Unobtanium - What's Old, is New

[Jager]

I was browsing one of my old issues of Handloader Magazine (May-June, 1974, #49) and had to laugh when I came across Neal Knox's old column, Lock, Stock, and Barrel. Neal started off with:


"WITHIN THE PAST couple of months I’ve been getting a lot of mail from readers concerned -about components shortages, and whopping increases in costs. Some have worried that this is the result of companies cutting back on production, or allocating a higher percentage of components to loaded ammunition, in an effort to “squeeze out” the handloader.

That isn’t what’s happening. There are shortages on the dealers’ shelves, and prices on some items have spiraled, but the cause - so far as I can determine doesn’t lie in the manufacturers. On the contrary, most of the manufacturers are producing at full capacity."


We tend to think that whatever situation we're experiencing in the present is new and unique and special. It seems we are ever destined to learning the same thing over and over again!

The message is pretty obvious... buy what you can, when you can. Because those components that we all depend upon - and too often take for granted - will inevitably go missing at some point.

 

[itchyTF]

Wonder what the reason was back then? Don’t recall much anti-gun sentiment at that time.

 

[jk80]

I can remember lead shot at 25 dollars a bag back around 1978. With wages what they were back then it put a stop to trapshooting for me. Shells took a corresponding jump too.

 

[Walt Krafft]

Wonder what the reason was back then? Don’t recall much anti-gun sentiment at that time.

Arab oil embargo, gas prices sky high if you could find it.

 

[jelenko]

Wonder what the reason was back then? Don’t recall much anti-gun sentiment at that time.

I think it's just that some people always want to find a 'conspiracy' against them.

 

[mikecr]

The message is pretty obvious... buy what you can, when you can.

What you posted suggests that buying everything up is the cause of shortage, and not actually the solution.

 

[SBS]

What you posted suggests that buying everything up is the cause of shortage, and not actually the solution.

That's true, so you need to buy a lot before the other hoarders get it all!

 

[Lefty Trigger]

I'm just going to chill and wait it out. It will come back, it always does. Right now with demand high prices can be what people will pay. Sooner or later the demand will drop and with the factories having ramped up production the stockpiling will show up on their inventory floor and to move it the prices will come back down. The only bad part about this that most of you shoot matches on a regular basis and "need" those supplies thats why there is panic buying. For me I just shifted directions and I'm trying new powder and bullets that I would normally never buy, some with really good results. I refuse to pay a hundred bucks for a brick of primers.
Just chill it will come back, it has before...

 

[drop_point]

In 2018, you could buy all the reloading components you wanted to without causing shortage for anybody else. It was collecting dust. The same was true with ammo. When the small sub-segment competitive shooters compile, we cannot make a dent in overall supply. But when EVERY shooter, gun owner, prepper, and their aunt is buying everything they can get their hands on, supplies dry up quickly.

 

[mikecr]

Mostly peaceful protests from our domestic terrorists didn't help.
And notice how they're no longer 'useful'..