Reloading supplies, by Coyyote

Last weekend I pulled my old but well cared for Winchester 94 (pre 64) out of the back row of the safe. Have not hunted with it in over 20 years. Got about 2 boxes of ammo so went online to stock up. Very little available and the two sources I found were $1 09.00 and $110.00 per box of 30-30! What BS, I’ll just load up a bunch. First I found that there are no quality reloading dies available now 30-30, but with a hour or so of diligent searching I found a tier 2 set. Bullets were less of a problem, but brass was not easy to find at all.Then powder, which for the hotter cartridges I plan took over 2 hours to find. Of course did not even look for large rifle primers as fortunately I keep a good stock.

So it took all afternoon to get dies and components for a Winchester 30-30! This is not the kind of gun you plink with or take to the tactical class or even use in cowboy shooting competitions. It’s a gun that sits in the back of the safe or a closet to come out for deer season and the single round it takes to convert deer to venison. Yet, ammo and reloading supplies for this old deer rifle are virtually non existent?

So if you have other calibers in your safe besides the popular ones you train with my suggestion is check your ammo supply now. And if it’s low, good luck with components and dies, but try to stock up now.

Coyyote

Spread the love
                

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

33 Comments

  1. Kockstart December 9, 2020 at 12:07

    Was looking at reloading stuff while everyone else was looking for ammo. Had to wait on primers and powders until I had the cash to spare but by then it was too late. Now if I can find it, I’m grabbing it.

    • Johnny Paratroopers December 9, 2020 at 15:02

      Save your money. Buy some extra groceries. Have a barbecue or something. If you throw a Barbecue, your friends will help you when you need it.

      I fired 7 bullets, 2 HEDP 40mm grenades, 10 non-lethal rounds, a burst of .50 caliber, and 1 hand grenade in Baghdad over 11 months and 22 days to keep my friends and I alive.

      You’ll be fine with what you got. Form relationships and build quality Yagi’s for Baofengs.
      Comms > Bombs.
      Last week I bought a pile of brushes, patches, solvents, lubes, and cleaners.
      Brownells has 12 packs for $15-$20 a piece. Great deals.

      • Brad December 9, 2020 at 19:44

        I think you’re on the money here. However continuing to grab it when you can find it is probably not a bad idea. Plus, I kinda like to shoot.

      • vyt1az December 9, 2020 at 21:48

        How many total rounds did you fire in training prior to those incidents?

        • Brad December 9, 2020 at 23:33

          I think if you are commenting here, it assumed you’ve put a few down range. Maybe discovered your natural point of aim. Etc, etc.

        • Johnny Paratrooper December 10, 2020 at 09:36

          Dry Fire and Dime/Washer Drills by the thousands. Hundreds of live rounds per exercise.
          The standard that Scout uses in his classes is on par with any infantry live fire exercise.
          None of what he does or I say is an accident. There is a method to the madness.
          I trained hundreds of soldiers for combat in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Africa.
          Not one has died, or been shot, to date. Trust us. We aren’t gonna lie to you.

          “Remember Your Training, and You will Come Back Alive”
          -Robert A. Heinlein
          “Starship Troopers”

          • vyt1az December 10, 2020 at 21:48

            Exactly why people should be worried about ammo right now. They’re realizing that they’re going to need tons of ammo to train with vs the minuscule amount they probably kept around thinking about combat only per your example.

  2. oldtimer505 December 9, 2020 at 12:12

    Yup…..I have had the same experience of late. With all the manufacturing capacity that is available with all these components, can someone tell me why everything is in such short supply? I don’t mean just loaded ammo. I am speaking of brass, primers, bullets, powder, ammo in general, toilet paper, paper towels, canning jars, canning jar lids & the list can go on. I shouldn’t even bring up the one thing that is in such short supply it has crippled the nation, Common Sense. We are in deep crap here folks. JMO

    • Johnny Paratrooper December 9, 2020 at 14:55

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement

      “After U.S. president Donald Trump took office in January 2017, he sought to replace NAFTA with a new agreement, beginning negotiations with Canada and Mexico. In September 2018, the United States, Mexico, and Canada reached an agreement to replace NAFTA with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), and all three countries had ratified it by March 2020. NAFTA remained in force until USMCA was implemented.[13] In April 2020, Canada and Mexico notified the U.S. that they were ready to implement the agreement.[14] The USMCA took effect on July 1, 2020, replacing NAFTA.”

