Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
The firearms sales are easy to explain: People are afraid. New gun owners, old gun owners - everyone. You'd have to be blind not to see the increasing civil unrest, political instability and crime in the country and even the blind can doubtless feel the evil vibrations.
The big problem isn't guns; it's the ammunition and reloading component shortages. Lots of people - including some old hands in the gun game - have been scrambling hard to fill holes in their ammo supply. New gun owners don't have much of a chance to acquire any serious ammunition supplies. To the good, a lot of gun shops were conserving their ammunition supplies and letting new gun buyers buy a single box of ammo with a firearms purchase. A single box - usually fifty rounds - isn't enough to allow any practice worthy of the name, but I guess it's better than nothing.
From what I read on the gun boards around the country and from my first-hand observations on the MS Gulf Coast, the ammo shortages have gone beyond critical. 9mm and 5.56 have become unobtanium and other calibers aren't far behind. On the reloading scene, small pistol primers are the scarcest component, but all primers are just about impossible to find. Without primers it doesn't matter how much powder, brass and bullets you have, you aren't loading sh*t!
Even my shooting club has cut the amount of ammo we shoot in matches by half. If this keeps up much longer I think we're doing to have to cancel our matches indefinitely. None of the members I've spoken to are almost out of ammunition, but none of them are going to get to that point by continuing to shoot the matches.
Best
Doc
The big problem isn't guns; it's the ammunition and reloading component shortages. Lots of people - including some old hands in the gun game - have been scrambling hard to fill holes in their ammo supply. New gun owners don't have much of a chance to acquire any serious ammunition supplies. To the good, a lot of gun shops were conserving their ammunition supplies and letting new gun buyers buy a single box of ammo with a firearms purchase. A single box - usually fifty rounds - isn't enough to allow any practice worthy of the name, but I guess it's better than nothing.
From what I read on the gun boards around the country and from my first-hand observations on the MS Gulf Coast, the ammo shortages have gone beyond critical. 9mm and 5.56 have become unobtanium and other calibers aren't far behind. On the reloading scene, small pistol primers are the scarcest component, but all primers are just about impossible to find. Without primers it doesn't matter how much powder, brass and bullets you have, you aren't loading sh*t!
Even my shooting club has cut the amount of ammo we shoot in matches by half. If this keeps up much longer I think we're doing to have to cancel our matches indefinitely. None of the members I've spoken to are almost out of ammunition, but none of them are going to get to that point by continuing to shoot the matches.
Best
Doc