Product Availability Before and After the Mess

[khmer6]

Hello all,

I've been reloading for years, just started to casting a few months ago after putting it off for so long. I've casted about 150lbs and smelted around 400lbs into ingots. I've been buying my casting equipment lately as things come available. I have had about 5-6 orders placed recently all running a couple hundred bucks. The problem is paying an inflated shipping price each time instead of getting it all in on swoop. I've sold all my J words and factory ammo in favor of casting. It seems like when something I need is in stock something else isn't. I wait and product x that was in stock is now out of stock and product y is now in stock.

So the question: How was the availability of casting equipment before the scare? I slightly remember when I was researching getting into casting a couple of years ago that it seemed like it was a grocery store and you pretty much could pick up what you wanted off the shelf. Particularly Lee equipment, as this is what I use most of the time. If there was free shipping, it wouldn't be an issue, just hate placing 3 orders in a month and getting hit with 20-25$ an order for shipping. I'm debating on ordering some more things I need now or wait till it all comes back in stock. What I need isn't time sensitive, so I can wait a couple more months, I think

[Case Stuffer]

Honestly no one knows when inventory levels will return to normal. Consider that tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of gun owners have joined the ranks in the past six months and even if only a small percentage of those get into reloading and casting the currenyt shortage could last for years not months.

Over thirty years ago when I purchased most of my casting equipment it was all in stock at local gun shops as well as mail and phone order dealers.

Many of us who have been at this for years are still finding it difficult to find powder,primers and while lead and casting alloys such as Linotype,Intertype and Monotype used to be very common and less than $0.75 delivered hese day it is scarce and goes for two to five dollars a pound. Clip on wheel weights use to be a very good casting alloy and used ones were plentiful and less than twenty cents per pound, now days many are zinc or steel and lead ones are on the endangerd species list.

[dg31872]

Midsouth will hold your order until all items are available before shipping. That way you don't have to pay shipping as each item comes in. I don't think Midway does this however. You might ask to ship everything in one shipment. Might save you some $$.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

It will get better when Obummer is out of office...assuming Hillary (or some other Dem) doesn't make it in.

Also adding to the problem is gun owners, that never reloaded before, are coming out of the woodwork and want to reload. I have had 3 friends undertake reloading for the first time, as a hobby in the last 6 months.

Good luck,
Jon

[Dannmann801]

I have a plan of things I want to buy, try, and do, some short term, some long term.
This year was gonna be my AR-15 year....then the stupidity started. So I just pushed that back down the list and moved pistols up the list. Well, if'n ya got pistols ya gotta have ammo, so I pushed reloading up the list. Rockchucker kit and dies were easy, but components a little tougher....but I gots brass, primers, and powder, but done loaded all the bullets I could find. So casting is the only alternative.....so I got a propane burner, then a lee pot and some other accessories....but now I'm scrambling to find a mold to cast .40s&w bullets. I been looking hard believe you me, and ain't nothin in stock out there....hopin' to find a deal here someday (just missed out on a couple :evil:) and ain't givin up. Did manage to find a .30 lee mold and a .495 round ball mold (they got the round ball molds at Titan), so I can practice with some of those....

Just thankful for what I got because I don't have a clue when this is gonna settle down, and I wasn't really involved in the shooting sports during the last scares -

Guess I'm one of those "out of the woodwork guys"....that's what happens when your list gets changed

[LukeLewis]

I remember ordering a few backordered items from Midway, thinking the shipping cost was a total. They hit me with a $15 shipping charge twice, when two separate items became available. Luckily I caught it and cancelled the third item. I don't feel like its good business to charge someone more than their total at checkout, 2 weeks after the fact

[MattOrgan]

Some parts and accessories seem to be getting easier to find, others are not. Within about 200 miles of me there are no primers, no .22LR, no .22 WMR, no powders suitable for most metallic cartridges, just some of the more specialized shotgun powders. Gun shows have people selling old powders like Alcan 8 oz cans for $25.00 and up. Primers and .22 RF are selling at 10 cents a piece and up. It seems like we are experiencing what reloaders experienced from the turn of the last century up through the 1950s, not a lot out there and lots of improvising. I've been a caster for 40 years, but just dabbled and mostly cast handgun bullets for cheap practice. Now I shoot a lot of cast in rifles and hoard my jacketed bullets. I've learned a lot here and understand a lot about bullet size and accuracy now. Most of my rifle molds cast undersize and finding ones that cast bigger has been tough at today's prices, luckily a lot of the old Ideal single cavity molds are still out there and cheap. if you dis-regard the numbering you might be surprised. i found an Ideal 308334 that casts a nice fat .314 bullet. works great in my M54 Winchester 06 and my Krag. Cost just $20 at a gun show. looks like hell but it works.

Lead seems to becoming an investment metal and to recover it I just spent a week building snail trap to get it all back. I've taken to using all of my remnants of primers and shooting them, including several hundred Frankfort Arsenal corrosive primers, cleaning is not that bad and they have all detonated so far. I got lucky and bought a bunch of old powder and primers (in baby food jars!) at a yard sale. The lids were marked with the brand and type, tough putting them in my empty primer packages though. So far its worked out, reduced loads of 3031 and 4895. The shotgun powders are interesting and my old Lyman handbooks have given data for things like #80. My point is that if there is not new stuff available, there is old stuff that a lot of people shy away from. I've been using the 45/45/10 tumble lube on some .258 bullets designed for gas checks in my 25/35 because I don't have gas checks or a sizing die. I'm getting 1 1/2 inch groups at 50 yards with a tang sighted M64, just like jacketed bullets. Don't be discouraged there are ways.

I'm not sure that a Rebublican in the White House is going to help. Too many of those SOBs would restrict us in the name of safety. I get the feeling we have turned a corner in our relationship with government and it will never be the same again.