      Because we are currently taking back our country, our treasure, and our trade.
      Please stand by…

      Also, the entire planet is gearing up for WW3. Literally. Russia is literally reloading old ammo with new powders and primers.
      Think “Bronze Age Collapse” of 1177 BC. But the Brass/Silicon Age Collapse of 2020. New supply lines, new routes, new customers. And people are hoarding and price gouging. Not bad, not good. Just the way it is.

    • Reluctant Millennial December 9, 2020 at 21:54

      It’s called “just in time” (JIT) supply chain logistics. Stores (both mom & pop shops and big box stores) only keep on hand the amount of inventory they expect to sell with almost no extra. Their regular deliveries just replenish what was sold (again no extra). The manufacturers don’t want to keep inventory in hand either, so they set up their manufacturing lines to only produce as much as they sell to the stores. So when a buying surge happens there is no slack in the supply chain to produce more. Learning about this in engineering school over a decade ago is actually what turned me into a prepper since even as a college student I realized that this was a recipe for disaster.

  3. SOG December 9, 2020 at 12:22

    gunbroker is a good source for powder and primers and bullets but of course be sure deal with vetted sellers

  4. John December 9, 2020 at 13:13

    Cheycast bullets in Cheyenne has cast lead coated bullets. Free shipping if you get at least 1k bullets.

    • NC Scout December 9, 2020 at 13:22

      Nice!!

      • SOG December 10, 2020 at 08:21

        A certain state has sent out letters to 20 year veterans of their Gaurd/reserve (welcoming them to the organized state militia) referencing troubled times. let that sink in.

  5. Coyyote December 9, 2020 at 13:23

    One of the things that stimulated my interest in dragging out the 1894 Winchester was looking ahead to possible scenarios. Living on a ranch does require occasional trips to town for supplies. In the future a AR variant may not be the best option as a truck gun if you happen to get pulled over by the town cops. The 1894 CAR (Cowboy Assault Rifle) will pass muster as part of our ranch truck. It is not a bad option for close to moderate range work and paired with a 1911 provides a modicum of security for those ventures into the “civilized” parts of our country.

    Gunsite and a few other training schools are starting to offer tactical lever gun courses, or check out Richard Mann on Utube.

    • NC Scout December 9, 2020 at 14:15

      Mann is a good guy. He also took the Scout Rifle concept and really has done some great stuff with it.

  6. Brad December 9, 2020 at 13:54

    RCBS in Oroville Cali. is running 24 7 and can’t keep up.

  7. spin gerahat December 9, 2020 at 14:02

    I was always a hoarder so I have enough stuff for now but I think the current situation is going to be the permanent situation. Because as it looks the steal is going to happen. If it does civil “unrest” is inevitable
    Maybe will be able to resupply from dead communists
    I am willing to head to DC armed, if a few hundred thousand or a million of us converged on the den of vipers… it possibly could be headed off for a while.

    • Johnny Paratrooper December 9, 2020 at 20:40

      Shoot and run for your life. Do not attempt to go anywhere near enemy controlled sectors of fire. You’ll die. You really think your life is worth $50 worth of ammo?

  8. Rooster December 9, 2020 at 14:58

    There are often times obscure gun shows at local VFW lodges, or the like, that will not be well attended and actually have stuff. Also check the FUDD boards at local gun clubs and you may find something posted there….and meet some neat old fudd to boot. This current shortage may be around a while since we have such a high degree of election fraud against the people. The people know this and is why there aint squat to be found without luck and scrounging. “We the People…….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
    AK ammo is still available….hint hint
    R

  9. Mark December 9, 2020 at 15:03

    Chronometers are out of stock at my favorite shops. Even the plastic boxes for stacking loaded ammo are in short supply. Only two reloading books in stock. They are short on everything.

    Here is the deal. For the last couple decades, there are fewer and fewer people doing things for themselves. Self reliant people (canning, gardening, cooking, farming, raising livestock, heating with wood, shooting and hunting) have been shrinking in numbers. We are literally dying of old age. And no younger people are are coming in behind us. Everyone else is stuck to their eyephones. Zombies. They dont do anything for themselves anymore – thus they don’t buy anything for self reliance. So manufacturers are shrinking and producing less product.

    Think about it. If only 1/4 of one percent 0.25% of the population does any of these things regularily, and supplies are geared toward only o.25% of the population consuming this stuff — then just increasing the numbers of consumers to a full 1% of the population will wipe out inventories. From 0.25% to a full 1% is a 4x increase in demand. I am guessing that most manufacturers cant increase their production by more than double. Thus we have shortages.

    These shortages have been developing for at least 20 years. My library of self reliance books cannot be replaced today. Most of the bioks are now out of print. 10 years ago i began resorting to the used book market to get literall half of my libray. Nobody reads anymore. Few people buy books because they can’t. Thankyou marxist incompetent controlled schools.

