Hello folks, here is an update on the shortage. I am viewing the top 10 largest reloading outlets in the USA, daily. A few people are monitoring 20x a day as well. This is a similar trend to the past. It usually goes like this, and this shortage is same...
In order of scarcity:
1) Primers - I have only bought about 4,000 since about March 2020. I see them come in stock somewhere 1x a week, and are gone within usually minutes. Most stores have limit of 1000 per order, mostly. The last 2 months, without a shadow of a doubt, more frequency of primers have been for sale than previous 9 months.
2) Powder - For 2nd half of 2020, powder was very hard to get. But now I see it coming into stock almost daily at various outlets. When it comes in stock, its usually all one within 1-2 hours. If you pay attention, you can buy "ballpark" of what you need, I would say at least bi-weekly, if you look. Since most calibers you can use like 20 powders and 5.56 you can use about 40 powders, you can find something that works.
3) Bullets - For 2nd half of 2020 ALL kinds were sold out, generally, and you could not even get FMJ, or soft points, which are most common 2 types. Now, for the last month, there is bullets in stock even for 5.56/223 almost all the time, every single day. You can buy soft point, FMJ, Barnes even. Berger is in stock more often. Sierra is lagging behind and hardest to get right now perhaps. Nosler is available weekly.
So at this rate, people will have the bullets and powder they want/comfortable with, then they will be waiting for the primers. People will stockpile after this, making it longer to recover. Most people that reload will want at least 5k extra, with the serious people doing 50k extra+.
So based on history of these cycles, I think later this year, many bullets AND powder will be in stock and easy to get, but primers will not recover due to the stockpiling of serious people, until probably Christmas of 2022 is my forecast.
I just thought I would share my thoughts based off my previous experience with 3 shortages.
In order of scarcity:
1) Primers - I have only bought about 4,000 since about March 2020. I see them come in stock somewhere 1x a week, and are gone within usually minutes. Most stores have limit of 1000 per order, mostly. The last 2 months, without a shadow of a doubt, more frequency of primers have been for sale than previous 9 months.
2) Powder - For 2nd half of 2020, powder was very hard to get. But now I see it coming into stock almost daily at various outlets. When it comes in stock, its usually all one within 1-2 hours. If you pay attention, you can buy "ballpark" of what you need, I would say at least bi-weekly, if you look. Since most calibers you can use like 20 powders and 5.56 you can use about 40 powders, you can find something that works.
3) Bullets - For 2nd half of 2020 ALL kinds were sold out, generally, and you could not even get FMJ, or soft points, which are most common 2 types. Now, for the last month, there is bullets in stock even for 5.56/223 almost all the time, every single day. You can buy soft point, FMJ, Barnes even. Berger is in stock more often. Sierra is lagging behind and hardest to get right now perhaps. Nosler is available weekly.
So at this rate, people will have the bullets and powder they want/comfortable with, then they will be waiting for the primers. People will stockpile after this, making it longer to recover. Most people that reload will want at least 5k extra, with the serious people doing 50k extra+.
So based on history of these cycles, I think later this year, many bullets AND powder will be in stock and easy to get, but primers will not recover due to the stockpiling of serious people, until probably Christmas of 2022 is my forecast.
I just thought I would share my thoughts based off my previous experience with 3 shortages.
