Posted on 04/23/2009 8:14:31 AM PDT by ChocChipCookie
Some more ruminations on the ammo shortage...
Die Time: In comments yesterday, Ed Foster mentioned "die time". This is exactly why you can't get, for example, .380 right now. At most manufacturers, the machinery they use to load .380 (which uses different "dies" to load different calibers) is only used for that purpose for a small portion of the year; the rest of the time it's used to load more high volume stuff, like 9mm. They churn out .380 for a couple of months, say, at the end of the year, and it's enough to hold the market over 'til the next winter.
Rumor has it that this past year's demand for 9mm FMJ was so great that Winchester didn't bother tooling up for .380 and kept the presses pumping out 9x19 ball. Even if the other two companies didn't do likewise, what percentage of the .380 market do you think that Winchester represents? Federal and Remington certainly don't load enough to take up the slack, and that causes the supply to crash to nothing.
Case Lots: Believe it or not, the kind of people that read gun blogs, post on internet gun forums, go to the range every weekend, and name their gun "Vera", are a small minority of gun owners. For fifteen years I tried to convince Joe and Jane Public to buy ammo by the case. I failed miserably. No matter how much you explain the price savings when buying a thousand rounds at a lick, or the fact that ammo doesn't go bad, most people would look at you and say "I don't know, $100 seems like a lot of money, and what am I going to do with a thousand rounds of 9mm?"
The ammunition manufacturing and supply pipeline is simply not set up for the average consumer to walk into Wal-Mart and buy two cases of ammunition. If your average shooter normally bought 100rds/month to take to the range and decided to buy two cases instead, "just in case", he has just bought more ammunition at one lick than he would normally buy in two years. Think about that for a second, and then multiply it out over several million shooters suddenly buying way outside their normal pattern.
Production Capacity: The manufacturers are running full tilt. The only way they could make more ammunition is to build more plant, and they are not going to do that for several reasons. The first is that this bubble will contract sooner or later. Joe and Jane Sofaspud are going to realize that they really don't need 10,000 rounds of Winchester .45 in the basement, and that minivan payment isn't getting any smaller. They'll sell it to Annie Appleseed and Ivan Ipsc and demand will cool down.
The second reason they won't build more plant is financial. Remember that economy thing? Yeah, well it's still bad. Business loans aren't really easy to get right now, especially for businesses that are square in the middle of the Media-Congressional Complex's crosshairs. When the stroke of a pen could cut your sales by 50%, you are not what lenders call a "good risk".
Supply & Demand: Right now prices are high not because of transport costs or raw materials costs, which drove the price spike of '05(really an honest adjustment, as ammo prices had stayed almost artificially flat for the better part of a decade,) but because of simple supply and demand. If I put my widgets out for $1, and the first guy that walks in the store buys them all, I'm obviously not charging enough for my widgets.
As demand stays high and supply stays small, prices keep going up. They will go up until they become high enough to cool demand. As demand cools, supply will build back up. In order to move the new supply, prices will come back down somewhat until they reignite demand. This is Econ 101, folks, and it's as predictable as 32 ft/sec² or π*r².
Don't know if would use 'plenty' but seems to be more available than most other calibers.
I'm not complaining
I was opposed to that caliber for years, up until about a yr. ago.
Seemed to me to be kinda worthless.
Checking ballistics though shows a 155 gr. .40 at around 1200fps. The vaunted .357 mag throwing a 158gr. at around 1200fps. Hmmm
Then seeing police stats showing the .40 as being very effective.
Anyway I got an MPc in .40 and love it.
It's a good enough round in its own right...I bought my first pistol chambered in it waaaaay back in '93. I understand the forces at work behind it's relative popularity, but wish it hadn't been so effective in largely pushing the 10mm out of the marketplace...
I caught that. We met Vera during “Mrs. Reynolds” which was one of the best episodes of any series I had ever seen.
But Vera didn’t need a space suit to fire anymore than a normal firearm. Bad advice from a poor “firearms expert”.
I just call them “toys” and be done with it. If I named one, I would have to name them all. I wouldn’t want any hurt feelings.
See my #20.
I’ll use a /sarc tag next time.
Legally? Not in my state.
I’ll use a /sarc tag next time.
Yeah, I've had A LOT of people asking me in the few past months what they should get to carry, so I've had to answer it quite a few times, sort of an auto programmed response now... ;-)
You want teeny?
I used to have a beautiful Kahr MK9.
Staineless, and it hid behind a 3x5 card.
I looked at one of those awhile back, you like it?
If you are familiar with the Battle of Kings Mountain during the Revolution, one of the “rebels” dropped a loud mouthed Colonel Ferguson, who had said that “even God could not take me off this mountain!”, with his rifle named “Ol’ Sweet Lips” after his wife. A quote associated with the rifleman as the Colonel was trying to escape on his horse was, “Let’s see what Ol’ Sweet Lips can do.”
Despite the fact that Kahr’s chief designer is Rev. Sun Young (sp?) Moon’s oldest son (who happens to hold degrees from M.I.T.), they’re very well-made, and worth the money.
I had tritium sights installed on it and sent it clear across the state to have the frontstrap hand-checkered.
Smallest 9 ever made, just a tiny bit smaller than the old Detonics.
Kicks worse than a Glock 19, though.
Small Handgun Syndrome.
In defense of the series, if I recall correctly Vera and the other guns used in Firefly weren't necessarily portrayed as being normal firearms. In addition, the atmosphere requirement was explained as being more of a legal mandated safety feature to prevent further rebellion than a physical restriction. One of the episodes Fox never aired, "Episode 13: Trash", explains the background behind this when the crew steals the first prototype antique gun of this type.
The Browncoat fans made the series an obsession.
Hi Mad...yep, I saw you too...I think you might have cut the line in front of me!!!
I didn’t realize that Miwall sold retail from their facility in GV. I’m pretty well stocked on ammo for the time...plus, if I buy any more my wife says I’ll have to deduct the cost from my lunch money.
9mm and 38 special are both easy to reload. When I was a youngster I used to reload both those calibers for fun.
Ive taken to carrying my J frame 38 Chiefs Special more often than not because it’s easy to reload 38 specials and I have a lot of brass.
I urge anyone with a little patience and an urge to experiment to start loading 38s. Its easy and cheap..the only problem being access to small pistol primers.
Another thing, with a wheelgun, you dont spend half the day rummaging through the grass searching for your brass. While I have several 9mm pistols, I sleep with a model 19 K frame 357 mag, loaded with 38s, and my J frame 38. My model 19 has had a distinguished lineage. It was a West Virginia State Police duty revolver which was sold to me by it’s retired previous owner, who got into 22 pistols in later years.
If I think there’s trouble coming, my shotgun is in the closet 2 steps away and my Glock 19 is nearby as well.
The 380 is fine if you practice and place your shots. If I had one of those ruger 380s Id certainly get competent with said gun and carry it.
Like they said though, ammo is hard to come by. Thats why I dont own one.
I just picked up a Kel-Tec P-3AT this weekend. I did not realize that there was no ammunition for me to try it out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.