How to prepare and survive component shortage cycles

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LiveLife

LiveLife

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During my 30 years of reloading, I have seen several component shortage cycles; and we are in yet another component shortage.

So let's face reality and admit that component shortages are simple fact of life and if you reload, you must be prepared to survive future component shortages.

For this thread, let's not discuss what causes shortages and consider that primer manufacturers continue to produce at 100% production capacity and focus on supply/demand cycles.

Recent component shortages peaked in 2009 and 2013. And looks like current component shortage peak was in late 2020 through 2021 with signs of recovery showing in late 2021 (New "Where are reloading components available ..." thread now requires retailer/vendor links without discussion) - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...not-a-discussion-thread-link-required.883031/

In previous component shortages, particularly SP primers became first items to go out of stock followed by popular powders and these became "out of stock" or quickly sold out as they came back in stock at higher prices for about a year or two before shortage gradually improved over several months to year(s). So you would need to "prepare/stock up" roughly about 3-5 years worth of components to "ride out" non-availability or higher price phases of the shortage cycles.

So these are "preparation" steps to use to "survive" component shortages:
  • To determine how much you need to stock up, figure out your monthly shooting average and multiply by 12 to get annual usage. Then multiply 3 to 5 times to determine your "stock up" amount.
  • Based on your annual shooting amount, calculate how much money is required and divide by 12 to establish your monthly "reloading budget".
  • Put money aside and consider adding money from working overtime, selling unneeded items and tax refunds to your "reloading fund" to use when components become available at lower prices, especially on sale or to get higher volume discounts.
  • Consider adding 22LR shooting options like CMMG 22LR conversion bolt for ARs and Advantage Arms 22LR slide kit for Glocks along with 22LR pistols/rifles to shoot cheaper 22LR to conserve reloading components during shortages and for cheaper shooting drills/training.
  • Once you reached your "stock up" quantities, you can consider buying additional items (especially when you see great sales/low prices) like SP primers to use as barter items or to help out other reloaders caught short during future shortages. (You have no idea what people were willing to trade for my SP primers this past year ... Unbelievable)
I hope other members will chime in to share their component shortage experiences and with tips on what they did to prepare and survive past and current shortage.

Be prepared.
 
My first "component shortage" was during Carter's term. Trucking and transportation costs went into low orbit and the price of anything transported by truck went up or got scarce. It was a brief but educational experience.

One thing: Learn how to check powder for degradation, check it "often" using smart processes which won't increase rates of degradation, and build/acquire "proper" - which also means legal and up-to-code for YOUR locality - powder, primer, brass, and lead storage. The odds of a catastrophic failure are slim - very slim - but the consequences can be tragic. I agree with stockpiling but do it wisely. There are several thread on proper storage and most include links to building plans and products.
 
I recently gave up on primer hunting, I figured, I spend more gas/time looking for primers. Everything else can be found locally.

So here’s my stockpile plan, WAIT! Going to Florida and do some fishing, doing my other hobbies or shooting .22 til this blows over.
 
Mark_Mark said:
I recently gave up on primer hunting, I figured, I spend more gas/time looking for primers. Everything else can be found locally.

So here’s my stockpile plan, WAIT! Going to Florida and do some fishing, doing my other hobbies or shooting .22 til this blows over.
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Tampa/St.Pete again? FYI: one of my coworkers dives and spear fishes and tells me the deep water off the Gulf is looking good for Grouper this year. :)

Other hobbies are a good plan but mine are experiencing worse shortages and cost increases than shooting. During "The Global Chip Crisis," handloading and shooting ARE my cheaper hobbies.
 
My strategy is that the last time I got caught short in a shortage I started buying extra as soon as prices returned to normal. I do this after every shortage. I try to keep enough components on hand to shoot at my normal pace for 2 election cycles, or just slightly longer. It takes awhile to get this far ahead but once you do it gets easier.
 
Pretty simple ant/grasshopper equation, no reason to over think it. Ants stock up and prepare.....food, ammo, reloading supplies, medical supplies, water purification supplies, gas, etc. Grasshoppers don't. <shrug> . Everytime a shortage occurs, and this shortage cycle is far more than ammo and reloading, more people realize they need to become ants. I personally think we're coming into a period of hard times for americans. No need to discuss reasons, or politics, or "which side is to blame", but regardless, we're going to come into a period a chronic shortages across many areas, so I put forth the idea......it's not about ammo or reloading today....it's about everything that you might need during a period of hardship. Any moment today, civil unrest, natural disaster, terrorism......any moment, one or more of these can deprive us of the magic wall switch, or magic tap. We know at the blink of an eye, the store shelves empty, and our "just in time" inventory management system cannot recover quickly, and there are so many backend geopolitical pressures today on the supply side, that a shortage of Xwidget can impact a thousand different products downstream....and in almost every case, Xwidget is made overseas. We need to broaden our collective focus from "how to I survive a reloading component shortage" to, what do I need on hand if I can't shop locally for 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 6 months.....whatever timeline you can work with. Regardless, if you look around your house right now, and you can get by for 3 days.......you're a grasshopper. Maybe your'e a grasshopper with a years supply of reloading supplies, but if you are out of everything else, you aren't going to be loading much.....in fact, you're going to trade those reloading supplies for toilet paper...I know, because a year ago I traded a case of Cosco toilet paper for 2K small pistol primers. Guy was sitting on enough primers to load ammo for a lifetime....but he ran out of toilet paper. Something to think about anyway.
 
