COULD BE, WE'RE DESTROYING OUR OWN SPORT
Mike Haas
(Originally posted Wednesday, March 13, 2013)
Had lunch today with a rangemaster of a local gun range. Great place, sells ammo, friendly, nice premises. No surprises that the range had been extremely busy for months, of that there is no doubt. It had been busier and busier, eventually folks had to start to waiting to get a bench on the weekend and turned into waiting during the week!
They had lots of trouble getting ammo and what they could get, they only sold to those who were shooting that day. Until recently...
The waiting stopped. Suddencly benches were available on the week. Then the weekend. What? "Had the new gun buyer market been saturated?" I asked. "No," he replied, "people can't find ammo."
He then tells me he knows of lots of panic buying going on. He knows one fellow that stocked his garage with 30,000 rounds of .223! That's probably a couple hundred average shooters that can't get ammo now. It creates a sense of panic and spreads like wildfire. He also said a lot of local sellers are jacking prices into orbit. Lots of gouging going on.
I think there are parties that want the blame to go to government, that they sre sucking up all the production. But from what I see with my own eyes and ears, WE ARE DOING THIS TO OURSELVES. We are now panic buying to the point that it is preventing many from shooting.
Now, I've finally been getting low on my favorite AR bullet, the 69 gr. Sierra HPBT Match (1380). They must be favorites for lots of folks because I haven't been able to find 'em for months. On a whim, checked Midway USA and yep, out of stock. But that's a great site and it allowed me to search for all available .22 rifle bullets by all manufacturers.
There were about 12 or 15 bullets, ranging from 40 to 80 grain, various manufacturers. I was able to order 500 (a normal quantity for me) 69 gr. HPBT Match by *NOSLER* (didn't know they made one, very curious to see how they compare.) So my horizons will be expanded - I'm not too old to handle that.
But I'm stuck with this feeling that someone, somewhere, has my 500 Sierra bullets and yours too. And yours and yours and yours... and he's probably going to regret that huge purchase (at probably way too much money) and never shoot our bullets.
We shouldn't do that to our sport, to each other or to ourselves. Again.
Got the above in an E-Mail today, sorta says it all.
Mike Haas
(Originally posted Wednesday, March 13, 2013)
Had lunch today with a rangemaster of a local gun range. Great place, sells ammo, friendly, nice premises. No surprises that the range had been extremely busy for months, of that there is no doubt. It had been busier and busier, eventually folks had to start to waiting to get a bench on the weekend and turned into waiting during the week!
They had lots of trouble getting ammo and what they could get, they only sold to those who were shooting that day. Until recently...
The waiting stopped. Suddencly benches were available on the week. Then the weekend. What? "Had the new gun buyer market been saturated?" I asked. "No," he replied, "people can't find ammo."
He then tells me he knows of lots of panic buying going on. He knows one fellow that stocked his garage with 30,000 rounds of .223! That's probably a couple hundred average shooters that can't get ammo now. It creates a sense of panic and spreads like wildfire. He also said a lot of local sellers are jacking prices into orbit. Lots of gouging going on.
I think there are parties that want the blame to go to government, that they sre sucking up all the production. But from what I see with my own eyes and ears, WE ARE DOING THIS TO OURSELVES. We are now panic buying to the point that it is preventing many from shooting.
Now, I've finally been getting low on my favorite AR bullet, the 69 gr. Sierra HPBT Match (1380). They must be favorites for lots of folks because I haven't been able to find 'em for months. On a whim, checked Midway USA and yep, out of stock. But that's a great site and it allowed me to search for all available .22 rifle bullets by all manufacturers.
There were about 12 or 15 bullets, ranging from 40 to 80 grain, various manufacturers. I was able to order 500 (a normal quantity for me) 69 gr. HPBT Match by *NOSLER* (didn't know they made one, very curious to see how they compare.) So my horizons will be expanded - I'm not too old to handle that.
But I'm stuck with this feeling that someone, somewhere, has my 500 Sierra bullets and yours too. And yours and yours and yours... and he's probably going to regret that huge purchase (at probably way too much money) and never shoot our bullets.
We shouldn't do that to our sport, to each other or to ourselves. Again.
Got the above in an E-Mail today, sorta says it all.