    This was not by accident. These things are all connected.

    The marxsts couldnt disarm us directly. So they dumbed down the education system to produce stupid highscrewal gradiots. Stupid people can be trained to give up their rights. Note the maskholes eagerly acceoting their slavery. Once dumbed down, they stop reading, stop learning, stop doing anything for themselves, and eagerly give up their rights. Genicide is waiting. Democraos ate openly calling for violence against conservatives. The dumbed down screwals, the total dependence on “the system”, the calls for genocide against political enemies, , the mask wearing, the phony pandemic, the Hutsies and the Tutsies. These things are all part of the agenda.

    If you cant get something on your list, then shift priorities and get other things you will need over the long term. These shortages might not end until after the planned festivities. Reloaders were buying bullets and other supplies a little at a time every month. Food and knowlege bases are best accumulated the same way.

    By the way, lead bullets are probably not a good idea for high velocity purposes. Leading the barrel and then putting copper jacketed through, could cause over pressure. Lead is best used for slow moving ammo like .38 and .45. Pistol rounds.

    • wwes December 9, 2020 at 15:40

      Most of my students, who are almost all 14-18 years old, look at me like I’m crazy when I talk about reloading, fixing things themselves, canning, growing food, etc. And this is in a rural area, with me teaching Agriculture classes. You would think the kids taking Ag classes would want to learn this stuff, but most of them don’t. They sign up for the classes because they want to play in the welding shop (and are surprised when they find there is more to welding than just burning rods all the time) and pet the goats, cows, turkeys, pigs, and chickens that we have on campus. They act like it surprises them when they fail the class that they refused to work in, and when they get zeros on their report cards for assignments that they wouldn’t do.
      Most of the kids that hunt won’t even process their own deer, they shoot it and haul it to a processer. Nothing wrong with having one processed if that’s your thing, but a lot of them don’t even know how to dress one. A lot of them can’t read and find information, or they refuse to (or both) I can’t even read a lot of what they turn in to me because their handwriting is so awful it’s illegible (not that I have wonderful penmanship, but you can read it at least.)
      I frequently have assignments turned in to me written at least partially in text language.

      I teach them how to do things like weld, wire simple circuits, read a tape measure (which they SHOULD already know how to do, but most don’t) Cut, grind, drill and file metal, grow plants, and care for animals. Many of them won’t put the effort in to learn that stuff.

      Not that all of the students are like this- there are some truly wonderful students who thrive in spite of all of the bullshit that the school system piles on them.

      And about the bullet casting thing- lead bullets can work in most rifle rounds, you just generally have to reduce velocities, size the bullets to the bore (normally .001-.003 over groove diameter) and use the appropriate lubricant. Working up cast loads is fun. And don’t let anyone tell you that cast loads won’t take game, they can do so, and do it well. It is harder to get them to work well in smallbore overbored cartridges.

      • Johnny Paratrooper December 9, 2020 at 20:37

        It’s not their fault. The internet is run by people who hate them and teaches them to be stupid idiots with 1 minute attention spans. It’s really, truly not their fault.
        Everyone in my classes is mentally ill with purple hair. Or they are fat communists. Which is a first for the lower ranks of the proletariat.
        I have to teach kids how to use paint brushes and shovels because they literally have zero idea how to use one.

        • Wallace the Reptilian Overlord December 9, 2020 at 22:20

          I was born in 2000, and just finished processing four goats with my father. And I reload, and shoot black powder. So we’re not all a lost cause, but weakness and ignorance is a colossal epidemic amongst my generation which I only avoided by dint of being homeschooled, which still had its disadvantages.

          What you said about not knowing how paintbrushes work IS NOT hyperbole. I remember before my friend’s parents pulled him out of Boy Scouts, he told me once about a time he was tasked with supervising some younger scouts who were supposed to be painting a garage door or something. They were given a couple paint rollers, and were just kind of dabbing them onto the wall, making thin little horizontal splotches on the door. When my friend picked up the roller and ran and rolled the head over the whole side of the door, they looked at him like he was some kind of wizard. And even that guy doesn’t process his own deer.

          The coddling of mine and earlier generations has been nothing short of criminal.

        • wwes December 10, 2020 at 08:59

          You’re right, it’s not their fault, but it’s still a damn shame. And along with all of the internet stuff you mentioned, it comes from having no raising from their parents too. Most of them have been “raised” with a tablet or phone in their hands. I’ve noticed a huge change in the quality of most of my students even in the last few years.

