What's on your stores' shelves for ammo and reloading supplies?

[Ranger Rick]

I wandered into Boise yesterday for a Dr apt (last time was in November), and stopped by the two big outdoor stores and one gun shop. Wow, were the shelves bare! Each store had a lot of 300wsm ammo (20+ boxes at each store), some 6mm Creedmoor ammo and a selection of $$$ Weatherby ammo. For reloading, there were a few .277 bullets, 5.56mm brass cases, but no powder and no primers. I have not seen H-1000 anywhere for months, so that wasn't a surprise. The handguns, ARs and shotgun pickings were slim.
What's going on in your city & state?

 

[JMW67]

Local gun shop owner wanted to know if I had any guns I would like to get rid of if that tells you anything bought retumbo at another shop recently along with a few other powders the inventory lasted one day and their shelves were empty again the owner said he had no idea when he would get another shipment no primers bullets brass or loaded ammo in this area right now

 

[LuvDog]

They are either empty or other stuff is taking those spots. LOL. Empty ammo cans, gun/rifle cases, etc seem to be popular items taking up those spots.

 

[Rifleman97]

I had to do some traveling for work in the past week so I checked out a few places. The reloading store in St Louis (can't remember the name) had Accurate Magnum, and Reloader 23. Unfortunately I don't have any loads for those powders so I didn't want to spend the money on something that might not shoot.

Franklin's Gun Store in TN had a pretty well stocked wall of ammo, but nothing you really want. (Like they had 223 and 9mm but it was only brands I've never heard of)

In Story City Iowa they had a pound of 4831ssc and if I remember right, a 8 pounder of 7828. No common calibers except for 44 special, but all the uncommon stuff was in stock.

All of the gun stores mentioned said they haven't gotten a shipment of primers since at least February last year. One of them said December 2019.

Bass pro shops in Altoona Iowa had a couple cases of primers due to mismanagement. Apparently everyone thought that those cases were for a different department and no one claimed them. One guy pulled out his knife and opened a box and they were full of primers, and the guy from the gun counter opened the rest and said limit 1 per customer. I grabbed a brick of Federal large magnum primers, they were all gone in 20 minutes.

The bullets I like to use aren't really cheap; so they've been pretty well in stock this whole time. (.308 caliber Nosler 210 ABLR, 230gr ATip, .257 caliber 100 gr partition)

But I am a bit scared. The only magnum powder I have left is 8 pounds of US 869, 2 pounds of RL19, and 1 pound of 4831. I was pretty well stocked before the pandemic but since I've been loading and shooting I've completely ran out of H1000 and N570.

 

[JMW67]

sounds like you should have bought up some of the rl- 23 hopefully you can restock before you run out

 

[TRnCO]

shelves are bare of everything around here. Oh I guess a guy might find some shotgun shells, but anything to do with pistol or rifle is NA.

 

[martinakl]

I wandered into Boise yesterday for a Dr apt (last time was in November), and stopped by the two big outdoor stores and one gun shop. Wow, were the shelves bare! Each store had a lot of 300wsm ammo (20+ boxes at each store), some 6mm Creedmoor ammo and a selection of $$$ Weatherby ammo. For reloading, there were a few .277 bullets, 5.56mm brass cases, but no powder and no primers. I have not seen H-1000 anywhere for months, so that wasn't a surprise. The handguns, ARs and shotgun pickings were slim.
What's going on in your city & state?

It's really bad around Boise for sure. I haven't really seen either of those big box stores you're likely mentioning with a well stocked reloading inventory since pre Obama years. Hit or miss on their loaded ammo supplies. Pre Obama years, Sportsman's was my go-to. I rarely spend any money at either place now. Except for fishing stuff.

The only place around here with anything that I know of is Cliff's Guns & Safes off Fairview Ave. They've had primers this whole time from what I can tell. At one point they were $85/1,000. The last time I went in, I overheard the new rule is you have to buy a bullet for every primer you want. Premium prices on everything but if a guy was hard up. I've never met anyone with a favorable opinion of that establishment.

www.zidaho.com is a scalpers paradise.

