To put it plainly to all.... nothing is going to get any better anytime soon and I'll spell it out for you right now...as I'm done with this being beaten to death or blaming powder or ammo makers or bullet makers or primer makers etc... for not making enough stuff.
Or people on conspiracy stuff and saying the gov't is hoarding/buying up all the ammo so we can't get anything. No truth to it at all and in fact the gov't is out of ammo and powder at times... the stuff simply cannot be made fast enough.
Also some powders take longer to make.... the powders that have a lower usage.... are not getting made so they can focus on the higher volume/needs type powders etc...that have a higher priority/usage rating... call it what you want.
Since the year of Covid and riots in 2020 demand for ammo and even for us reloaders.... the industry pretty much has not caught up and will not catch up per se... don't forget in 2020 and 2021 alone there where 13.2 million first time gun buyers/owners... if those 13.2m owners each wanted 100 rounds of even just 9mm ammo.... that comes to 1.32b rounds of ammo if I did my math right.... and no one in the industry could've predicted what was going to happen and have been prepared for it...even if they started ramping up it wouldn't have been enough... so is everyone still tracking here?
Then the war in Ukraine happened.... unless you are unaware we are shipping everything from 5.56 ammo to tank ammunition to howitzer ammo over there.....
Then.... the fight in Israel/Gaza happened.....
Then..... one of three yes only three! Manufacturing plants on this planet that makes nitrocellulose which goes into powder blows up....don't believe me.... read the article...and this is a short one you can look up others....
PARIS (AP) — An explosion Wednesday at a French plant that produces a component of gunpowder injured eight people, one of them seriously, local officials in southwest France said.
apnews.com
So with that plant being offline.... 1/3 of the worlds production is gone right now. The word on the street is at least two more years....
Oh...by the way a normal 105mm round uses 30# of nitrocellulose in it and our artillery supply for rounds was low before the war in Ukraine even started!
What I'm hearing is that ammo makers for this year are not going to get all the powder they want.... next year as well. I know places already couldn't get certain types of powder as of last year.
So I say the trickle down effect goes like this.... military is going to get priority, and then the ammo makers are next on the priority list...anything left over that is available and when it's available will go to us reloaders.
To top all of this off... I've never seen the amount of emergency requests for ammunition test barrels that I've been seeing since 2020 and there has been no let up.
So we all need to get a grip on what the reality is.... and it's not good!
Oh and don't forget all the do gooders over here blocking manufacturing because they say it effects the climate! Not just for powder but for iron, copper and other minerals as well.... so we are relying more and more on imports!
Happy Tuesday!
Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels
