Posted on 03/16/2009 5:17:24 AM PDT by marktwain
From: KTO To: undisclosed-recipients Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 2:31 PM Subject: [Fwd: More ammo problems - Action Needed]
Dear MSSA Friends,
Another serious problem has just been created to add to the critical ammo shortage in the U.S. Read my letter to Senator Max Baucus about this below. An agency of the Department of Defense has just directed that all military fired brass must be destroyed.
I highly recommend that you send emails to U.S. Senators Baucus and Tester, and to Montana's lone Congressman Rehberg, asking them to get immediately onto fixing this.
FYI, Baucus is Chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. He could simply call the Pentagon and tell them that if they don't reverse this DLA directive that the Pentagon will suffer a mysterious budget cut of several billion dollars. Also, Baucus's former Chief of Staff, Jim Messina, is now Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House. If Max called Jim and asked, Jim could fix this problem with a phone call too.
I recommend you communicate with the Baucus, Tester and Rehberg staffers who are tasked to firearms issues. They are:
Baucus - "Heather O'Loughlin" heather_o'loughlin@baucus.senate.gov
Tester - "Lillstrom, Alpha" Alpha_Lillstrom@tester.senate.gov
Rehberg - "Abra Belke" abra.belke@mail.house.gov
Tell them we simply don't accept the military destroying perfectly good brass that could be sold into the civilian market for private and commercial reloading.
Gary
========================
Max,
Greetings from Missoula.
You called me on October 24th, 2008, to ask me to let you know if there is ever anything MSSA needs you to do for us and for Montana gun owners.
Thank you. This is exactly such a case.
In the email below from the Defense Logistics Agency you will see that DLA has effectively ordered the immediate non-sale and destruction of all once-fired military brass.
Max, this is a HUGE problem.
Why is this a problem? The RKBA is only as good as the ammunition supply for the firearms we own. The shelves of the Nation's sporting goods stores are essentially bare of ammunition. The entire ammunition market in the U.S. is highly stressed.
For example, I have six classes scheduled for April to teach Montana citizens gun safety and self defense with firearms. Students must bring 100 rounds of ammunition to these classes. I thought to check this week about availability of ammunition for my students for these April classes - the most common ammunition in .38 special and 9mm. Of four primary sporting goods stores in Missoula, three had NONE - at all! One store has a limited supply that it doesn't expect to last long.
Against this background of ammunition shortage, about the only ammunition that continues to be somewhat available is that from second tier manufacturers who are remanufacturing ammunition from once-fired military cartridge brass. As of yesterday, that supply came to an end because of the DLA administrative decision to destroy ("demil") all fired military brass.
Max, I have a lot more information about the national ammunition shortage, too much to put in one email. It is both a supply and demand problem. Without that lengthy detail, take my word for it that U.S. gun owners are very at-risk for their effective RKBA because of existing ammunition shortages. This administrative decision by DLA places a log on the back of a camel already sagging in the middle.
We sincerely hope that you can do something to turn DLA around, and reauthorize the flow of once-fired, undestroyed military brass from the military to civilians and civilian entities.
One final thought. The military can sell reloadable brass for $2.00 per pound. Brass that has been destroyed for reloading purposes and value sells for about 35 cents per pound. So the DLA is expecting taxpayers to pay DoD extra to make reloadable brass unavailable to civilian gun owners.
Please keep us informed about what can be done and is being done to fix this serious problem.
Sincerely yours,
Gary Marbut, president Montana Shooting Sports Association http://www.mtssa.org author, Gun Laws of Montana http://www.mtpublish.com
This is kind of a “side” question (slightly off-topic):
How are gun prices these days ? Discounted ? List ? Premium over List ?
He didn’t get the Garands. Congress had made a law years before ordering the military to turn over all their M1 Garands to the Civilian Marksmanship Program.
But your point is well taken.
P.S. I am certain that this isn’t true.
http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=2247011&convertTo=USD
I would suggest finding private legal purchasing, many people are so bad off financially right now they are selling their guns. Pricewise for conventional sporting arms like a Winchester Model 70 is not any higher than normal, its any type of “black” gun that has gone up, there is months long waiting lists for the M14/M1A .308’s lately. I cannot say about handguns, its supply and demand in certain areas, here in Alaska we are not too concerned about small handguns or light caliber rifles so I see a lot of them not selling much.
Not cheap when you don't need it.
Dirt cheap when you do.
