The other day, I was in a local store and I saw more ammunition on the shelves than I have seen in almost two years. I won’t say that the problem is over by any means but it got me curious about some other locations and specifically components.

Last night, I had the occasion to go to the larger nearby city for some specific lightbulbs I couldn’t buy locally. I thought that I would stop in to Sportsman’s Warehouse to see if that matched my local experience. Again, they had some ammunition, pretty much what they have had recently 9mm, 40 S&W, 7.62×51, 6.5 Creedmoor and 12 gauge goose and duck loads. I did see a few boxes of 38 special, 22WMR, 44 special, 223 and 5.56 and that was new.

This post isn’t another inventory report on who has what, where. As I said in the first paragraph, I was looking for components not just ammunition. And the good news it seems like you can buy bulk (handgun) bullets but still not powder and primers. I have talked about my position before but I thought that I would hone in on my specific situation to give perspective.

Reloading became popular in the 1960’s. It was a way to get much better performance or specific results out of a firearm. So for instance, if you buy 45 Colt factory ammunition, it is loaded for maximum pressures not to exceed what could still be fired in an Colt 1873 Army revolver. The new Ruger Blackhawk can handle pressures up to the SAAMI limit (not the 45 Colt limit) which is three times that amount specified for the cartridge. Hence, you get the +P designation that you will see on a box of ammunition.

Still using that example, the 1873 originally used softer lead bullets. There is a phenomenon causes lead to foul the barrel if travelling too fast. This is why using a copper jacketed bullet is preferable if loading to higher pressures. Since the 45 Colt uses the same bullet diameter as the 454 Casull and the 460 Smith and Wesson there are a lot of selections of construction and weight to choose from (if you reload).

If you already own a 45 Colt, then you might already know all of this including loads safe to shoot in an 1873 are marked ‘Cowboy’ meaning lower velocity and soft lead bullets. Specifically, there is a specification for the pressure and construction that will prevent you from harming yourself if you are shooting something 150 years old. Confused yet?

I reload because I enjoy it. I also reload from the preparedness aspect. This time, I was unprepared in a way. From the last ammo shortage (2012-2016) I learned that primers were unavailable for years, I got those. Bullets are now somewhat available (and I have some). Powder is still scarce. So while I have a little, I don’t really have enough to load the primers I have.

The idea with reloading is that you find the right powder, primer, bullet combination that makes your firearm perform at its best. Where I am in the journey is that I have loaded some but haven’t done a whole lot of testing. Therefore, I held off on really having the stuff on hand to weather an ammunition shortage like I had planned. Now that we are here, I don’t have the options or the knowledge that I would like.

I suppose the industrious ones bought whatever they could find. I have seen a lot of trade requests for powder and primers happening over the year. In fact, a number of my bottles I haven’t yet opened because I just don’t do that much rifle shooting and I have been waiting to build up enough brass to run a batch for testing purposes. The powder on the left were what I wanted to try first.

End Your Programming Routine: So, that is my interest in components. Before all of this hit, I was building a starting point inventory and didn’t quite get there. Now all of that has been on hold for several years with no end in sight. Just because one powder can work in two cartridges doesn’t mean that it is optimal either. The only way to get there with the knowledge is to do it. With that, I hope it clears up soon.