Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game Bird hunting ammo.

No one has addressed this so I will , in the last 3 weeks I have been in Rapid City, Pierre , Mitchell, Sioux Falls, Watertown and places in between. Big box stores , combo convenience stores and LGS 's. None have any serious amount of lead hunting ammo for shotguns and upland bird hunting.. no field or sport loads, no Express, super x or Fed high power.loads in 12, 16, and 20 ga. You do see some steel 4's and 2's and a few boxes of upper end (expensive lead & non toxic loads) most will be gone by prairie grouse opener. Unless the supply situation increases before non resident and general pheasant opener there won't be any shells but odds and ends. Not sh*ting anyone here. If your coming as a nonresident bring your own ammo. Bad enough that bird numbers are way down from the drought but no ammo is a double whammy so forewarned is fore armed. None of the people who run these stores can explain why they have no ammo they just shrug and walk away. Personally I see another leftist greeny bastardo push against lead behind this. Magnum Bob

It’s not about the lead, this time anyway. All ammo is scarce, shotshells are among the worst except for target and waterfowl loads, which are available if expensive. .410 is out of sight.

My standard solution is to sign up for notifications, be ready to jump on them at once, and hope for the best. I managed to get some good 20s over time that way. Haven’t tried it for 12s as I have a lot from years past.

Some here have reported good supplies at individual stores, but it seems pretty spotty.

Good on you for warning folks.

Pappy the stores out here don't notify anyone, it rolls in on a pallet jack and flies out the door the same day. Time back when people bought a box or 2 when they bought their license. No more somebody is there when the store opens sees it gets what he can and cell phones 2 or 3 buddies who all call 2 or 3 buddies and by noon it's all gone because these days people who used to buy a couple boxes now buy the whole flat. Ass't gun manager at the local Scheel's told me they had 2 pallets of ultra pheasant loads show up last week one day 1 st pallet disappeared before they could get it on the shelves and the second one by 2 in the afternoon. Mb

Sorry, I meant online dealers. Midway, Sportsmans Guide, Midsouth, etc. Have had good success, but gotta be quick. Haven’t been in a Whatamart in over a year, except to walk in and take a quick scan of the Garden department. Was out in about two minutes as they had squat.

Not much near here for bird hunters, just an occasional woodcock. Thinking about going to PA for some of their planted pheasants. Have to see how deer season goes. They let you shoot any of them now, and the season runs well into Winter, so I’d get time afield anyway. Don’t know how many birds will still be around.

I just left Walmart here and they had four packs of Rem Nitro handicap 1 1/8 oz 71/2 for $28 for four boxes. They would work pretty good for prairie grouse and pheasants.

Erich, I guess anything is better than nothing but the local trapshooters keep the wallyworld shelves empty. The local gun club was finally able to get some target loads this summer in time for the league and competition season but are getting low again too. I've shot hundreds of young mallards and pheasants for hunt tests and retriever trials . The people at the trials who ran them allways insisted on light shot so I know it works but I also know that when you center a pheasant at 30 yds and under their shot to sh*t.
Pappy I was referring to outlets like Cabelas, Scheels, Runnings and Fleet& Farm here in Dakota. For the pheasant opener lot of non residents don't come equipped to be ready to go. Mb

Thanks for the heads up, MB. I won't be there this year, but my neighbor probably will. I'll make sure he knows about it.

Back in the Good Old Days of pheasant hunting in Adams County, PA, high brass 7 1/2s were my preferred load, but in a fixed IC gun. Worked very well, even at pretty fair ranges.

Still remember one I dumped, going full-tilt right to left at about 40 yards. He flipped like a rope was tied to his beak from behind. Great stuff. Pheasant hunting was as big a deal to us as deer hunting is now.

