Went to a gun show today!!!

[Rex]

I'm still a bit in shock. Federal Bulk Packs (the ones Walmart sold) were $40.00 a box.
Winchester bricks of 500 were $45.00. Winchester boxs of 333 were $30.00 AND PEOPLE WERE BUYING!!
Hodgdon Varget was $60.00 a pound. Those prices are correct and I haden't even been drinking. I spent $3.00 to get in and would have given $6.00 to get the hell back out of there if I would have had to.
Shotguns were priced in a fair manner as were some of the bolt rifles, anything that resembled para-military (whatever that is) You would have to mortgage the house.

I can't afford to shoot anymore. I guess until we start hoarding worms I just go fishing.

[wv109323]

I went to a show last weekend in Hindman Ky. It took about an hour of standing in line to get in the door. No reloading items to speak of and the ones there were way over priced. I saw only one pound of powder and it was $60.00. There was some brass for sale at very high prices.
I did not see a primer in the show. I did not see a bullet mold.
There was a RCBS 5-10 powder scale for $40.00. I bought a CZ 452 Varmit .22 LR rifle. I got it at a fair price. I didn't even ask the price of the" Black Stuff". There were several individuals that had brought AR-15 to sell.

[uscra112]

Interesting that the fun shows near me haven't been all that bad. But I'm not close to any large metro areas, so it's as much the locals trading around as it is the big vendors out to make a killing. Which is not to say that the military wannabee rifles aren't priced up, and that ammo and components aren't scarce, but I bought a pound of Lil-Gun at the last one (2 weeks ago) for the pre-famine price. I left the primers he had for someone else - I've got enough for the next year or two if I'm careful.

[quilbilly]

I was at the Washington Arms Collectors gun show today. Biggest in the state. I did not see a solitary brick of 22 LR. Primers were at $70 per 1000 with all sizes available. Lots of bulk boxes of 223's at a cost of about $800 per 1000. However I did pick up a like new T/C Contender with a pristine old Octagonal 222 barrel (neither piece looked like it had ever been fired) for a total of $325. A good day especially since the wife went to a plant sale and got three flowering currant and three blue elderberry (the good eating type) for $1.50 each.

[Rex]

This was a small community show out at Brule, Nebraska. One vendor had two bricks of Magnum Large Pistol primers at $85.00 each.
I put the guns up and quit. I'll cast a few more boolits as I still have lead and if things ever settle down,
maybe I'll start again.

[41 mag fan]

obamas dream is coming true....like he stated he wont take the guns, but what he didn't say is without the supplies, the guns are useless

[smokemjoe]

The gun shop here said we are doing it to ourselfs, There aint no laws passed yet. His shop is cleaned out.

[6bg6ga]

No need to hoard. Buying in moderation wouldn't have caused this problem. Its simply supply and demand. The demand is high and the supply is low thus the price is higher. If the demand is lower the price will lower and the supply will be there. Sooner or later the price will drop down again.

[Boerrancher]

I have enough supplies if I just use them to hunt with to last me the rest of my life, but that means I only get to shoot 10 rounds a year out of my cartridge guns, so for the most part I have put them up except for a couple of cast only shooters that I built over the summer and early fall, and I am in the load development stage with them. I do on the other hand have lots of percussion caps for my 32 cal ML and Lots of flints for my 50 cal Hawken, and my 62 cal trade gun. I was out coyote hunting last night with the trade gun and buck shot.

I thought I could still pick up a few primers at the local gun shops the other day but I was wrong, and the biggest one who stocks reloading supplies was nearly out of powder. I was shocked at the fact that his shelves were nearly empty. Bruce only sells reloading components, custom ammo, and commercial ammo. He was cleaned out of nearly everything but brass. I couldn't even get a pound of IMR4064. I went in there for 1k of small rifle and a lb of 4064 and after 2 hours of trying to get away from old Bruce I managed to get out the door but I was empty handed with no idea as to when he would be restocked. I have one other place I will try later on today for powder and primers and if I don't find them it is no big deal, I just won't be working on load development for my .223 Remington as much as I would like.