 

[Rifleman97]

sounds like you should have bought up some of the rl- 23 hopefully you can restock before you run out

I tried looking up some reloading charts for it, I've never used RL23 before, and there was almost no data on it. And since I was traveling I didn't want to sit around hoping that Alliant would respond to my email before I had to leave the store. That powder isn't listed in any of the nosler reloading tables for the cartridges I reload. (Nosler because I was on my phone googling and that's what came up)

Edit: the place by St. Louis was called Full Circle reloading if anyone needs RL23 in that area. I probably should've gotten some but I don't want to spend a hundred dollars on a powder I've never used and have no data on (in the hundred or more range because I'd need enough to develop a load, not because their prices were high)

 

[Ranger Rick]

It's really bad around Boise for sure. I haven't really seen either of those big box stores you're likely mentioning with a well stocked reloading inventory since pre Obama years. Hit or miss on their loaded ammo supplies. Pre Obama years, Sportsman's was my go-to. I rarely spend any money at either place now.

The only place around here with anything that I know of is Cliff's Guns & Safes off Fairview Ave. They've had primers this whole time from what I can tell. At one point they were $85/1,000. The last time I went in, I overheard the new rule is you have to buy a bullet for every primer you want. Premium prices on everything but if a guy was hard up. I've never met anyone with a favorable opinion of that establishment.

www.zidaho.com is a scalpers paradise.

Spot on Martinakl. The other store was Id Guns & Outdoors on Franklin. Their parking lot was full, guys were parking across the road. Inside, signs by ammo said, "Idaho residents only" and "Limit: One box per person."

 

[Schnyd112]

Sportsman's in Reno had Gm205m this morning. 4 whole boxes. I got one. Been going every Shipping day for the last 6 weeks trying to get 1000 and it finally paid off. Not much else on the shelves. Good selection of 338 bullets though.

 

[lhp63190]

At the box stores, it goes out as soon as it comes in. At the local (mom & pop) stores, they're mostly selling on the internet due to prices/demand being so high. This allows them to sell at max profit without "offending" their local customers for price gauging.

I've been able to work out a deal with my local store by paying them up front and they reserve my goods when they come in. The rest go up on the web on gunbroker or some psuedo website.

 

[Tidus56]

I walked into two guns stores I like this last weekend. One store had ARs everywhere, I would guess 80-100. The line to the gun counter was out the door and there were people walking out with 1-2 rifles and 200 556 rounds.
The other store had 2 Scorpions(I remember because I wanted both) and 6 ARs. This store specialiazes in black guns so I would have figured the reverse would be the case in the two stores.
There were a lot of stressed out ppl at store 1. I marched out with my allotted two pounds of powder and a 2 boxes of loading bullets.

 

[jdyoung]

Just for kicks, I looked this up on the internet - Gun Sales 2019 vs 2020. Copied the first answer to post for reference.
In August 2020, firearm sales in the United States grew by 57.8 percent when compared to the same period in the previous year. Around 1.8 million handguns were sold in the United States in August 2020.

 

[martinakl]

Just for kicks, I looked this up on the internet - Gun Sales 2019 vs 2020. Copied the first answer to post for reference.
In August 2020, firearm sales in the United States grew by 57.8 percent when compared to the same period in the previous year. Around 1.8 million handguns were sold in the United States in August 2020.

I think there's a little bit of a silver lining to what's been happening and that's a whole bunch of new gun owners in 2020.

This was from August 2020 article:

"Nearly five million new gun owners have joined the 100 million-plus gun owners already in the U.S. in 2020, according to recent estimates from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). The same data also shows that 40% of all firearms sales are going to first-time buyers."

Source:

An Official Journal Of The NRA | Nearly 5 Million New Gun Owners in 2020

Record-setting year continues with millions of new gun owners.

www.americas1stfreedom.org