Saving up

M

Micro man

New member
With the Presidential election coming up and a new Supreme Court judge to be appointed I am getting a little apprehensive about how this will effect my reloading hobby.
I got back into reloading near the end of the last component shortage and want to avoid a repeat of that mess. I was wondering what I should start stockpiling first or where members experienced shortages first. My finances are such that I need to gradually increases my supplies.
I currently reload for .38 special, 9 mm, 223 and 308. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Micro man.
 
Primers , then powder, Once fired brass, bullets... in particular the rifle ones.

The pistol bullets you "could" cast.
 
Irrational fear leads to hoarding and artificial shortages.....so please don't become one of those guys....

Look at your annual usage by caliber ...and calculate what you need - bullets, primers and powder....and buy what you need / and regardless of what may or may not happen politically -- I'd say just accumulate say a 2 yr supply now and when you get down to a 1 yr supply -- restock what you need to get back to 18 - 24 months on hand...

And if we all look at this more rationally...we'll all have components available...is my 2 cents worth...

If you only reload and shoot 200 rds a month --- in a caliber / annual usage is easy to stock with bullets in 9mm coming 4,000 to a case.....so get with your buddies and share inventory vs overreacting to something that hopefully will not happen again. Way too many overreacted last time and all it did was make it worse for all of us....
 
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The sky is falling, oh no!! Gotta hoard 20 cases of 22lr, buy 30 AR's and a million primers! :cool:

We only do this to ourselves.
 
Over the last 10 years I have loaded more ammo than I can use, so I may not be the best resource for advice, but what I have noticed during the last stint of shortages was powder, pistol powder specifically. The next was the availability of .224 bullets in any weight over 40 grains. The third was the availability and cost of primers. I would stock up on bullets and powder that you use the most right now and then get more primers. I find that I use up both bullets and powder faster than I do primers. I buy them by the brick and a 1,000 primers goes a long long way.


Good luck and stay safe.
Jim
 
At my LGS there never was a shortage of bullets both jacketed and cast. Powder may not have had exactly what you wanted but had something you could use. Primers were in and out of stock. 22 lr may not have had exactly the brand you wanted but usually did have some brands. Really no need to stockpile or hoard.
 
Regardless of what the "old timers" say, I'm in the process of restocking/building my component stash. Nope, I'm not rushing out and cleaning off the shelves at my LGS, but I'm not waiting for the supplies to start disappearing either. My practice is to buy an extra pound of powder each time I visit a place that sells it, or mebbe a brick of primers (This practice saved me the last shortage, real or imagined). I have a 5 gallon bucket full of 22 lr bricks and several pounds of extra powders at least two extra for each powder I like, especially for my Garand (IMR 4064, IMR 4895, Varget) that I acquired this way. My "stash" is way smaller than a lot of folks I know and prolly smaller that the old timers above... :D
 
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The LGS here that's the go-to for reloading supplies instituted a policy limiting purchase of powder to 1lb and primers to 1k per day, per customer. They always have stock; any time I've walked in for 1k in primers, I've walked out with them.

In contrast, our local Bass Pro doesn't limit, and it's rare that I can find even 200 primers on the shelf.

So based upon a grand total of a whole two data points, I'm of the opinion that if we don't lose our heads trying to accumulate stuff, it probably won't be a problem. I'd hope that by now the folks that are compelled to hoard are ridiculously well stocked.
 
Thanks for the input, well most of it. I don't think I am a hoarder ( but then who does) I have never bought more than 1lb of powder at a time or more than 250 bullets. I do have about 1K small pistol primers and the same amount of small rifle primers, and all of last year I bought a grand total of 150 rounds of .22lr ammo.
I especially liked the idea of totaling my ammo consumption for the year and keeping components on hand for 2 years of use. I also liked the idea of commonality of powder between different caliber bullets.
Thanks again for the comments.
Micro man
 
I wouldn't call myself a hoarder, but I'm still using some Win231 (8lb keg) from 1992. I also have some VV3N37 from 2000. I've followed the advice from others over the years and kept supplies for about 2 years worth of shooting. My biggest problem is I've added so many calibers over the years, I've needed different powders to take advantage of them. I've come to realize that having more general powders.. ie, Unique, W231, H4895... etc can help you stay on top of "shortages" that may occur.
I've also over the years left reloading for various reasons, but I've refused to pay for store ammo other than to get some brass for my collection. So I go through stages, and make sure that I keep some supplies handy for when I need them.
My cheapest primers are .90c per 100, so that kind of tells you how old they are. I have had to be creative with them to fill shortages from time to time.
 
I got my "just in time" orders in before the last bout. It seemed the following was the order ranking for that shortage:

1. Primers

2. Powder (seems to still be a problem for Winchester 231 and Unique)

3. Bullets

4. Reloading Equipment (primarily dies)

5. Brass
 
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