Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Shortage challenges and reloading as a hobby

When this shortage situation began I more or less had to go from IMR to H4350. Turned out great but of course someone try to find me some Hodgdon 4350 this entire last year...

I have missed reloading as a hobby and wonder if any others are in same boat- to what extent you are going to in order to get back on the bench.

My range time has been rare to nonexistent over past 2 years due to coveting what little powder I have.

I always use Sierra's but with certain bullets still hard to find I bought some 90 grain Speer to try in my 6mm Rem.
I wanted to go back to140's in my slow twist 260 - yes I know they shouldn't shoot well but they do and those long Gamekings dropped deer quicker than any other caliber-bullet combo I have used.
Of course, I couldn't find .264 140gr GK's so I bought Speer hot core 140's ( they weren't overly long to inhibit magazine length any worse than GK's)
So to get back at it, I just ordered some Accurate 4350 ( seems like the red headed stepchild of the 4350 realm). It is easy to find so my plan is use it for Speer bullets and keep what little Hodgdon I have for my tried and true Sierra's loads.

That's the plan.... least I will be pulling the handle on the Classic Press again.

I've switched over to gas-checked cast lead bullets. This solves a bullet supply shortage. Make friends with fellow reloaders and be willing to deal fairly. You'll be able to swap for anything lacking

powder valley and midsouth have h 4350

I've pondered the question as well recently.

I have plenty of components to continue shooting and competing for quite some time, but have basically stopped. One of the reasons I've stopped is the situation with supply and pricing. The "favorite reloading manual" thread upstairs had me thinking that soon, all that some will be able to to is read about loading instead of doing it.

rcmuglia- kind of where I was at so am glad to have some components and not feel like I was in some sort of countdown.

One thing I will says is I am darn glad I neck size only for rifle. I can use this brass over and over and over...

Fotis I checked midsouth several times- no luck. Powder valley had a minimum purchase that I didn't want to reach- when they had it.

Anyone else switching to Accurate powder because of availability? How about going to Speer bullets?

Cooler mornings have me itching to be at the range beating the mid-day warm up. Hoping this thread inspires others to do same.

I’m thankful I have plenty, but after the first big panic I switched from a partition guy to ballistic tips and Barnes TTSX. I have enough to take me out I think, but don’t shoot as much, hoarding my loaded stuff which ain’t no damn fun. I shoot 223’s now when I do get to shoot, cause it’s much cheaper

Primers are curtailing my R&D and general range time. Only have 1,000 left (combined LR and LRM).

Bullets and brass are a non-issue for me.

Bottom line for me is that the difficulty in finding components and the prices for what is available has driven me away from handloading as a hobby. I still have lots of components, but the thought of replacing them at current prices takes the fun out of buring them up.

Yep. Been seeing more of it and it's staying in stock for more than 10 minutes too. That is a good thing.
I never stopped "pulling the handle, but did change some things and tried new things to keep going. I tried some Ramshot powders, as it seemed like they were always around and may have saved me a few times. Prices of those powders were never really high, as compared to some of the others. Hovering around $28-$32.00/pound. Luckily last year I found 6 pounds of Hunter, 6 pounds of Big Game, 10 pounds of X-terminator, 10 pounds of TAC at a local shop. An archery shop of all places!! It was $30/pound and I gladly paid the piper. Now I am hooked on some of that powder. It works great in my rifles, so there is a silver lining there. For my 6.5's, I did like you and gave up on Sierra. They were nonexistent, so f them.. Hornady was pretty available, but there was some stretch of time where you couldn't find the 140gr ELD match bullets. The 140gr BTHP match was available and at a good price:

(this was 3 months ago at a store I found about 5 months ago^^^^)

.....but I went to Barnes and tried some of their match burners. I'm still on the fence with them, as they do not shoot as well in my rifles as the ELD match. But the prices were very good on them, so I bought quite a few of them. If nothing else I'll shoot them in my iron sight m96 6.5x55. I was getting to a point in my powder supply where I had to conserve what I had. H4350 and AR Comp were the 2 main powders that I had to watch my use on because those are my favorites and they were very hard to find for a while. Luckily I found 6 pounds of H4350 and bought it at $47/pound a few months ago. I lucked into 10 pounds of AR Comp at the beginning of the year. That was a god send and I have already used 5 pounds of it. That was $37/pound, but worth it. Yesterday I was at the very small LGS and this is what I saw:


So this thread reminds me, I need to run down there and buy a few pounds of RL23 to try out. Heard it was pretty good. I also saw RL15.5 for the first time. I shake my head with that one. Its good to be stocked up, but that is difficult if you keep shooting it up..

