CarlsenHighway,
Maybe you can confirm (or dis-confirm) what I was told by one of higher-ups in one of the corporations involved in the buying, selling and hence transporting of powders around the world.
The recent component "shortage" here in the U.S. was caused not by lower supplies of reloading components, but by high demand due to the possibility of Obama declaring who-knows-what about the purchase of guns and ammo. But demand was so high, my contact said, that the authorities in Auckland grew alarmed at so many more ships full of powder passing through their port on the way to the U.S., and ruled that no more than one powder-container ship could be in the harbor at one time. This created a bottleneck between Australia and the U.S. which made the shortage worse.
Now, maybe he didn't know what he was talking about, but since he's been employed by a major powder company for many years I don't know why he'd be confused. Since you're there, maybe you could find out something about this possibility.
