Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Varget price

Was talking to Alliant Customer Service yesterday on the phone.

I inquired about the cost of powder and the why it has gone up so much.

What I got for a reply, you can use your own judgement if it is something that is true, or just another excuse
we deal with in today's world. Supposedly there is a shortage of nitro cellulose. It comes from a tree, and where ever they grow it in the world, there has been a major drought, so production of what they get from the tree is down like 60%.

We always seem to get excuses for higher prices, and price gouging whenever there are democRATS in the White House and in control of Congress.

so:

How is nitrocellulose produced?
Nitrocellulose - Wikipedia
The process uses a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid to convert cellulose into nitrocellulose. The quality of the cellulose is important. Hemicellulose, lignin, pentosans, and mineral salts give inferior nitrocelluloses. In precise chemical terms, nitrocellulose is not a nitro compound, but a nitrate ester.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrocellulose#:~:text=The%20process%20uses%20a%20mixture,compound%2C%20but%20a%20nitrate%20ester.

Is nitrocellulose used in guns?
Nitrocellulose carries the majority of the chemical energy used to propel a projectile from a gun barrel. It is the result of treating cellulose with nitric acid in the presence of sulfuric acid.


I seem to think what I got for an answer from the Alliant Representative is a bunch of BS. From the sources I just posted above, a little reading is telling me that nitrocellulose can't be made pretty much from a lot of things that is relatively plentiful.

Another example, of directly or indirectly as the public we are getting pissed on and are being told its just raining.

Always seems to happen under DemocRATS. But then people in the firearms business are making record profits on these price gouging marketing stands. They cut the DNCC in on it, and they are all happy. Let the public pay for it all, but deny they are breaking any laws.

I'll leave you to your own thoughts on why the pricing is so high and the public is being pushed. Is it the DNCC and the manufacturers, or panic buying by the public. In WW 2, the DNC fixed prices so the public wouldn't be hosed, and stopped panic buying of needs.

I remember this well, studying this when I was in college as a pre law major.: The Sherman Anti Trust Act;. Its still on the books and has not been repealed. Yet it seems no one in Congress pays any attention to it anymore.:

The Antitrust Laws
The Antitrust Division enforces federal antitrust and competition laws. These laws prohibit anticompetitive conduct and mergers that deprive American consumers, taxpayers, and workers of the benefits of competition.

The Sherman Antitrust Act
This law prohibits conspiracies that unreasonably restrain trade. Under the Sherman Act, agreements among competitors to fix prices or wages, rig bids, or allocate customers, workers, or markets, are criminal violations. Other agreements such as exclusive contracts that reduce competition may also violate the Sherman Antitrust Act and are subject to civil enforcement.

The Sherman Act also makes it illegal to monopolize, conspire to monopolize, or attempt to monopolize a market for products or services. An unlawful monopoly exists when one firm has market power for a product or service, and it has obtained or maintained that market power, not through competition on the merits, but because the firm has suppressed competition by engaging in anticompetitive conduct. Monopolization offenses may be prosecuted criminally or civilly.




Or a little other read, that shows price fixing is illegal and still on the books, for those who are not in the know. Ignored also by those in Congress in Washington DC and many of our state capitols.

The Antitrust Laws
The Antitrust Division enforces federal antitrust and competition laws. These laws prohibit anticompetitive conduct and mergers that deprive American consumers, taxpayers, and workers of the benefits of competition.

The Sherman Antitrust Act
This law prohibits conspiracies that unreasonably restrain trade. Under the Sherman Act, agreements among competitors to fix prices or wages, rig bids, or allocate customers, workers, or markets, are criminal violations. Other agreements such as exclusive contracts that reduce competition may also violate the Sherman Antitrust Act and are subject to civil enforcement.

The Sherman Act also makes it illegal to monopolize, conspire to monopolize, or attempt to monopolize a market for products or services. An unlawful monopoly exists when one firm has market power for a product or service, and it has obtained or maintained that market power, not through competition on the merits, but because the firm has suppressed competition by engaging in anticompetitive conduct. Monopolization offenses may be prosecuted criminally or civilly.



The Clayton Act
This law aims to promote fair competition and prevent unfair business practices that could harm consumers. It prohibits certain actions that might restrict competition, like tying agreements, predatory pricing, and mergers that could lessen competition.

