Buying Lead and Brass

[brainz01]

Was talking to my mom this weekend and she mentioned how she and one of her friends were working on their shooting skills, but that ammo is very expensive and hard to find.

I dismissed her comment as her likely getting gouged by the LGS - - $20, maybe $25 a box for 9mm. No biggie, the usual. Nope, she says it's $59/box!

So I go online and sure enough, 9mm ammo, if you can find it in stock, starts around $1/round. That's incredible.

Is this mega hoarding, or Covid supply chain issues? What say the experts?

[Bigtoe32067]

Wow that’s insane. I haven’t bought any lately. Good thing I stocked up a couple of years ago.
I’ll have to keep that in mind when going to the gun range to sight in a couple of guns.

[Rick Lee]

I'm up to 3k rds of it, 3k of .45, 5k of .22, 1k of .357SIG. So I'm in good shape. Trick is to find a private source. LGS will crush you.

[petrolhead611]

I had no idea that it is now more expensive to kill someone. Maybe the price of arrows will go up a cordingly.

[cabmandone]

Must not have seen my thread about buying a 9mm or trying to find ammo and reloading supplies huh? Yeah the stuff has gone CRAZY. I have 1000 rounds of jacketed lead coming but can't find the small pistol primers to load my own. I was on gun broker looking at primers and was amazed what people were paying. My advice would be to buy a .22 for practice.

[on2wheels52]

I could part with some for $2 box. They'd have to be silver dollars however

[legion]

I buy when prices are low and ammo is plentiful. I wait when prices are high and ammo is scarce.

I try to keep enough on hand that I don't have to be too worried.

[flatbutt]

I keep alot of .22LR for times like this for practice so I don't eat up the larger caliber too much.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by petrolhead611

I had no idea that it is now more expensive to kill someone. Maybe the price of arrows will go up a cordingly.

The only thing getting killed is paper targets.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by brainz01

Was talking to my mom this weekend and she mentioned how she and one of her friends were working on their shooting skills, but that ammo is very expensive and hard to find.

I dismissed her comment as her likely getting gouged by the LGS - - $20, maybe $25 a box for 9mm. No biggie, the usual. Nope, she says it's $59/box!

So I go online and sure enough, 9mm ammo, if you can find it in stock, starts around $1/round. That's incredible.

Is this mega hoarding, or Covid supply chain issues? What say the experts?

Prices are insane. Paying $1/rd for less common name brand JHP is one thing. Paying $1/rd for 9mm plinking is insane.

My assumption is that this is hoarding based on the upcoming election and exacerbated by the social issues and rioting/looting stuff that was happening.

[petrolhead611]

By you perhaps, but not by all the wackos that unfortunately seem to pervade the US.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by petrolhead611

By you perhaps, but not by all the wackos that unfortunately seem to pervade the US.

No worries, the crazies in the UK are finding ways to kill people too. I haven't recently, but I used to read the BBC news frequently. There were plenty of articles about people beating people to death, stabbing people, burning people alive, hitting people with cars, etc.... I even remember the occasional article about a shooting, although that's obviously rare. And that doesn't include throwing acid on folks, mostly women, especially their faces, which is, I think, far more common in the UK than the US.

We don't have the market cornered on violent crazies. We do have guns though.

And even with that, my guess is that 99.999% of all bullets in the US go to killing paper.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by petrolhead611

By you perhaps, but not by all the wackos that unfortunately seem to pervade the US.

You live in a country that clamps down on your freedoms to the point you can't buy a knife without a background check, if at all. We cherish our freedoms. We get to have open discussions on what knife we carry, and those threads are long.

You have as many if not more wackos per capita as any other country.

[cabmandone]

I can't believe you guys bit on that classic troll post. Get back on topic and leave that nonsense alone.

[cabmandone]

Originally Posted by masraum

Prices are insane. Paying $1/rd for less common name brand JHP is one thing. Paying $1/rd for 9mm plinking is insane.

My assumption is that this is hoarding based on the upcoming election and exacerbated by the social issues and rioting/looting stuff that was happening.

Safe assumption. Many stores have gone to a one or two box max purchase. Most sites have been sold out for quite some time and the ones that have some have jacked the prices up to the point you have to choose between investing in your IRA or buying 1000 rounds.
The place I bought my lead from told me they are cranking out 80,000 124gr jacketed 9mm bullets per day... and I still haven't gotten my order of 1000 yet.

[Rick Lee]

I subscribe to a bunch of deal alerts and just got one for 9mm, 124gr, 50 round box for $29.99 each. That's outrageous, but if you need it, it's out there. I hope people learn from this that you need to stock up when there is no panic going on. There's no downside to stockpiling as much as you can.

[vash]

damn..so glad i clicked on this thread. i was gonna give a friend some 9mm.

he isnt that good of a friend!!

[GH85Carrera]

I guess just like the TP hoarding, some people just like to hoard all they can afford to buy. I can't think of any scenario where I would honestly need thousands of rounds.

There are no zombies, and never will be. Hostile extraterrestrials are technically possible but it a few billion times less likely that winning the lottery. Foreign forces invasion is really unlikely.

I do have a comfortable stock of ammo, but it is not in the thousands. And we did buy toilet paper today but just the same amount we always buy.

I do go to a range and blast holes in paper, but I personally don't spend all day at it. I guess the folks that are really into that can eat a lot of spoon food. Like autocross, easy to spend an infinite amount of money.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

I can't think of any scenario where I would honestly need thousands of rounds.

I can. I try to go to the range at least 2-3x per month. I shoot at least 200-300 rounds per trip. Ammo is not getting cheaper or easier to find. Why wouldn't I buy as much as I can when I can find it cheaper in bulk? I will always use it. Has nothing to do with the zombie apocalypse.

[legion]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

I subscribe to a bunch of deal alerts and just got one for 9mm, 124gr, 50 round box for $29.99 each. That's outrageous, but if you need it, it's out there. I hope people learn from this that you need to stock up when there is no panic going on. There's no downside to stockpiling as much as you can.

Holy crap! I remember paying $15 for 100 rounds of 115 gr. FMJ in 2008-ish. So that 4-times the price in 12 years!