Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Component Shortages?

Stopped by Sportsman's Warehouse while up in Potlandia yesterday on business. This was the store in Salem, on the way home.

Surprised to see the level of powder and bullets, was almost pre Covid and Pre Biden's Election, equivalent.

They just had a lot of product of what had been shipped in and were just spreading it out to look like more However there was plenty to pick from vs what we've experienced the last few years... Even a punch of primers, that turned out to be small pistol of some brand I've never seen before, so evidently foreign.

Was sitting at Drug Dealer pricing tho. I walked out empty handed.

They had H 335 at $55.00 a pound, while stopped into a local Bi Mart earlier in the day, and they had H 335 at $35.00 a pound....

These people with Drug Dealer pricing, I'll certainly remember then on that subject and shop elsewhere...

(Cue voice of Gabby Hays)

Why, Sonny, I can recollect when primers was a penny apiece and I ain't a-buyin' 'em until they's that price agin.

Yeah, wasn’t all that long ago when the same sounds were being made in regard to .22 ammo. Now $3.50 is pretty much the new $1.00, if you look a bit anyway. 9mm can be had for less than $.30 a pop, so loading it still doesn’t make much sense.

I keep getting ads for those $.09 & $.10 primers; have one in my box right now with free HAZMAT, but I don’t need any. I suspect they’re not really flying off the shelf at that price. My inner packrat did fall for some very cheap Speer .224 bullets not long ago, ones suitable for my Hornet and 5.7. Hard to pass up at $10 or $12 a hundred.

I’ll be a buyer somewhere between $0.10 and $0.02. Getting uncomfortably low, but the pendulum is swinging, and it swings pretty far both directions. The stash is good enough to wait it out a bit more.

Recent order with Powder Valley

Free haz mat...needed some powder

#AA7.......#AA9 & Longshot

Splurged on a brick of SP primers.......$95

They are $80 now

Haz mat & shipping really bump price up

Have a good stash of Rem 7.5's

Been running them in my striker fired XD M's 9mm

Coming along here. The local gun/pawn place had a good selection of powders and Hornady bullets and some Bergers. No primers.

Pretty well stocked and priced here in Idaho and back in Texas prior to my departure. The only thing I am not seeing are large rifle primers. Thankfully I am well stocked.

I’m in good shape thanks to some of the guys on here.

I was in Cour d' lene last monday and stopped in at Black Sheep Sporting Goods. They had two aisles 40 feet long each, with cases of ammo stacked waist high in every rifle and pistol caliber, not just 9mm and .223. Shotgun too! They had a fair selection of Rem and CCI primers, no magnums, and shelves full of Hodgon powders and quite a few 8 lb. jugs. Unfortunately no Reloder powders and they were sold out of BlueDot. None of the prices were outrageous, powders were low $40 per lb. I have never seen that much ammo in any retail store at one time anywhere including pre-covid. The manager told me that it all came in at once, maybe the dam is breaking.

That is a great store. I'll be swinging by there tomorrow on my way to the airport.

The big corporate sporting goods stores like SW, Cabelas, etc were the ones around here that had some components during the shortages and had more components longer but they were selling “old stock” that they’d ordered before the shortage for less but during the shortage they raised those prices to meet the inflated market. Now the prices are coming down and availability went up but they want to continue asking inflated prices because they ordered it during the shortage when everything was ridiculously expensive. It never seems to work in reverse for oil companies and corporate gun and ammo companies. The older and cheaper products are brought up to current market prices because “the cost to replace it has gone up” but when the prices go down they don’t lower the price because “the cost to replace it went down” instead they use the excuse “well we bought it when the price was high and we can’t lose money on it”. They could sell it at cost and replace it with more reasonably priced inventory but if they hold out long enough they begin to set a new artificial baseline that even smaller shops will follow because it means more $money$.

Nice to here. I have not been in Black Sheep on a few weeks.