An illegal merger occurs when two companies join together in a way that may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in a relevant market. This reduction in competition can harm consumers by potentially leading to higher prices or fewer choices for products or services. It can also harm workers by potentially leading to lower wages or fewer choices for employment.

An illegal tying agreement happens when a company forces customers to buy one product (the tying product) in order to purchase another product (the tied product). The two products are bundled or “tied” together, which gives the tying agreement its name. This practice restricts a customer’s choice and can limit competition. In a fair marketplace, business compete on price and on how good their products are. If an illegal tying arrangement is in place, a seller can use its strong market power on a popular product to force customers to buy a second, lesser product.

Predatory pricing is when a company sets its prices very low, often below cost, to drive competitors out of business. Once the competition is gone, the company can raise prices because it has less or no competition left. This practice harms competition and, in the long run, it can result in higher prices for consumers and lower wages for workers.

The Clayton Act also prohibits an individual from sitting on boards of competing corporations. This illegal practice can lessen the competitive vigor that would otherwise exist between truly independent rivals. By sharing a board member, the two companies might synchronize pricing changes, labor negotiations, and more.

The goal of the Clayton Act is to maintain a fair marketplace where various companies can compete, giving consumers more options and better prices, and giving workers a fair market for their labor. This law also protects individuals and small business from being unfairly treated by larger companies. Overall, it works to keep markets competitive and ensure that businesses play fair.


Draw your own conclusions.

Aussies are paying $145 a kilo.
Exchange rate is $.65 AUD per or $1.52 AUD per USD.

There is a major financial input from the Federal Government to increase the size of the facility and production capability.

This is good for every handloader using the Aussie propellants.

So if I'm deciphering through this correctly, it ends up you are paying around $42 a lb USD? If so, it's a lot worse than that here now on some powders.

Seafire, I heard the same thing just last week from a LGS owner. Shortage of nitrocellulose, and they don't carry Alliant, so that must be the word through the gun industry in general right now, not just from Alliant.

Judging from the huge size of boxes used to ship the tiniest objects to my door daily...I'd say there is no particular shortage of cellulose fiber. Western softwood forests have become choked and overgrown with new growth leading to catastrophic super fires...we WERE thinning and efficiently burning wood fiber for electricity...but because the polar bears were melting ....that has slowed drastically by .gov edict.
In Calif alone millions of acres of burned timber was allowed to rot because the chip market was flooded with logs.
Scot powders of a few years ago produced a great line of powders from cotton.
7/16 OSB is 14 bucks a sheet here...cheaper than it's been in a while.
I'm havin' a little problem with shortage of raw materials story.

Not long ago I read that there’s a shortage of nitrocellulose, obviously not cellulose, and that the major producers are mostly Asian. It’s used for a wide variety of products, including paint. Like other needful things, we’ve allowed the production to go offshore, putting us at risk in troubled times, at the mercy of our adversaries. Someday we may wake up and decide to control such things, but globalist thinking dominates the world economy, as well as greenie policies that also push critical industries abroad. The cherry on top is all the shooting wars and buildup for more of the same. I don’t expect much price relief while all these factors are still in play, so no time soon, if ever.

I’m concentrating on using up what I have and don’t plan on buying except at extreme need, as I have a lot of powder that’s suitable for multiple cartridges. Kinda on the lookout for CFE 223 though……

Powder Valley has Varget now for $53.51. Yesterday they had no hazmat fee for orders over 99 bucks, but that's over.

I’ve worked in the mining industry for over twenty years. I’ve seen mines shut down and then we bought over seas, often communist China. China is buying up our federal reserve treasury bonds. I worked in the computer industry. The bean counters at Sperry where I worked payed off in the neighborhood of 300 engineers. The bean counters figured they could buy cheaply over seas and engineers were not needed. I worked for Westinghouse, the second largest electrical manufacturer in the world, they died. The largest was General Electric. They are only a shadow of what they were. Westinghouse and GE made everything in the USA. The outsourced most everything before they died. The steel industry was huge in the USA. Pittsburgh was the main center. Go to Pittsburgh now, it’s a crying shame.
I could go on and on. We fight the communists in war. But we buy from them between wars. They take over almost all critical industry. Now we’re being forced by our government to switch to EV. Buying from Communist China. I wonder how our politicians are becoming stinking rich, who is paying them under the table.

