Good article.
Normal news....that's a good sign.
Ammo prices are getting problematic. I'm not shooting less, but am hurting more.
I don't believe the fellow who says he can reload .40 S&W for 4 cents a round. There's some creative accounting there no doubt....
Higher price to fire
Posted on: Sunday, August 03, 2008, 6:40 AM
Herald/JOHN A. BOWERSMITH
Cole Hurley settles in to his bench while shooting during a .22-caliber rifle shooting competition at Stan’s Shooting Range in Florence Saturday morning. With the price of ammunition rising — due to higher demands for military contracts — shooting ranges are reporting fewer rounds being fired, and even area police departments have had to scale back training while they wait for orders to be filled.By Victor O'Brien
Killeen Daily Herald
A high demand for ammunition, spurred by war efforts, has created shortages and rising costs that have made precious metals even more precious.
While brass is essential to protecting U.S. interests abroad, it is just as precious to police departments protecting Americans in their hometowns.
The shortage has forced law enforcement agencies to consider keeping ammunition stockpiles on the shelves and out of guns used in training.
Lt. Michael Click heads special operations for the Killeen Police Department and orders the ammunition for S.W.A.T. team training. He has been waiting since December for a shipment of several thousand .223-caliber bullets used in their M-4 rifles. Click said the price isn't keeping bullets out of guns but rather shortages caused by ammunition manufacturers overloaded by U.S. military contracts.
The team has fired off all the bullets it can without dipping into the ones kept aside in case of an emergency. The result is KPD has cut back on a 60-round firearm proficiency test and delayed other training mechanisms based on priority.
Click said if the shipment isn't processed in the next few months, officers might have to start waiting several months or a year before they can demonstrate proficiency with firearms. This could be a problem because without live bullets, SWAT officers can't certify to use the guns that allow them to do their jobs. However, he doesn't anticipate that will happen.
"We have ammunition for deployments and being out on the street. We just don't have ammunition to do the kind of training we're accustomed to doing," he said.
The shortage hasn't impacted the rest of the department on the street because it is rare that bullets are fired in an actual crime-fighting situation. Also, there was a four- to five-month delay on handgun ammunition, but the orders are being filled so the delay isn't affecting patrol officers.
Harker Heights Police Department Lt. Loretta Fox said the city's officers use different handguns from KPD. Heights officers have experienced similar delays, but they have not encountered problems with doing their job because the bullets arrived before they began to deplete their training stock.
However, the department has reduced nighttime shooting qualification tests from two a year to one.
While Click and Fox said they have not seen a significant increase in price because they order ammunition in bulk, the heightened rarity of precious metals has caused gun hobbyists to fire fewer rounds.
Rising prices
David Cheadle, manager of Guns Galore in Killeen, said that he has seen almost monthly increases in ammunition costs from top manufacturers since about mid-2007. He said manufacturers blame the shortage on rising gas prices.
"It's bad enough to where when I order ammo, whatever I order this month, if I reorder the same ammo the following month, the price has gone up. It's just about as bad as gasoline these days," Cheadle said.
The cost of those bullets gets passed onto customers, who instead of buying four boxes at $20 each are limiting themselves to only three, Cheadle said. It has particularly affected target shooters, including law enforcement personnel and military hobbyists who fire off lots of rounds for practice, Cheadle said.
The shortage hasn't been all bad news. It has meant that more shooters are recycling their brass and reloading their bullets.
John Choats, co-owner of Stan's Shooting Range in Florence, said he can reload his .40-caliber Smith & Wesson bullets at a cost of 4 cents per round, instead of paying 27 cents per round. He estimates that ammunition prices have more than doubled since the Iraq war started in 2001, especially for high-caliber ammunition. He urged casual shooters to buy a .22-caliber pistol and shoot all day at a range for less than $15.
Even with the rise in prices, shooters still want to fire away.
"It's like gasoline, everybody complains about that, but we're not about to stop driving. It's the same thing with target shooters. We might buy a few boxes less, but we're not going to quit target shooting," Cheadle said.