I occasionally use IC and it is allways found in my lower barrel of my o/u's in my pumps and semi autos I usually run modified but allways have some older 60's loads with no shot protection for when they are sitting tight , those nitro card and felt wads loads will open quicker for a looser pattern. I allways am prepared to change loads to match conditions as needed. Mb

What I find confusing is this crap has been going on for a while. If ammo is not available locally why would it be elsewhere. Found ,ordered and took delivery of what I needed this season months ago. Actually ordered next years dove loads this year. I was in a local sporting goods store and every phone call in a 30 minute time frame was someone looking for dove loads 1 week after the season opened.

Being from Kali where all hunting is non tox ammo I have an ample supply of lead ammo for trips outside this stupid state. And if [bleep] hits the fan it will feed me non tox laws be damned.

The Hunt Brothers are now into shotgun ammo...It is being trickled out little by little. Just enough to keep the price high. Some that I know in the game, say it will be next spring before they open it up. The price will come down a little, but many will be used to an elevated cost.

Forget the 5 million new gun owners story when it comes to shotgun shells....Most of them bought pistols and AR's....

I guess I think that most of the shops have guys working at them who are "taking care" of their friends. Some of them have employees who are reselling and taking cuts. I think Scheels in SF is relatively immune to this phenomena; I think that the Runnings stores are highly susceptible to it.

Maybe BK but our local Runnings is limiting to a 2 box limit and one of the guys at Scheels told me with no limit it was going out the door by the flat. So basically there at Scheels you got normal guys who buy a couple of boxes buying flats instead. Pretty hard to keep any in stock when that happens. Mb

Our Runnings never has anything on the shelf and its because its all going out the back door, in my opinion. The Sioux Falls Scheels seems to have way more than the Rapid City Scheels, all the time.

What's the difference? The people who work there.

Well that reminds me of a powder find at Runnings. I went In one day and they had a couple of pounds of some pistol powder the counter, is that all you have I asked? Counter guy says yeah and walks off. Well this blond gal says there is a bigger jug in the back room. I said same stuff ? she says no so I said scan it and get a price. She comes back said it was H4350 8lb jug 239.99 I said sold. So I walked up to the cashier paid for it laughing all the way back to my pu. BK you may damn well be right.

UPDATE: A good friend of mine has a couple of really good labs they do it all in the field. He moonlights his regular job to guide for commercial Pheasant hunting operation down by Chamberlain. He called me awhile a go and asked if I knew where he could get ammo 12, 16, and 20 ga for pheasant hunting use. The outfit he works for could not find any in eastern SD it's gone by the time he gets word of any. I'll say it again if you come to SD for pheasants bring your own ammo sufficient for your own needs. If you bring excess you will get held up or levered out of it before you leave. Magnum Bob yeah it's that god damned bad.

I just read your post on the powder, I mean lucky you but isn't that irritating as f u c k?

The lodges who joined the association and bought shells through that group seem to be satisfied with how it went. Getting birds is another story. People are beyond pissed at the women who run Gisi's operation and are looking to start growing their own birds. Talk about poor customer service and not treating people right...my god they are pissing a great business down their legs.

Last year we stopped at the True Value in Gregory SD. to get our licenses and they had a good supply of shells .

Better supplied and prepaired this year .

bird shells still scarce as hens teeth , local Runnings never has anything on the shelf

oddly , you run across a fair supply of 28 s here and there at times , with a few 16 s showing up , more so than any 12 or 20 stuff

if ya ever wanted to try out a 28 this would be the time


got to wonder if much hunting will get done at all this year


common deer loads like 30/06 , 270 , 243 are non existent

I have found a few ww 12 ga. in old time boxes at Murdock's.. Not all of them are supplied equally but I have been finding that ww load.. I guess I am fortunate, I have reloaders and supplies to go with.. Also, I like to try different kinds of ammo so when I saw a box of something I had not tried, I bought it.. So I have enough shells for the rest of my life.. But bird hunting here is only
for duck, geese, and sage grouse.. Also at 74 it is harder to get around the hills and cross the creeks..