You see here on 24hourcampfire people bragging about their Communist Chinese bore scopes - there’s zero concern.

Most of Americans won't realize they are being led to slaughter until it's to late.....if it's to late already.

Local Academy $74.99 IMR 4064 is $76.99 they've got to be kidding!

Early in the internet stampede, Lucent developed a means to provide HS (for then) data, video, and telephone service for concentrated customer locations like high-rises. That idea was stolen by Chinese industrial spies, causing Lucent to abandon the concept. Not all that long later, I was working with a Lucent tech installing some equipment in one of our offices and he had to contact his tech support for the latest procedures. Guess where that support center, with access to all their technical information was located. Yup, China! You really can’t fix stupid…

LGS has 8# of Varget at $440. Folks can whine but I do not see any reloading components dropping much in price going forward. Buy now or whine more later is where I run.

Not every tree makes good cellulose. Not every kind of celulose makes good nitrocelluose.

But there is plenty of nitrocellulose out there--and the worlds militaries are thankfull they can get so much of it right now.

Let's go back 60 years and think about how many rifle powders were available? Maybe 15 different powders? Today there probably 60 powders (granted, they're not all readily available at any given moment currently). Where did the big majority of this increase in a variety of powders come from? Foreign manufacturers. Who have always been the this source. Big Game has never been made in North Anerica for example, along with 20-30 other rifle powders that have always been made overseas.

The militaries of the world have always been the primary buyers of smokless powder and other propellants.

Sporting ammunition has always been a distant second.

Active (that's a key word) handloaders represent a tiny, TINY fraction of the propellants used in the world.

Most of the advanced countries have some version of our War Production Act, but in this case ammo and component manufacturers are more than happy to fulfill multi million dollar contracts with militaries the world over, and it doesn't really matter if the powder manufacturer is located here in the USA or Bumfook, Egypt.

Everybody loves capitalism in theory--until it doesn't go our way.

Conspiracy theories. It explains everything these days. Sigh......

I didn’t start loading my own until 2021. The perfect time to try and find components. LOL I found all I needed though. I paid $238 for 8 pounds of Varget back then which sounds like a deal these days. Paid the same for 8 pounds of H4350 as well. Hybrid 100V was $187 for 8 pounds.

Higher prices.......customers quietly turn away.
Higher prices.......customers make a mental note of who and where.
Higher prices.......customers smile and listen to the excuses and lies.
Higher prices.......customers STILL quietly turn away.
Higher prices.......less and less is sold...slowly.
Higher prices.......less is sold and it starts to sit there and begins to stack up. ......and it is stacking up.
Higher prices.......the TRASH that keeps raising the price will start to worry about "WHY" its not selling......BUT actually knows why.
Higher prices.......the TRASH raises prices on other items to make up for the loss.....and they will....and they have.
Higher prices.......Bookkeeper tells the TRASH you eventually will have to "DO" something.
Higher prices.......Bookkeeper shows a sales report that has a distinct down turn.

Best
HeavyDove

Yeah. Unfortunately most businesses today are
owned and ran by those that don't have an understanding
of the business itself and all the ins and outs of
keeping the business running and profitable.
They've got that degree though. . .

Someone else gets it. Handloaders have always sucked hind tit. We get the leftovers and nothing else. Every handloader in the world could quit, not buy 1 single item ever again and it wouldn’t effect their bottom line one bit.

After all of the primer/powder/bullet shortages in the last decade or so, I'll never come up short again.

Like food, I buy and rotate stock and use everything I have.

Once I settle on a load in a rifle, I load as much brass of the chosen brand as I have available with that combination and have supplies on hand to reload 2x or 3x more times.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

This is 100% true. All sorts of bs theories backed by zero evidence here about hoarding and gouging, the wars the wars the wars, and "quit buying that will make them lower the price". Reloaders are but a lonely tit hair on a big beast and prices are not going to go down.

A pound of powder will last longer than a box of Nosler bullets at $80/box

Was at the local reloading supply store this morning. They said they were told not to expect any more powder for remainder of the year. They said whether that’s true or not remains to be seen. But they also mentioned beforehand also that they were told prices would go up on Jan 1st this year with another increase shortly after and that happened also.