The Great Primer Famine Of '08 Is Ending?

It may be a sign that The Great Ammo And Primer Shortage of '08 is finally about over but Midway USA actually has some of the cartridges that have been in very short supply in it's clearance section of their website. The prices, even at a clearance level are far above what they used to be but, still, prices on everything are high. One brand of Small Rifle Primers (the kind used in the .223/5.56 Nato) was also on clearance. It wasn't very long ago that none of those primers were for sale at all at Midway, for over a couple of years.

It's kind of amusing, too. This week's clearance includes several sorts of .380 acp ammo, along with .40 S&W, .45 acp, .38 Special, .357 and 9mmP. This latest addition of Handloader Magazine has a nice long article about how we should use the data in the article to handload .380 ammo because we just can't buy it these days. This gives an idea of the lead time in a magazine. I still contend, though, that every shooter should have some basic handloading gear and components, just in case. One can stow a Lee Loader, a thousand primers, two pounds of powder and a thousand handgun bullets into a big coffee can and two shoeboxes. A big game rifle cartridge would take more powder but then, even a full charge .30-06 will get like a hundred+ rounds per pound of powder.

There are only a few locations where a person who looks "of age" even has to show ID to buy reloading gear or components in the USA. As long as I pay cash, nobody would know I have enough powder, primers and bullets to go shooting, whenever I want, for a very long time. Assuming I had any cash. Sigh. Oh well, if will take me a while to build my stocks back up after the Great Primer Famine of '08, but rebuild I shall.

I'm sort of lucky on this rebuild process because as I have shut down on varmint and big game cartridges, I now only use two kinds of primers, plus shotgun, and even my brass shotshells use the same Large Pistol Primers that my .45s do. So, these days I can do all of my shooting with Small and Large Pistol primers and three kinds of powder, one for the full charge .357 and .45 Colt Loads, one for easy shooting loads in those, plus the .38 Special, and another kind of powder for the PlusP loads in .38. Plus the Black Powder for Cowboy Action.

Anyhow, as long as we can prevent the idiots in the Federal and State Capitals from ruining things, and there isn't another war, we will have a bit of a chance to rebuild our home stocks.