I can not believe that panic buying is creating this shortage, especially in the 22LR area. Heck CCI makes 4 million rounds of 22LR a day! Throw in what Federal, Remington, and Winchester make, even if the other three mfgs combined only make 4 million rounds a day, that is 8 million rounds of 22LR being made per day. The American public can't horde 8 million rounds a day of 22LR for 3 months straight. That is 720,000,000; or Seven-hundred, Twenty, Million rounds of ammo being purchased in just 90 days There is only 300 million people in this country, so where is this ammo going? Lets say that only CCI is makeing 22LR that is still roughly 36 million rounds of ammo being produced. Something is not adding up. Either CCI is lying about their production, or that ammo is going somewhere else other than the store shelves. People can not be buying and shooting that much 22LR. 22LR is done in a plant designed to produce it, it is not a matter of changing out a bit of tooling and running a different caliber. 22LR requires dedicated equipment.

Gents, when we can't buy 22LR in there is a problem. We need to be finding out what the initial cause is instead of looking at the symptoms, shrugging our shoulders and walking away.

Best wishes,

Joe

[oldred]

obamas dream is coming true....like he stated he wont take the guns, but what he didn't say is without the supplies, the guns are useless

Obama's dream is turning into a nightmare for him because it's backfired on him bigtime!!! There is no shortage of ammo or components, just the opposite in fact, it's just that some people have way more than they need hoarded up or worse have them hoarded up for profit. Any perceived shortage is artificial and of our own making there is no real shortage of ammo, guns or supplies and the idiots in the White House have only contributed to an influx of thousands of firearms and millions of rounds of ammo into the population. This is guns and ammo plus components for reloading that otherwise would not have even been manufactured and a lot of that which would have been would have just been sitting on store shelves, the American people now posses a heck of a lot more guns and ammo than they did just a few months ago thanks to Obama and his court jesters! Another bright side to all this is the fact that a lot of new interest in firearms has brought about a lot of new owners who will support legislation that will be good for us.

[km101]

Gun shows are a waste of time for me now. Nothing of interest or that I can afford. The two shows that I have been to lately:

No primers
No powder
No ammo _some .22lr, some rifle ammo
No casting equipment
NO reloading equipment
No sensible pricing!!!!!!!
No parking
No room to walk!!!!!

I will NOT participate in the frenzy! Too much other stuff to do that I enjoy.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Boerrancher. We may be told that the companies are working 25/8 making componets and loaded ammo, but are they? Your figures for CCI making so many .22 LR per working day is interesting. Remember the old saying about being able to fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people ALL of the time. Statistics can be printed to show anything from being factual to outright lies.Robert

[Kraschenbirn]

Today, there's a small-town gunshow 'bout 20 minutes away...but the sun is shining, the wind light and variable, the temp's supposed to be in the mid-30s by noon, and I'm getting too old to try elbowin' my way through a mob of wannabe tacticools so I guess I'll just grab a thermos of coffee and head for the range.

Bill

[LUCKYDAWG13]

just got back from one at a Holiday Inn by me primers going for $45 K
powder $25 # picked up a K of SPP and a # of 4198

[Reg]

This was a small community show out at Brule, Nebraska. One vendor had two bricks of Magnum Large Pistol primers at $85.00 each.
I put the guns up and quit. I'll cast a few more boolits as I still have lead and if things ever settle down,
maybe I'll start again.

