some small game hunting, either I or something spooked him out of the woods to about 20 feet in front of me where he froze. I pulled up, aimed, fired, and off his feet and down he went...this was over twenty years ago and I've given up hunting, by the way, just not my thing. But due to close proximity of neighbors, I'll keep a no. 2 bird as the first shot in my home defense shotgun...I've seen personally what it can do at the ranges I'd be using it.
 
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