We had a gun show 2 weeks ago, I got there at 10:30am and I estimate the line to buy tickets was about 1/10th mile long. I left, I heard the line finally was gone by 2:00pm. I went on Sunday, got in line 1/2 hour early, then took 10 minutes to get in after buying a ticket.
There was only one large ammo dealer, I heard the Saturday line was pretty long for them, they had them isolated in a corner. Not much of a line Sunday, but they had little left--no 22LR or 223. They had some primers and handgun ammo in addition to the usual hunting ammo in various cartridges. They also sell professional reloads for common calibers and had none that I could see. Another professional reloading company was taking payments for future shipments--they didn't have many takers. Some smaller outfits had Bulgarian spam can AK ammo 700rds/$275. There was some PMC 223 for 1000rds/$850. I didn't see these guys selling much. AR's were available for $2000, not many mags or lowers (except the polymers). No uppers to speak of, prices were jacked up where there were.
I had made it a point to visit Scheels, Cabelas and Sportsmans Warehouse that week to see what they had. Not much--no 22LR, 223, 7.62x39, 308, 9mm, 40S&W or 45ACP unless it was the really pricey stuff. Hunting and shotgun ammo, yes, but not much in reloading supplies, and only some shotgun primers and some powders.
Fast forward to today, I visited the Big 3 again and it's even worse--same ammo outages except now even the pricey common stuff is gone, and now even the not so common cartridge reloading brass was decimated. Nosler and Speer bullets were the most common in stock. Scheels had a clipboard with powder availability (which they had put up in the last shortage period), and it showed all 0's--no powders. No primers except some shotgun. Rem 30-06 green/yellow box was common at two stores, Scheels had lots of 22-250, and the only 22LR was the rat/bird shotshells, not even any 17HMR. Sportsmans said the only primers they have gotten were 6k (yes, 6 x 1,000) two weeks ago. All employees said the same thing--we get what we get, there is no rhyme or reason to it, and it sells out immediately. There wasn't a new Glock to be found, but lots of SigSauer's. The only revolvers were 22's or 44mags on up. Cabelas had some Hodgdon and IMR 1# cans for $29/#, but not much selection.
The one large independent store in town had the best selection at high prices. An 8# metal can of IMR 4227 was marked up to $250 (when is the last year IMR packaged in metal cans?), single 1# powders were $30, old packaging Speer and Hornady bullets were marked up to $30/$40/$50 per 100, etc. AR's were available starting at $2,000, they had at least 2 with a $4,999 price tag on them. I looked for gold plating or maybe a gold coin embedded in the stock but didn't see any.
Over here, it's nuts out there.