For me its been simple since long before Al invented the net. When stuff was on sale I buy a lot more than I need. Never really understood why so many seem determined to get caught over and over again :oops:
I understand people new to this but most of it seems to be people who live through many and still are caught. Stored well the stuff will outlive the buyer. Where I live we have long been told we could have a good shake one day. So we keep enough "goods" to be fine for a month or so if needed. When there is a panic run on something we sit back and wait. With ammo and such I keep enough for a couple years. Only time it's a PITA is if you have to move. We had to move a while back and it was a chore and a half moving the damn stuff. Still nice to know its there. Few ever seem to want to learn so not sure what to tell them.
 
Hopefully (and in all likelihood) the next shortage cycle will not also include a virus pandemic with all its associated problems real and imagined.

I didn’t know to prepare for this go round because I had never paid attention in the past. I was just chugging along living life. Now I know what to do and provided I have a chance to do it, I’ll need a new shed with A/C to store it all and avoid undue risk.
 
1KPerDay said:
Wow.
Click to expand...
upload_2021-12-9_13-39-20.png
I took this on the way to work one morning, March 2020. It wasn't a joke, either.

Yes, prepare by stockpiling but also prepare for having to save life and limb - flood, fire, and accidents. Having $20K of reloading supplies go up in a house fire is bad enough. Having your insurance claim for a $250K loss denied because those reloading supplies were stored improperly - or the insurer/Fire Marshall claims they were the cause of the fire - would be salt in the wound.

I think about what we would take if a Cat 6 hurricane was headed our way and I KNEW our house would not stand up to the winds or would flood and we HAD to evacuate. Replace hurricane with any natural disaster of your choice. We live near a lot of woods and pasture land so fire is a real threat, too.
 
GeoDudeFlorida said:
Tampa/St.Pete again? FYI: one of my coworkers dives and spear fishes and tells me the deep water off the Gulf is looking good for Grouper this year. :)

Other hobbies are a good plan but mine are experiencing worse shortages and cost increases than shooting. During "The Global Chip Crisis," handloading and shooting ARE my cheaper hobbies.
Click to expand...
Yep! 3.5 weeks in paradise!

I was thinking of looking for components for the heck of it in Florida, but I remember running into issue last year when I found 3 packs of LRP. I had no way of bringing it back. FYI my fellow stockpiler, you CANNOT bring primers on a airliner.
 
When we worked, both my wife and I were deemed essential employees and had assigned relocation sites west of DC. On 9/11 we learned they were different sites. Post 9/11 we decided instead our loyalties were to each other and the kids so we came up with a family bug-out plan and location—also upwind of DC. We drive up there from time to time just for practice—I should build a reloading shed there too.
 
Mark_Mark said:
Yep! 3.5 weeks in paradise!

I was thinking of looking for components for the heck of it in Florida, but I remember running into issue last year when I found 3 packs of LRP. I had no way of bringing it back. FYI my fellow stockpiler, you CANNOT bring primers on a airliner.
Click to expand...
While you were in the air did you see any factories under construction?
 
I'm definitely running low on components, but I'm at an all time high on loaded rounds. Last year I spent a lot more time reloading because there wasn't as much to do during lockdown. I had tons of components stockpiled, as I usually do, but I've burned through them over the last couple years doing more reloading, and buying very little. I'm at the point now where I'm having to slow down reloading because I don't have enough components. Once this shortage is over, I guess this means I'll need to increase my stockpiling. My wife will love that...

Though, I've long stockpiled food, toilet paper, medical supplies, etc. When the pandemic first took off and food and toilet paper started flying off the shelves, my wife finally appreciated my preparations. She even verbalized so. That was a great day.
 
GravelRider said:
I'm definitely running low on components, but I'm at an all time high on loaded rounds. Last year I spent a lot more time reloading because there wasn't as much to do during lockdown. I had tons of components stockpiled, as I usually do, but I've burned through them over the last couple years doing more reloading, and buying very little. I'm at the point now where I'm having to slow down reloading because I don't have enough components. Once this shortage is over, I guess this means I'll need to increase my stockpiling. My wife will love that...

Though, I've long stockpiled food, toilet paper, medical supplies, etc. When the pandemic first took off and food and toilet paper started flying off the shelves, my wife finally appreciated my preparations. She even verbalized so. That was a great day.
Click to expand...
Those three little words every man hopes to hear from his spouse some day, "You were right." ;) :rofl:
 
You guys all seem to be worried about getting through the cycles. I been worried about what to do when she flat lines.....and never comes back. Good news for me is I"m a low volume loader, so a modest amount of components will keep the guns running hot for my lifetime, and beyond. Almost there now. But that longevity assessment also assumes that both primers and powder have a long shelf life if stored right. If not, and components dry up for good, we eventually coast to a stop like everyone else.

As for the rest of you, can't begin to comprehend shooting the volumes some of you do. If that was me, when times get rough, I'd be ready to drop down to a .22 or even a precision air rifle. Knocking paint balls off a golf tee at 50 to 100 yards takes some shooting skill too. And at 1% of the cost of a rifle or pistol round.
 
I just started shooting again in 2017 after decades away from it. That is also when I started reloading. We were just coming out of the obama shortages. The best advice I was given by many here on THR to me was to buy twice as many components as I consumed.

That is how I weathered this shortage without slowing down. The only problem I had was when I added a new cartridge in January of this year. It has been a scramble to get everything needed for my new acquisition.
 
I don't need a long drawn out formula on how to stock up....I buy when things are available and cheap. I rarely pay retail and always look for a discount and a sale. When it's cheap, I load up.
 
Y'all should have heard the howling and complaints in 1979 when primers went up to 75¢/100 and Hercules Unique was sitting on the shelves at $3.99/can. That was about doubling in price. I was making a whole $2/hour working as a gas jockey. If it weren't for tips, I wouldn't have been able to put gas in my own car. Couldn't afford to stock up on primers and powder with gas at 80¢/gallon and heading (FAST!) up to almost a dollar!
 
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