Sierra bullet shortage?

S

sirgilligan

New member
I went to two gun stores Saturday. The first, which always has several shelves of supplies, had no Sierra bullets. I looked up and down all the shelves and could find no little green boxes anywhere. Did they change their color? I don't think so. They had plenty of everything in stock, powder, primers, and bullets of all makes, Barnes, Hornady, Nosler... but no Sierra and no empty shelf space where they could have been.

So I go to another store, which always has less. Their Sierra section was still there but a vary few little green boxes were on the shelves, I would say 90% vacant. But, to my surprise, they did have two boxes of exactly what I had been looking for, so I bought both. (.224 69 grain Tipped Match King, I am going to try and work up a load for my CZ 527 1:9 twist, and after contacting a few persons I am going with the recommendation of the 69 TMK and Varget).

Is there something up with Sierra, or is this just a seasonal thing?
 
I had the same problem with 6.5 caliber Nosler bullets (120 gr Ballistic Tips). I called them and was told that they make bullets, or at least some of them, in a periodic batch process, and the bullets I want will be made in late March. Probably Sierra does things about the same way, and when a bullet becomes very popular, stocks of it can be depleted faster than anticipated.
 
For some time now my LGS has not had any of the 168 gr Matchkings but I'm just assuming it is nothing to be overly concerned about. I did mention the lack of those on the shelves to one of the salesmen some time back and his reply was rather non-committal, something like that's the way it has been for a while. And today there were still none available.
 
It is correct, the production is matched to estimates of need and done once a year or so and they produce only as many as they expect to need before the next cycle.

It's inevitable that there will be localized shortages sometimes of certain numbers.

If your local stores have sweeping shortages, it their own fault.

The probable cause here as that hunting seasons depleted local stock and investment in New stock is taking place.

There is an interesting fact about glass manufacturing for stained glass. Certain makers use kilns that become tainted, and carry colors through the next cycles. Once a year, these kilns produce black glass, and are ruined. They have to be rebuilt with new brick. At the end of that next year, the black glass is unavailable

Everyone should keep a good surplus on hand for any commodity like this.
 
To expand on what I mentioned earlier, in the chat with Nosler the fellow mentioned that they had underestimated the demand for 120 and 100 gr 260 caliber Ballistic Tips. He said that the 260 Rem Demand was rising, the 6.5 Creedmore demand was pretty hot right now, and the new Weatherby and Nosler calibers were getting popular. Obviously, their demand prediction fell short of actual demand. I assume they'll ramp up production in late March.
 
Sierra's 6.5 problems have been around for a while. There have been no heavy (160 gr) 6.5 bullets from them in about two years. I started using others and am not going back. It is not like they make really fantastic bullets. If they are like the other bullet and cartridge companies, the one run a year will jack the price up. This is America. If a company can't take fair competition, too bad.
 
I remember nosler and the partition.375. They cut production for a few years, and they sold for hundreds of bucks a box until they started production again.
 
Gunplummer said:
Sierra's 6.5 problems have been around for a while. There have been no heavy (160 gr) 6.5 bullets from them in about two years.
Click to expand...
Gunplummer,
I bought a box of Sierra 6.5mm 160g SMP's sometime in 2007. They were discontinued even then. I don't think they've had any other 160g 6.5mm bullets since then. So it's been 10+ years since they had one...

But, companies produce what's most profitable to them. They make what sells. Sometimes our favorite bullets fall by the wayside because there are not enough others buying the same thing...
 
As has been said below, regional or local shortages occur frequently. It is usually because something prompted the popularity of an item and local or regional retailers didn't anticipate it. Other times it is because certain items are popular in one area, but not another. I am origionally from Western Nebraska...Big mule deer, Elk (mostly in neighboring states), and Antelope are the common game. So in .30 cal, there are ample supplies of 200+ grain bullets. But in Mississippi where I now live, and the white tail deer are smaller, 180gr and below is what you will find.

There are other indirect causes. A problem with the supply of Hornady bullets in an area may prompt avid hornady shooters to buy Sierra bullets instead and so the Sierra shooters can't find bullets.

I shoot a lot, probably 5,000 rounds per year or more not counting rimfire. Here in the Southeast there are no shortages of anything...So it isn't a National issue like it was in 2012
 
With no local supplies, unless you can switch to another brand that you can find locally, you have no choice but going mail order.

If you can't find them at the major dealers like midway, that probably means that demand has outstripped production. In that case, your best bet is to start looking for that product at the minor suppliers, they might have supplies on hand that haven't been cleared out with the demand.

It's surprising what can be found in business backstock. A cigar company that I buy from keeps an enormous warehouse of climate controlled space. A few years back they found a pallet of boxes that had been discontinued by the maker over ten years before they found them, and I felt lucky to get that box of nicely aged stogies.
 
I did not know Sierra 160 grain bullets were discontinued. Why would retailers list a discontinued bullet as "Out of stock"? There were a LOT of bullet manufacturers with heavy 6.5's listed as "Out of stock" when I checked about 3 months ago. I think it is just CB stupidity. I worked at a machine shop that adopted "LEAN" manufacturing. Anything that was not used for 6 months was thrown out. It worked out swell, until jobs with yearly blanket orders came due. All the tooling and fixtures had been thrown out. Sometimes I think there is no hope for manufacturing in this country, bullet or anything else.
 
I used to have a model 10 Savage in .223 with a 9 twist. It was amazing how well that rifle shot the 69 gr MK into tiny groups at 100 yards. I remember the load was 26 gr of Varget.

Shame there isn't much stock. But i wouldn't let that hinder me, I'd go to Nosler in a heartbeat.
 
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