The rimfire supply mystery

ruger22 · Post by **ruger22** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 12:41 pm

My local big boxes pose a mystery on ammo. I gave up on LGS ammo a long time ago, so I don't know how they are, but assume they're doing worse.

My Sportsman's Warehouse has a reasonable amount of every caliber, except .380 and all the rimfires. They do get .380 regularly, but only a case or two at a time. They haven't received a single box of any rimfire for six weeks, except for half a case (?) of Shorts last week. Oddly, they seem to keep a lot of 9mm now, and have cases of .223 and 5.56. Those were once the shortest supply.

I went to Gander Mountain this morning for the first time in several weeks. They got one case of Shorts, and a case of .17. Wowee. Looked at the rest of the ammo section, and it actually looked nearly normal. Stacks of most ammo three boxes deep, six high, 8-10 wide. So why no rimfire????

Federal emailed me in September that Value Packs were set for production starting October 1st, and I still haven't seen any, since December. It just doesn't make sense.

bgreenea3 · Post by **bgreenea3** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 2:33 pm

Oversee somewhere that the ammo companies run their ammo in batches, switching calibers and runninging it for a certain amount. They are not going to run a line of 32 acp non stop, for example, there's not the demand for it. I bet the high volume rounds like 9, 40, 45, 308, and 5.56 run continually so the shortage can get caught up more quickly on those. With 22, however I'm as confused as you.

Post by **Bullseye** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 6:45 pm

They do run batches of ammo on the machines. What has really thrown off the scheduling was all the unpredicted demand for ammunition when all the proposed legislation talks started to happen after some major events. It is not just the tooling that needs adjusting, many companies run on "just-in-time" supply sources. This means they don't have the lead and brass necessary to fulfill the demand for certain ammo calibers when they go into high demand. Lead is at a high-demand status with some smelters going out of business and creating other supply line related shortages.

R,
Bullseye

bgreenea3 · Post by **bgreenea3** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 1:19 am

I've heard mixed reports on the smelter shut down effecting lead supply, some say the amm companies don't get their lead from there and other reports say its the end of lead ammo as we know it. its hard to know who to believe....

ruger22 · Post by **ruger22** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 1:00 pm

bgreenea3 wrote:I've heard mixed reports on the smelter shut down effecting lead supply, some say the amm companies don't get their lead from there and other reports say its the end of lead ammo as we know it. its hard to know who to believe....

I noticed this on Federal's website FAQs, haven't looked at the other makers:

""Does the recent news regarding a major U.S. lead smelter shutting down mean you'll have trouble obtaining lead for manufacturing conventional ammunition?"

At this time we do not anticipate any additional strain on our ability to obtain lead."

And this article from Sierra was linked to on another forum:

http://sierrabullets.wordpress.com/2013 ... a-bullets/