Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Supplies, powder and primers

Letter from manufacturers is revealed to the consumer public about price increases for 2022.

And just like that, Midway has nothing available on-line. Nothing.
No powders, no oddball high priced .50 BMG primers. Nothing.

Something more than demand has been feeding this markup and supply chain blockage.
I smell a rat. A big hairy one.
And I base my opinions on what some bigger dealers at the retail level have been revealing to me piecemeal.

Your thoughts?

All the supplies disappeared into Area 51, just like the rest of the conspiracies.

Next thing we know, there'll be a toilet paper shortage conspiracy........oh wait, didn't that already happen......?

I went to Sportsman's Warehouse on my lunch break earlier today. They had more powder in there then I have seen since Covid started in early 2020. The problem, I needed nothing they had to offer, and it will all be gone by 5 pm probably.

I was in SW on the West Slope and the Front Range a week or so ago. In these parts there is zilch.......

Give us your thoughts on this matter.

I was and had been reasonably stocked up. I took the plunge in SR primers at midway last week. I wasn't happy about the pricing. My gut is telling me that regionally, there is nothing to buy. And the shortages we hoped were ending are going to get worse.
My recreational shooting is going to curtail until I see different.

Really? Let me roll up my pant legs before it gets deep.

Ha! Did the same thing. Nothing there that I needed, especially as the prices had gone up from ~$30 to $45 per pound.

How many families will not know what to do with all the hoarded stuff Grandpa has stacked up in the basement and left to their estate?
That's the demand piece of the equation.

The other piece is the ammo manufacturers can see higher returns and profits on loaded ammo so they have deeply cut the supply line to the handloader market.

Hang onto your wallet. What starts re-appearing in 2022 will be excessively overpriced.

What loaded ammo?

You been to a store in the last 18 months?

Ammo production is happening.
You want to tell us your thoughts and what you think you know about the subject?

Pretty decent amount of ammo on shelves around here of late. Mostly 9mm, 308, 350 Legend and 5.56, but a smattering of others, too. I picked up a couple boxes of 20 gauge sabots last week.

Seeing a fair amount of powder on shelves again locally, but primers are still short. Just ordered 300 rounds of 32 H&R mag brass today from Graf so it's not like stuff is unobtanium, it just sells out FAST.

Well,
there is a shortage of manpower,
shortage of glass bottles,
shortage of breath mints,
shortage of new vehicles,
shortage of new Appliances,
vast numbers of people still not back to work full time,
huge shipping delays,
shortage of certain wines,
trade tariffs with china,
no lead mining in the UsofA anymore,
millons of new gun owners last year alone,
half of America is not working but shooting, hunting and fishing while their off,
Costs for everything is going up, Hamburger is 6 bucks a lb?
Gas is up compared to a year ago,
Wages are up,
The 2 or 3 month shutdown the spring of '21 was the start of ammo producers falling behind, and they still have not yet recovered, in fact it seems to be worse,
Last year the ammo producers said at that time they already had a two year backlog,
and with that projection, didn't we all think/hope we'd be done with all the Covid restrictions and handcuffs by now?
It seems to me the supply chain is worse now than it was a year ago........

I'm no expert, but there's many reasons for all these shortages...

This.........

Care to express thoughts on the "backlog" or whatever it may be called?
I will say, you are getting warmer. Much warmer!

backlog,

The manufacturers having orders that will take time to fill, Due to manpower, machinery, raw materials, etc.etc.......

Orders on the books for 12 million 12 qa shells, they can make a million a month,

12 month backlog.

This 'shortage' started at least 2 years ago.

Enjoy your day.

But that ammo may not be for domestic consumers.I wonder how much of the ammo produced in the U.S. Is for the overseas market?

From the Hodgdon website:

Q: Is the shortage of reloading powder being caused by Hodgdon shipping their powder to the ammunition manufacturing companies?
A: While Hodgdon does sell powder to ammunition manufacturing companies, more than 80% of our powder is sold to our core market – handloaders just like you. Hodgdon has always been committed to the individual handloader.

[I have seen/heard many rumors and conjecture on powder shortages with Hodgdon Powder.
A: If you do not hear it directly from Hodgdon Powder Company, please be skeptical.

https://hodgdon.com/powder-shortage-statement/

And this statement is from 2019/2020, things have only become worse since then.



A more recent statement from Hodgdon's:

WHY CAN’T HODGDON SHIP MORE POWDER? The current powder situation is due to a record
demand for all reloading components and NOT a reduction in the supply of powder. With longtime
handloaders looking to stock up and new gun owners looking for ammunition, there is an
unprecedented demand for powder and other reloading components. We shipped a record
amount of powder in 2020 and will ship even more in 2021. We are doing everything in our power
to get the most powder into consumer hands this year. We are running overtime in our facilities,
have hired additional staff and have leveraged relationships with shipping partners to add new
shipping options.

WHY CAN’T HODGDON BUILD ANOTHER POWDER PLANT? The “normal” powder demand for
the U.S. would not support an additional plant. Hodgdon, like most companies, cannot afford to
build a new production facility then have it sit idle until demand spikes.

WHY IS HODGDON SELLING POWDER TO AMMUNITION MANUFACTURERS? The heart of
our business is smokeless powder for the handloading enthusiast. Yes, we sell some powder to
ammo manufacturers, but that is a small part of our business. Every day, we receive calls from
potential OEM customers looking for powder to load in ammunition. We politely decline so we can
focus on our long-term, handloading customers.

WHY IS HODGDON SELLING POWDER TO THE GOVERNMENT? Hodgdon does not sell
powder directly to the government. We sell some powder to manufacturers making ammunition for
our military, but that is a small part of our business.

WHY IS HODGDON SELLING POWDER ON AUCTION SITES? We don't. Period. We recently
began selling a limited amount of powder on our own websites but prioritize our shipments to our
traditional sales channels to maximize powder availability at sporting goods and gun shops.

WHY IS THE PRICE OF POWDER SO HIGH ON THE INTERNET? We do not set sale prices or
MSRPs for the price of our powders at retail, nor do we encourage any of our retailers or dealers
to sell on auction sites, but we cannot control what happens after we sell to our traditional sales
channels.

Yep, I’ve noticed the prices are up $2-4 a pound since before Christmas with the little powder shipment they got in then. I went to Cabela’s to pick up an order I had shipped to store. The had some small pistol primers, limit of 2 sleeves of 100. I would have bought some, but was in a hurry and coins to find anyone to help me, as they are behind the optics counter at this one.

I just got back from a long loop LGS crawl looking for primers. One shop had a few sleeves of Federal 150M LPP I needed, but not much else. Quite a bit of powder at most of them, though.

Hit the nearest Cabelas on the swingback, no primers/powder there, but they had a lot of ammo from 22LR up to 458 Mag.