The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I keep on hearing rumours of various popular reloading bits and pieces becoming more and more difficult to get hold of, but who knows the facts?

Today on a well known American forum there's a mention of H4895 and Varget being difficult to obtain at the moment and I've certainly found H4895 seems to be difficult to get right now.

Then there's talk of everyone being out of stock of the popular large rifle primers and waiting for a shipment to arrive.

I always seem to be in the situation where I work up a good load which works, only then to find that I can't get hold of any more of the bullets, powder or whatever.

So does anyone on here know the real situation (Hodgdon powders in particular but also other items which may not be readily available over the next few weeks/months)?

It's a part mix of military supply chain demands, buying panic now that the Kenyan is back in for a 2nd term & "drastic" proposed anti-gun policies that may be in the pipeline & urban whispers...

One of the suppliers I get reloading kit from gets primers in in LARGE shipments - anything from 100,000 to 500,000 at a time.
Guess how long they remain in stock?
Clue: the answer is NOT in weeks = it's a few days

Unless I have primers on back-order I've got zero chance of getting primers as the big shops have HUGE numbers on permanent order

The other side to the problem is that the importer may order 500,000 & get 150,000.
Other times they may get ZERO as the ships captain may refuse to have them on board...so another two/three weeks delay

I'd not pay too much attention to US Forum "shortages" - it may just be that their local Walmart (ASDA) was out of things on the day they did their grocery shopping. They are very spoiled in terms of supply in the USA but don't know it as they've not experienced how it is elsewhere - like in the UK....(NO reloading suppliers RFD within an hours drive of me, and I'm a 25 minute drive from the capital city of Scotland...)

Do what I do: the powder allowance was upped this year from 5kg to 15kg - USE IT. When you see powder/primers, buy them.
I've not noticed ANY of the kit coming down in price, nor has the cost of petrol to drive from shop to shop to gunshow, etc.
OR
Get a few mates together to save on the £25(ish) Hazardous shipping charge & buy in bulk

This happened a few years ago, which led to me having a stock of primers that was frankly, obscene....

I'm still using that "batch"....!!

Sim G wrote:This happened a few years ago, which led to me having a stock of primers that was frankly, obscene....

I'm still using that "batch"....!!

:goodjob: me to !

I have just bought a 1,000 CCI S/R primers without any problems ,
apparently in the US when the presidential elections are due there is a run on any thing firearms related , those wanting to be ready and those afraid what they have will be denied to them so they stock up .

Dave

The reason we have shortages is because Sim G and takb have bought all the bloody stuff in their panic buys!

dromia wrote:The reason we have shortages is because Sim G and takb have bought all the bloody stuff in their panic buys!

i do a lot of things but panic isn't one of them!

dromia wrote:The reason we have shortages is because Sim G and takb have bought all the bloody stuff in their panic buys!

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I even sold some back to my local place! :lol:

And come to think of it, I've used some of them as "currency" in a number of deals. Turned out to be quite an investment....