Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Brass Shortage??

I have yet to pay a hazmat charge for anything. I buy primers and powder as I find them, and most dealers have limits. I do buy rimfires online, but most of what I prefer isn't stocked locally anyway. I have also started buying blems and other "Sale" bullets online.

I can say that the lack of brass has kept me from buying a few rifles that I would have had trouble feeding.

Mule Deer, thank you for replying. I never noticed the brass shortage because I am from a Camp Perry family that has buckets of 30-06 and 308 brass available. I have a pile of 350 rem mag brass along with 243 and 300wsm. I haven't had to purchase brass for many years and never noticed the shortage. There is a good supply of primers and powder but bullets have been my nemisis. I can't find any of the bullets that my crew has loaded for decades. I have been rationing out bullets to the three deer shacks that I load for but had no idea that brass was scarce also.
This whole thing is setting off my alarm bells more than it should. I guess I will just have to get in line for my block of cheese like the rest of the subjects.

p.s. Mule Deer, I love and respect all of your writings and articles. You are one of the best!! Have thought that for years.

I am now setting minimums, 5K for primers, 100 cases per caliber unless an odd ball (own to many of those) then what I can find. Bullets at least 100 for the rifles in loads that are proven. Pistols much higher, 148g HBWC by the 1K at least. 22LR 5K, Powders 2 pounds, when I run low then I am in the market and will buy at todays fair market prices. Never buy to sell, hate those folks. At least there are not as many around as there used to be. One exception, found a Winchester Model 70 in 06 for $250.. Not the best one a Black Shadow. Bought that saying if I don't like it... After removing the horrid camo job and a new stock from CDNN it became my SIL Christmas present.. He was ecstatic. Surprised me by shooting MOA with 150's, 165's and 180's. Would not have bet on that.

Capt Kirk,

Thanks very much!

Also, thanks for explaining why you weren't aware of the brass problem before. What the manufacturers have been doing is making what they can of the most popular cases, but even then it hasn't been enough to satisfy everybody. In the instance of the 7mm Remington Magnum, it's one of the more popular rounds among big game hunters, all over the country, including many non-handloaders. The manufacturers are trying to make sure everybody can find some ammo for various hunting seasons, so a lot of the 7mm RM brass is going into ammo.

Lapua is plentiful, but limited headstamps unless you form your own.

I've ended up buying lots more than I usually would also just for the reason that if you don't then you likely won't find a particular component or powder for another year or so. It gets real old working up a load that you want to use in your rifle then finding out that you can't use it because the manufacturer hasn't made a run of bullets in a year and no one has them in stock. Case in point 6mm 107 matchkings and 105 AMaxs, those are what I like to shoot in my 6mm BR but I was dead in the water for a while because hornady and sierra went almost two years between running these bullets. When they finally did make a run I bought enough to be considered a hoarder because I don't want my rifle to be a brick until they decide to make more and I don't want to be constantly working up loads for whatever bullet I can find that month. I've now got a shelf full of 107 matchkings and 105 amaxs that I normally wouldn't keep, but I have to have them to ensure that the component shortage doesn't stop my shooting.

Really the manufacturers need to increase their production capacity. At first it seemed like a passing fad and I didn't blame them for not ramping up, you can't expect them to spend millions expanding just to have the binge buying come to a sudden stop & leave them hanging with excess capacity. Now it's been six years since this crap started and it's clear it's going to keep going in some form, time to buy some extra machines and grow the production capability. Finding employees is an excuse I get tired of hearing from businesses, there are always employees if you pay them enough. If you want someone to work for minimum wage then yea, you're going to have a hard time keeping them.

Berger ramped up production and made it work, the others can too.

They've only been there a few days

One of my favorite hangouts is at a large area gunshop in the small town of Ayden NC. From what I've witnessed, and what the staff confirms, is that the Obama presidency has spurred many, many people to buy a firearm (or several firearms) who had never bought one before - even a number of well known local "Yellow-Dog" Democrats (who are now afraid they won't be able to get a firearm in the future). These new gun owners (think of how many there are nationally) need ammo - and they have heard of the shortages - so not only are the old hands buying up more than we used to for various reasons, the new owners are buying a lot more than one box. They are shooting their firearms too - I see quite a few new shooters, constantly, when I go to a public range. Add all that together and you get a "golden age" of gun ownership that creates an allocated market for ammo.