I had a table at this show.
Yup, the ol boy by the front door had those primers at 85.00 each and as of Saturday at closing they hadn't even been looked at far as I know but there were a couple of people on the main floor that were selling at 50.00 and they were cleaned out before noon. Lots of powder was priced at 60.00 per lb. Fellow at the end cap on our row had a brick of Wildcats and was asking 100.00. They too were still there by Saturday at 5.00 and I didn't see any other .22's there . Lots of magazines and some were priced ay 35.00 to 40.00 for 20 rounders and some import 30 rounders, many domestic steel 20 rounders sold at 50.00 and I heard that factory 30 steel round sold for as high as 100.00 each.
From about 9.30 to noon it was a feeding frenzy with people buying anything and everything. Sold a bunch of broken boxs of bullets, all calibers for fair prices just to get rid of them as normally you can hardly even give them away.
The most amazing thing was the amount of women of all ages coming in and either carrying some kind of pistol and wanting to buy ammo or if they didn't have the pistol they knew exactly what they wanted. I have never seen this before.
Brule has a population of 380 or so and normally if you can get 5 to 600 people at the show, you had a good show. Door count when we left ( weather coming in and you DO NOT want to get stopped by a storm on I-80 !!) was over 1400.

:coffeecom

[captaint]

Smokemjoe is correct. Obummer is not doing this. We are. I'd be willing to bet most of the
folks buying large quantities of primers already have a large quantity at home. It's rediculous and
we're doing it to ourselves. I probably have a total of 12K primers in the shop. If I pay attention
to what I shoot, that will last me at least a year. I don't have to go buy anything right now.
So I won't. Oh, the hoarders. I might get on somebody's back order list for 5K LP primers, though.
Mike

[oldred]

Boerrancher. We may be told that the companies are working 25/8 making componets and loaded ammo, but are they?


Are you trying say there's some kind of government conspiracy with the ammo companies to limit ammo production????? I SERIOUSLY doubt that! I think it's safe to say the ammo makers are going to milk this for every dime they can and they are/will crank out every piece of ammo they can make, this is windfall profits for them and they are NOT going to pass up a chance like that!

[Ed Barrett]

Went to two shows yesterday, in Lebanon, MO and Springfield, MO, it's enough to make me want to get another vault for my loading components and ammo.$1.00 a round for .223 tracer (Special target tracer). $45 a pound for 700x the rest of the powders higher, $6.50 a hundred for wolf primers. The worst part was they were selling them. Surplus Russian for $.90 each.

[shdwlkr]

Joe
CCI is located in my state and yes there plant can turn out 4 million 22 rimfire rounds a day. Are they well they also make them for Federal another part of the same company and also for others that I have not run down yet.
As to their not being anything for us remember also that ATK which is really Federal, CCI and some other companies run Lake City Arsenal and there is a huge federal order they have to fill right now think billions of rounds, that is a lot of primers, bullets, brass, powder and we get nothing from that.
My gut feeling is they are trying to meet the needs of everyone but the federal contracts get first on everything so if you are making for them think primer powder for everything for the common person is going to be short.
I have on layaway at my LGS a lot of 22 Lr and they are after me to buy or let them sell it. I told the last person that jerked me on it that if they were that hard up then they could take all my layaway's and sell them and I would find a new LGS to shop at. The owner and his son were not there but a couple of the old timers were and they gave the clerk jerking me around a nasty look. It takes a retired person a while to find free cash to spend and it is getting harder and harder to find that free cash.

[375supermag]

There was a gun show in York,Pa. this weekend.

Last I heard the attendance was c.15,000 people.
It was crowded, trust me.

22LR was available but the prices were high and selection was basically CCI bulk packs. There were a few vendors selling limited quantities of 100-round count boxes for high prices, as well.

I left it all on the tables...I have plenty for now. By mid-summer I may be running low, but that just means I will have shot away a lot of .22LR. I still have an adequate supply of .22Mag, so I am good for those guns...might pick up a couple thousand rounds, just in case. .22Mag ammo seems to be readily available at steady prices, so far.

I didn't buy any guns at the show, but other than modern sporting rifles(read...assault rifles) the prices seemed to be about where they were last year this time. Revolvers were plentiful and the prices on both DA and SA were pretty much what the LGS are getting. That has been consistent for a few years...no real deals on handguns at gun shows any more.