    • Reluctant Millennial December 9, 2020 at 21:48

      I never thought about it until reading your post, but you are absolutely right. Of all my shooting friends in my age group (late 20s/early 30s), I am the only one who reloads. I always gets surprised looks from the older guys at my range when they ask me for my brass and I tell them no because I reload. All of my friends who I do talk to about reloading are in their 40s or 50s. No one taught me to reload- I just decided one day that .45 was too expensive so I bought a Lyman reloading manual and taught myself. My generation is so used to being spoon fed everything that almost no one just goes out and tries things.

      • wwes December 10, 2020 at 09:05

        The one upside to it for me is that my kids who shoot and hunt usually bring me a decent amount of brass that they would throw away. We just don’t tell anyone at school, they tend to frown upon ammo or components at school.

        They actually locked one of our middle schools down for ~2hrs because they found a round of .380 ammo in the hallway. I know the kid whose bookbag it fell out of, they spent the weekend shooting. Thankfully they never figured out it was him or he probably would have been in a world of trouble.

        It never seemed to occur to them that we routinely have 10000-20000 rds of shotgun ammo and about double that in 22lr stored in my classroom for the shooting team.

  10. Green Mountain Shooter December 9, 2020 at 17:44

    Did my monthly shift as Range Safety Officer at my local gun club today and was reluctant to shoot much. I’ve been reloading for a long time and am not short on consumables but still need to maintain a balance between proficiency and supplies. The current state of humanity’s lack of self sufficiency will come back to bite them in the ass. We are fast approaching the time when there are no people left in America that know what it was like to live through the Great Depression and WW II. I pray that there are enough of us left in America to pull us through the invasion of our country by the globalists.

    • James December 9, 2020 at 21:16

      GM mountain,am thinking you are in the kingdom(i.e. Vt.),there are a lot of folks in the hills of New England that can if necc. share a bit of food for the rest of the people,this is only beginning.

      • Green Mountain Shooter December 10, 2020 at 09:45

        James, we fled the Socialist Republic of Vermont in 2018, we saw the handwriting on the wall years before that. Northeast TN is now our AO. In addition to VT’s socialist government, Canada is just across to border. While many people use California as the poster child for liberal socialism, Vermont is just as bad.

  11. Anonymous December 10, 2020 at 08:24

    5

  12. SOG December 10, 2020 at 14:22

    Items to buy when Ammo is short.

    Life insurance, carry insurance
    Irregular hygiene items Delousing/head-lice shampoo, premethryn for uniforms and lice/scabies etc.
    Washes OTC for poison ivy
    Antibiotics (veterinary)
    Pepper spray (crowd control)
    Flash lights & IR lights -handheld, rifle-mount, pistol-mount, helmet mount
    Gas, diesel, propane generators
    Fuel cans
    Pellet fuel, Propane, Cord-wood etc
    Wood stoves, pellet stoves etc region specific
    Power tools, chain saw circ saw, etc
    Zip ties
    Motion detectors electric and / 12ga and 22 primer trip flares
    Smoke grenades (airsoft), pyro –
    flare guns, flares,
    Flash-bangs (airsoft or DIY)
    Compass
    Face paint camo
    Bow and arrow
    Night vision and thermal – budget options sightmark, flir scout (finance this shit if the balloon pops who cares about your credit score)
    IR laser illuminators (dbal, peq etc..) visible lasers, range finders,
    Upgraded triggers, timney, gieselle,binary etc
    Body armor/plate carrier (wife, kids dogs, everyone gets a set!) tactical scorpion gear is a good source
    Helmet bump/kevlar
    Home security system/cameras NV capable (Harbor-freight)
    Trail cameras
    Hunting blind pop outs
    Freezer, standalone
    Gun safe/wall safe/ground safe( dirt vault)
    Suppressors- *figure it out.
    Electric Ear Pro each member/rifles
    Eye Pro each member/rifles
    Radios- field phones
    Drone for recon
    Vehicle radio, CB, scanner etc
    Scanner apps for civil unrest etc..
    Mobile In vehicle entertainment for children, DVD,tablet etc
    Tow behind trailer, vehicle, ATV side by side etc
    Used 4×4 used ATV, Used sidebyside or dirtbike, etc
    Solar charger panel, rechargeable batteries
    More regular batteries
    Soap, detergents
    Chow more chow, canned boxed etc- discount and dollar stores
    Another set of boots
    Winter gear, surplus gear

  13. Anonymous December 13, 2020 at 19:59

    3.5

Comments are closed.

GUNS N GEAR

Categories

Archives

Spread the love