I found that looking locally worked better for me. Found quite a bit of ammo in smaller local stores, prices weren’t that bad. Bought once fired brass from 2 nearby sources and ordered some of the larger brass from the only place that had it on hand. Feel like I am in pretty good position to assure that I will have ammo for the rifles I already owned.
Have also tried to look far out covering the event that ammo was seriously unavailable. Don’t shoot exotics, and for what I shoot I could cast bullets to hunt. And I do reload most of the calibers.
Am I being paranoid? I don’t think so. Just cautious.
And very upset with the Fed overeach.
We hunt with ARs, good for chasin caribou & wolves off snowmachine & atv. Have a few, but last couple years got a 6.8, 338 fed, and 308 Scar. Started reloading about 5 years back, after the supplies came back to the shelves in 2009; I went into Sportsmans and spent 4 gran on powder, primers, brass, ect; usually mail order bullets in from nosler & brownells & midway, ect. My grandkids ain't running ammo when the caribou come through anytime soon either.
I have to start working on reloading for my pistols, 44's 480, 460s, 1911s ect. I got 2k 45 acp brass from starline in dec and now it's unavailable. Also got 500 lapua 308, but now all gone too. I usually back order from brownells, they are pretty good about doing that even with high demand items other places won't even consider back ordering for ya. I have a few things on back order and they usually come in in a month or so or less. I wish I had a close shop, nearest real gun shop is 400 miles away and road is covered with glaciers, might melt off by June. My one favorite gun shop, the guy that gives me 1200 dollar Acogs for $900 and such; he says he can't order anything as far as guns or reloading supplies and their shelves are also pretty empty. It's bad but back ordering fits my needs. I often call RCBS when I need new dies and ask them who has them in stock, they tell me and then I order.
I guess all the mail order places have their good and bad, Cabelas usually has biggest supply on hand, Sinclair/Brownells back orders, Midway seems to keep getting resupplied regularly. When ever I spend say 5 hundred or better on reloading stuff, I always demand free shipping and get it. Cabelas is real good for that.
Here in rural Alaska, people make their own bullets too, but I've been using nosler partitions and TTSX's on moose & bear for so long, I'd feel jinxed making my own, ha ha. I just keep over 100 boxes on my shelf mostly 30 cal, 338, .277; that covers what I use fairly well.
Had some friends from when I was in Army in the early 70's from Diana, Texas; do ya know of that place? My daughter also goes to school in Big Springs, she likes Texas, comes home at xmas & summers.
Keep shootin and sit back and laugh when the DEms get run out in 2014. That first AWB is what got me moving to Alaska from back east; best thing we ever did too. Take care.