I went to a local gun store last week and prices on the handguns they had in stock have not gone up. That’s just anecdotal though. I have heard that you can no longer buy AR-15’s for instance because they are sold out. I heard one manufacturer isn’t even taking orders because they have a one year backlog. All rumor and second hand info though.
This is a well-calculated back door approach to gun control, as well as a SHINING example of Fed.gov WASTE.
Broadcast the new acronym:
O ne
B ig
A ss
M istake
A merica!
I wonder if we go to the same one on Speedway. Last time I was in there a couple of weeks ago, the shelves were bare except for some shotgun and high powered rifle. I ordered online with Sportsman’s, but they are backordered for at least another month or so.
My local Bass Pro has shotgun shells by the thousands. Rifle cartidges are quite limited, though, and ammo for about any caliber of handguns is essentially non-existent.
If it’s not boxer primed, you can’t reasonably reload it. When I was in the service, military ammo was not boxer primed, if that is still the case, you might as well melt it and make something useful, like more ammo.
Thanks !
This brass is sold solely for the purpose of reloading, for far more than scrap value. It would not sell for more than its scrap value if it were unusable. I have a few thousand pieces of federal headstamped brass not far from me. It is most assuredly usable. It is all boxer primed, with a crimp. As far as I know, 5.56 has always been Boxer primed, with some foreign manufacturers using Berdan primers. The same goes for 7.62x51 of American manufacture.
RCBS sells a decapping tool for Berdan primed cases, it is no more difficult than decapping and removing the crimp on the once fired brass in question here. It is more time consuming as it is a hand tool, but, if I were to get some Berdan primed 5.56 cheap I would invest in the tool and start decapping.
Is that as fun as running boxer through my progressive? No, but you can certainly reload it.
How the heck does that tool work? The picture of the item does not look like the process would be very efficient.
I used to reload about 3-5 thousand rounds a month, I invested in quality boxer primed brass and kept my brass and tools clean to extend the life of the brass.
If I were still doing competitive shooting, I would not want to spend that much time away from the range messing around with Berdan primed cases. Even for lower volume shooting, investing in Boxer primed cases is still cost effective when you consider time saved.
Even when I was the most brass hungry, I scrapped all non Boxer primed cases. Although I did know a guy that had some sort of hydraulic press that would pop out a Berden primer and leave a hole allowing the use of Boxer primers. I was alway leary because I’m not sure that the dimension of a Berdan primer is exactly the same as a Boxer.
Of course, the real question is wether the brass being scrapped is Boxer primed or not. I thing the US went to all Boxer primed, if that is the case, it is a real waste of money to scrap all of that brass.
Neat! Now, where can you buy Berdan primers?
This story appears to be a scrubbed “whoops,” by the OBAMA
crew, Brass rose heavily when copper peaked a few months ago. Much .308 mil surplus brass is very dirty, and fired through machine guns, with loose chambers, expanding the brass. Most lots at surplus have large qty of .50 cal (limited demand) varying qty of .308, .223, 9mm, and occasional 12 ga.
Amazing the NRA has been unable (unwilling?) to place even one unread earmark on one regulation in 31 years to loosen any slowly increasing regulations, imports, bringbacks of US manufacture WW 2 ammo stockpiled in England, the 100,000
M-14 rifles sent to eastern europe by Bill Clinton, the import ban on Chinese new made firearms? and so on.
Soon, Obama will bring in the UN Convention on light weapons, already part of the Global Poverty batch, (co-sponsored by “cocaine” Snowe), and further paved by Roberts Heller (how appropriate) decision, adopting the UN definition of “Arms” which will remove from civilian ownership military weapons of ANY AGE, so don’t think you can get a black powder Zoave replica military rifle, or keep your revolutionary or civil war military rifle, and avoid the coming confiscation. Look at Britain and Australia. Better buy your sword now.
You make a very valid point.
This weekend the owner of a local gunstore told me that new EPA regulations forbid a shooting range from selling the brass they sweep up to the scrap dealers because the brass is contaminated. I would not be surprised, but has anyone else heard something like this?
Charlotte NC? Yup.
I found some 40’s at Walmart for targets for like $12.50 so I snatched a bunch.
But no .38’s.
I’ve not heard of the EPA edict but a local police officer just about died a few years ago shoveling out the lead in the far end of the range. OSHA was not involved because of the fact he was employed by government but the state did pass laws regarding worker protection in shooting ranges after the incident.
There should be minimal contamination to the brass ejected after shooting. That being said, it would not supprise me.
“Sorry for the crazy paragraphs”
It’s good... easier on the eyes for many of us.
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