Thursday, September 17, 2009
Hunt is on for ammunition
Bill Cochran
Recent columns
If you are planning on buying a box of .30-30s, .243s, .30-06s or other ammo for deer season, better not wait too late. The fact is, you may already have waited too late.
Ammunition is scarce. And expensive.
“Some [calibers] are totally impossible to find,” said Ellen Horn, who operates Hunter's Den, a mom-and-pop gun shop in Craig County and trades on the Internet.
“My ammunition now is probably one-third of what I had six months ago,” said Horn. “I can’t replace it, and I am talking to distributors all over the United States. Hunters should buy it when they see it, because there isn’t going to be any more.”
Even .30-30s, a popular choice in a rural mountain county like Craig, can be tough to find in certain brands or grades.
“The only .30-30s I can find anywhere are Federal Fusions,” said Horn, who spends much of her day on the phone and Internet with distributors. Often missing from her shelves are the green Remington and the silver Winchester boxes of ammunition.
Expect to pay as much as $20 for a 20-cartridge box of .30-30s that you could get for $12 last year. A box of 20 Remington Core-Lokt .30-06 rounds can cost you $40. That’s $2 a pop. If you buy from a mail-order or online source the shipping can be an additional $12.
All this can be jaw-dropping for people who are not aware of what is going on.
“It gets really, really frustrating when someone comes in and I don’t have what they need -- after I’ve always had what the need -- and I have to tell them that I don’t know why.”
The scarcity and soaring prices are being attributed to a multitude of things:
- China is using up raw materials that normally would go to the manufacture of ammo.
- Manufacturers are signing contracts to provide ammunition for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than for hunting and sport shooting.
- Drug wars in Mexico are burning up ammo.
The most likely cause is the recent hording that took place by people who feared the Obama Administration would impose tighter gun and ammo controls.
“The man who always went out and bought one box of ammunition and fired his gun three times to make sure it was lined up, then hunted with the rest of it, all of a sudden got scared and bought it by the case,” said Horn. “That happened all over the Unites States.”
Mom-and-pop shops aren’t the only ones whose ammo shelves look a bit snaggletooth. The largest ammunition retailer in the country, Walmart has been rationing sales, imposing a six-box limit at its stores. Other chains also have posted limits. Gun shows are being scoured and when ammo is found it often goes out in bulk.
“You have mom-and-pop shop owners going to Walmart hoping they can get six boxes to put in their store, and finding they are out, too,” said Horn.
This isn’t likely to be a long-term occurrence, but long enough to impact the 2009-10 hunting season. Ammo makers are working 24/7 to catch up.
Here are some observations from Horn:
- Find out what you need now and buy it.
- Unlike ammo, hunting guns aren’t scarce, nor have there been large markups on them.
- If you are buying a hunting rifle, it might be wise to get the ammo first -- then the gun to fire it.
- If you can’t find the ammo you normally use and have to purchase a different brand, be aware that it likely will shoot differently even if it is the same grain. That means having to re-pattern your gun, which involves burning additional ammo, so don’t get caught short.
- Bowhunting gear has not been impacted.
- Muzzleloading guns are plentiful, and so is powder and bullets for them. But what can shut you down is a scarcity of primers, like No. 11 caps. If you can find them, expect to pay three times what you did a year ago.