Primers have pretty much been my Achilles' heel through this entire shortage, specifically large rifle. I'm not a huge volume shooter, so I've got enough of everything else for several years, but my stash of LR primers has dwindled to the point I've curbed my larger cartridge shooting quite a bit.

I have taken the opportunity to try some new powders that have been more readily available than some of my old standards, and found some new favorites. Accurate 4064, CFE Pistol, and BE-86 have all worked out very well for me.

I've also taken to air rifle shooting a lot more because it's still really cheap. You can have a lot of fun for 10 bucks with air guns.

I got a mold for the bullets I didn't have and fired up the ProMelt. Had plenty of primers on hand already and cast loads don't burn that much powder.
Be nice when (if ever) we will be able to go down to the LGS and just buy what we need.
Those really were the good old days.

Rimfire competition has blossomed big time at the club I frequent.

I've cut in half the amount of OCD "tweaking" I do for load development of big game hunting cartridges intended for distances of 300 yards and less.

I still have a [bleep] ton of surplus ammo for the Garand and so use that combo for regular field practice.

Ha so typical. I know I am not only one feeling irony Gods shaking there snakebit finger at me so of course everyone can now find Hodgdon 4350. LOL oh well- I won't be loading high volumes of stuff but at least get to try and get back to fixing what ain't broke....right ?

My range time is more with the small rifle or Varminter cartridges and rim fire. That usually means the 223, 6 ppc and k Hornet. I can load almost three 223 for what I can in the 06 type casings and I can get good, accurate bullets cheaper as well. The Hornady SP 55 grain are surprisingly accurate and only about $.14 a piece, I stay far away from FMJ because I’ve never found any that are accurate to me. The main hassle is Primers. I still get notifications when they’re available so I order the max amount, or two boxes, and I’m good for a month or more which is when they are usually available. I recently loaded up some 300 WBY and you can watch the level of powder in the measure drop with each round. So those I shoot less if I want to afford to keep shooting, especially if the bullet is over a dollar a pop, not taking the cost of other items like powder and primers.

I still tweak my loads, but it's with more 3 shot groups than ever.. Was out yesterday because a guy here suggested I fine tune my load with the BOSS on my winchester model 70. This is on a load that I had developed in the rifle set on a setting already. What a waste of my components. I walked away from that seeing that when I develop a damn load in that rifle and its set on a certain setting, it's not going to get any fu cking better. Makes sense, as the load was developed at a certain setting. OCW to find a node just works. Turing the dial on the BOSS verified that. Now to blue loctite that sumbitcch and not mess with it again.

When I saw Lapua available, was able to snag a few hundred small rifle primed .308 Win & 6.5 Creed. That should keep me hunting after my large rifle primers are gone.

How do you like the Hunter and X-terminator? What do you load it in?

I have a few pounds of each. Was thinking of loading for .223, .243, and .308.

Had a few dollars left on a gift card so I bought a couple Berry's ammo holders with hinged flip up tops. I always worry my box will spill out the various test loads and get them mixed up. The different colored tops will help me identify my Speer- Accurate loads from my Sierra Hodgdon loads.

After all, being OCD is the best part of reloading!!.

One thing this shortage has me fuming about are shipping costs- and haz mat fees....grrrrrr

I use ziplock baggies and mark the bags and primers with different color Sharpies for test batches. It ain't pretty, but it keeps them sorted and is cheap😁

I just dropped a flip top box full of 300 Blackouts and broke the lid off the other day. Thankfully those were not test groups.

Handloading is about options people forget that. More options to the shooter with an open mind. People who buy factory ammo limit their options while they are busy buying a couple of boxes of each kind, then jack around to long to determine which is best, when they figure it out and go back to get more they find it gone or a different lot number. Then they come on the fire moaning ,wailing, knashing their teeth and tearing out their hair. The problem is their mindset the days of buying what you want, when you want, for how much you want to pay are long gone. The same applies to components. Read that again. Some guys find a favorite load for their old deer killer like imr 4350 and can't find any because it was everyone's favorite and the dirty hoarders bought it all. Or the guys now lost because the dirty bastards at hodgdon's discontinued their favorite powder imr 4320. The unwillingness to try primers you can get in different brand of brass with other suitable powders and other bullets than the ones you prefer is the problem. You don't want to try other loads than your favorites. The problem is only you, you don't want to exercise the greatest part of our hobby trying other components than your favorites. The rules and guidelines have changed so now you need to.Rise to the challenge instead of complaining about it....mb