Primers were fairly expensive, most were in the $40/1000 range. I am in pretty good shape for now, so I left them on the tables. My major need now, after picking up a thousand or two a week for the last month or so, is for SP primers. They are not to be found locally...I found out that a LGS had a fairly good supply come in last week, but they sold out REAL fast.

I looked at the powders available on the vendor tables and everything was over-priced to the tune of $40+/lb.
I could not find Unique anywhere...I have fairly good supplies of every other powder I use but I was considering buying an 8# jug of Promo or Red Dot as a substitute for Unique. Both of those powders are available at a couple or so LGS, so I passed on the powder.

I did find 1500 cast bullets from some vendor that I have used before. His bullets are good quality, so I was happy to buy some from him in .357Mag (158gr LSWC), .44(240gr LSWC and .45Colt (255 gr LSWC). I got those for right around $100, so the price was pretty good. Added to what I had on-hand prior to this purchase and what I have loaded, I am in fairly good shape for the first 2-3 months of the shooting season.

After we left the gun show, my son and I checked two local Wal-Marts for .22LR ammo. Still out, only thing they had was shot shells.

We then decided to stop by the LGS that supposedly had the SP primers in last week. The clerk said they all sold last Saturday...I had to work last Saturday and didn't get back until that shop had closed. So I missed out. They do not know when they will get more... or if.

What they did have was two 1# containers of Unique on the shelf at $19.95/lb. As I was paying for them, the clerk told me that they had received ten cases and that it was selling fast. He said there was one more case in the store room, if I wanted some more. I think he said the cases were 10 containers each. I told him that rather than do that, I would stop back in when they re-open on Tuesday (they are closed Sunday and Monday). I didn't want to take advantage of the situation. I though it better to give someone else a chance to get some. If they sell them all by then, at least somebody else will have some powder. I have enough Unique now to load .45Colt, .44Mag and .44Special cast bullet loads for most of the summer.

If there are still some available, I will take at least one more pound off their hands...just to fatten my safety stock up a bit.

One thing I have decided is that when this little shortage comes to an end...I will be stocking up on some 8lb jugs of the powders I use most. Those 8lb jugs will be going into long-term emergency-only storage. The same thing will happen with primers...I figure I need about 12K primers a year, so I will be stocking up at least twice that amount for long-term emergency storage, which is about 4 times what I normally have in safety stock.

I wanted to start casting my own bullets this year, but this situation will probably push that back at least to next year. I checked with three of my local cast lead bullet suppliers and they are planning to stay in the business long-term, so I can buy those locally. I will probably be stocking up a large number of those as well.

I guess I'll just have to put off that new Maserati until next year. The sacrifices we have to make!

[dakotashooter2]

Gun shows are a waste of time for me now. Nothing of interest or that I can afford. The two shows that I have been to lately:

No primers
No powder
No ammo _some .22lr, some rifle ammo
No casting equipment
NO reloading equipment
No sensible pricing!!!!!!!
No parking
No room to walk!!!!!

I will NOT participate in the frenzy! Too much other stuff to do that I enjoy.


It's been like that around here for the last 4-5 years. 1/3 the tables are "black" rifles and accessories or semi auto handguns and I suspect those will be almost non exsistant this year........

I'm debating if I should even bother going next week. It might be like trying to get in the stores on Black Friday...........

[starmac]

I went to one today, and was surprized at the prices. I didn't price any of the tacticool stuff, and there wasn't as much of it as usual. I did notice a 1200 price tag an a saiga 12, which I thought was pricey, but I don't know what they have been selling for either.
There were quite a few tables of lever guns, and the prices was comparable to usual, the only powder I noticed was 30 bucks a pound, which is normal price here, but in short supply at the lgs. 22 ammo has been nonexistent here for a few weeks, but one vendor had winchester wildcats for 22 bucks a brick. There were die sets as low as 10 bucks a pop, surprisingly even 223. lol Millsurp ammo was higher than it has been in the past, but most firearms seem to have been on par as the other shows the last few years, some high and some higher, same as always with a good price on one now and then. lol