Some Observations about Powder and Primer Components

Yes, I do believe finished ammo is back and fairly easy to find now.

It was very discouraging to go into an Academy or Cabelas or any local LGS and see nothing but empty shelves.....no toilet paper either!🙂
 
My wife was telling me that the started of shortages. Two Older Gal's in Costco had there cart full of coffee. I bet they are still wondering what they are going to do with it. I saw another place during that time, with a garage full of paper toilets and toilet paper. At lease the Rats will have place to stay and be warn during the winter.
 
Veteran said:
If I read this article correctly over 40 million new guns were sold in 2020 and 2021 respectively. 19 million in 2021. Now I had seen many articles saying 13 to 15 million but nothing like this.
..

www.fox13news.com

American gun sales continue to surge, new research finds

Firearms sales fell 13% from the high of 2020, but were still 40% higher than 2019, SafeHome.org found.
www.fox13news.com www.fox13news.com

Its no wonder ammo shelvess and powder shelves were empty awhile
and we are still having a hard time with components supply.
Throw in the pandemic, the Brandon administration, and supply chain issues, inflation, and its a miracle we can find anything..

Of note several formerly online retailers have given up the ghost as applies to selling specifically powder and primers online.
They may start again someday, but for now, they dont.

Recobs in Wis., Greentop in Pa.
Salida Gun Shop in Colo., as little as 6 months ago would sell powder online. Grafs still does but is pretty much dead. Same at 3rd Generation Shooting Supply which did have a decent powder dump in early Feb. now dead again.

Scheels has now eliminated powder
prices from their website, and I guess this means they will rename the store "steels" cause they apparently will let individual store managers price on what the market will bear or what the latest inflation report dictates....February started decently w some decent powder dumps at Midway, Brownells
Natchez, and MidSouth, Powder Valley, 3rd Generation too.

Some places like Precision Reloading, Midway, MidSouth,
got nice deliveries of many Vihtavuori powders except the ones we all want, N560, N565, N568, N570. Did it all go to Ukraine?

Finland is their neighbor you know.

Hodgdon powders and non Enduron IMRs were the main powders we saw arrive to market in early Feb.
Very few Alliants, very few big rifle VVs.

I have noticed a trickle of Alliants here and there the last few weeks, but no real dumps, just short or flash sales of the reloaders.

This last week has been downright dismal. Hardly any powder or primers from any source?

Is it Ukraine? Is the govt. soaking up more supply due to Ukraine?
Or is it the calm before the big wave? I dont know.

But I dont see new online retailers, just ones going offline, prices going up, and not being advertised online anymore.

Still limits and restrictions and the time out olympic games at Powder Valley that we all love to be gladiators in.

Is this market getting better??

I dont think so.

40 million new gun owners.....dont know whether to believe that or not?

But there hasnt been one new powder factory, primer factory or plant built in the US in the ladt 2 years except maybe Midwest Powders, making generic smokeless offerings or a new primer plant on an abondoned military site I read about recently.

I think we still got problems right here in river city......big problem not much is actually made here in the U.S. as opposed to packaged and distributed.

Hodgdons mostly made in Australia
IMR- mostly made in Canada
Alliant -Switzerland and Belgium
Vihtavuori -Finland
,Accurate and Ramshot USA
Winchester USA

March will be interesting one way or another...
Click to expand...
Don't know if powder went to Ukraine but Finland has been threatened by Russia not to join NATO, maybe they are holding back to take care of there own needs?
 
Been told by reliable person who owns Gun Store along with reloading supplies that there will be a drop of Hodgden including Varget, H4350 ,H1000 etc, will show up in next couple of weeks. Hope he's right.
 
Yeah I have been wondering what happened to all the IMR ENDURON powders. They have been scarcer than
Retumbo, Varget and the like lately. They are MIA, KIA, or AWOL FROM THE MARKET.

Does anyone know if Hodgdon's moved the Enduron powders to offshore production somewhere or they just basically did away with them, because they didn't want them to compete with the Hodgdon Extremes?

I got 1lb. of 8133 the other day from an LGS, the only one they had, and it was 2018 vintage or something.

Maybe they didn't want it to compete with Retumbo, but now there's no 8133 and no Retumbo either.....what gives?
 
There are so many things working against us at the current time. Sometimes we are own worst enemy by continuing to buy things at grossly inflated prices. I don't blame the people for trying to get the most $$ for their goods and services. If people continue panic buy and pay way more than is reasonable, it will become a price that the market will accept. I get reasonable increases in these inflationary times. Self control is important to stabilize the market.
 
It's a long journey from Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, or Australia, especially with restrictions and port issues. Since St. Marks in Florida, only makes ball powders, some for Hodgdon/Winchester, a couple for Alliant, and a small amount of Accurate Arms, we have to wait for Reloder Swiss, ADI, Nitro Chemi, and Bofors to export, then we have to wait for them to be repackaged and distributed, since they arrive in bulk drums. The major problem is stated above, if you continue to panic buy, especially if you don't actually need it, this could go on for years, and these ludicrous prices will never stabilize. I don't think the issue getting VV powders is quite the issue you may think, the base powders for N560, N565, N568, and N570 are RS70 and RS80, which are also the base powders for RL22, 25, 26, and 33, plus Norma MRP and 217. They get different additives and treatments, and are shipped out to be repackaged as we get them, and the majority of the slow burners that we are looking for are not used in military applications, a little in 300WM and 338lm, but not in typical military small arms. Imr is still Canadian, and they produce even the enduron series, with the exception of 8208xbr, which comes from ADI. Hodgdon won't drop the Imr or Winchester powder brands, because they are not a competitor, Hodgdon doesn't make powder, they just repackage and sell it. So, dropping other brands would be a terrible business decision.
 
I was told by my buddy at the Pentagon that with the Army line units transition to 6.8 don't expect any extra powder anytime soon.

Not really, I just wanted to take part in the blame game and woe is me.

Life is good and the world doesn't revolve around my narrow interests. We shall survive this.
 
There have been supply issues here in Australia with ADI who produce Hodgdon powders. This is mainly affecting pistol and shotgun powders which are produced in a new plant that has been experiencing teething issues apparently. Added to that has been the usual Covid excuses. This has been coupled with logistics issues since TNT decided on a whim to cease transporting firearms and ammunition, powder, etc. Another company, Northline followed suit shortly thereafter. So supplies here have been affected quite badly. ADI claim that they don't export Australian made powders but they do supply the ADF with ammunition, so I'm sure a lot of their inventory is directed to that. I believe Hodgdon powders for the north American market are produced in Canada, or so I believe.
 

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