Hornady manufactured over 1 billion bullets in 2013 which was the first time in the company's history they exceeded over 1 billion bullets. Hornady again made well over 1 billion bullets in 2014 and still there are shortages of red boxes.

This is going to be the new NORMAL for several more years.

Doc

Supply, meet the Demand Equation.

Recalling back in the Clinton era there was a big run on primers and OMG, lots of shorts in a knot. Oh dear...

Now we have a few million new loonies out there. Occam's Razor...

I refuse to play for the most part, but did take up casting bullets to deal with a large part of the supply shortfalls. And a flintlock.

Crow hunter,

Berger doesn't sell nearly as many bullets as Hornady, Nosler, Sierra and Speer, so didn't have to increase production nearly as much.

Also, Berger's in the Los Angeles area, where they can hire plenty of new workers relatively easily. The rest of those bullet makers are in relatively small towns, so there is some difficulty in finding and keeping employees, no matter how much you pay them.

And if each company did increase capacity AND paid their employees substantially more, whether to keep them or attract people who might move to Grand Island, Bend, Sedalia or Lewiston, then those wage increases would result in higher bullet prices--and then they'd get the same complaints about a conspiracy to raise prices that showed up at the state of this thread.

Plus, there are signs that demand is easing somewhat, partly because so many serious shooters have stockpiled enough to keep them shooting for a long time.

500 rounds of 7 mag brass. Took less than a minute to find online.

7 mag brass

Lots of people out of work these days, the manufacturers then need to train and hire more workers , plus expand the work facilities to meet the demands of their customers .

Read my post from 7:00 this morning: Many companies are in small towns where the worker pool is relatively small. Plus, in the major unemployment right now is in cities in high-population states, not the smaller towns where many component factories are located.

Using the major bullet manufacturers listed above as an example, Nebraska (where Hornady is located) had an unemployment rate of 3.1% in November 2014, about as low as unemployment can get. Oregon (Nosler) has a 7.0% unemployment rate, but in Bend it's only 5.8%, and headed down.

The same thing is true of Sedalia, Missouri, where Sierra's located. The state unemployment rate is 5.6% (still low) but is only 4.7% in Sedalia, and heading lower. The worker situation's worst in Lewiston Idaho, with only a 3.2% unemployment rate, also headed down.

Most American companies outside the oil business are hiring right now, because our economy has been doing really well recently, and to hire new workers in a smaller town is indeed tough--especially in places like Lewiston, where some Speer and CCI worker have grown tired of working all the time for the past two years, no matter how good the money was. Since other jobs are easily available, they quit and find another.

I know this from visiting Lewiston every year--which is also where I've seen the CCI factory cranking out millions of rounds of rimfire ammo, so people can line up at Wal-Mart and buy it out every time it shows up.

Interesting. Maybe some city folks will move to smaller towns for work. A reversal of history.

In my neck of the woods, supply is still spotty. The Internets is a great help in that area though. Mail order!

With all the safety nets available these days, folks are more likely to hunker down where they are until the gummint runs out of cheese. The folks moving to small towns are more likely rich people or retirees.

I can't see the logic in a company expanding to fill a market that exists because half their production is going into bunkers and the scalpers' storage bins. A correction will occur.

Exactly.

Historically, these gun/ammo/componen buying binges have eventually tapered off, and the companies that added manufacturing capacity during previous binges eventually ended up with expensive, unused capacity.

Tell people to stop buying factory ammo and the brass will once again become available as a component.

Historically we have never had this type of �leadership� and people are following their gut instincts.

I believe the manufacturers are doing all they can. I also believe people are afraid.

The whole binge buying, excess capacity argument works great so long as we are reading the situation correctly. That this is just an event and not a new trend. With all of the new shooters that have joined the fold, is there now a true need for more capacity?