My cure for panick component buying

[James2]

If you think about it a little, there's probably some "reloading therapy" you can do with what you've already got -

Yep, you are right. I cast and have plenty of bullets. I did put in about a 2 years supply of powder and bullets a while back, so was not caught off guard. One exception was on small rifle primers. I was wanting a few more the other day and could only find one box of 100 locally. Oh well doesn't matter. I can shoot the 270 if needed. Lots of stuff for it . My latest session was to load a bunch of 44 mags.

 

[hueyville]

At 3,000-5,000 rounds per month I keep ~5 years stock on shelf plus emergency rations. My monthly 5k order just came in while I bought over 15,000 as favors for panic folks. Funny thing over half of them never paid up so added to my stock. I have a lifetime supply if I were to slow my roll a bit. Buying as far ahead as possible means when they finally roll into rounds, they are priced based on several years previous so inflation is not as not of a factor.

 

[BYJO4]

Just hang in there and hopefully this will be behind us in another 4 months or so. It never hurts to maintain a 6 month supply based on your shooting habits.

 

[jjjitters]

I cast all my own and with approx. 1200lbs of lead on hand and am getting three more 125lb buckets of indoor range scrap in the next week or two, I never have to worry about bullets. Primers are usually easy to come by at the local lgs, since not a lot of people reload around here, he has several k on hand. Powder? Well , last count had around 30lbs of assorted flavors, so when one runs out just grab the next and look up my recipe's. My preferred powders are the most abundant, yet, so I'm not worried for a while.

 

[Texrtc]

Started reloading in October 2012. I load 9mm and 45acp. Was fortunate in December to find 4lbs of Win231. I already had on hand 3lbs of Unique. An oldtimer I met at the range, who does not reload anymore, gave me an additional 4lbs of Unique. With the 7k SP and LP primers and 7k FMJ bullets I have on hand, I am set in riding the current conditions out.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

And if I do run out of primers or powder or wads or brass, I've got that 1,400 pound pile of lead ingots that could afford to be made into bullets. If you think about it a little, there's probably some "reloading therapy" you can do with what you've already got - it'll make you feel better!

Let's see:

1,400 pounds X (7000 grains/pound) divided by 230 gr/bullet equals...

(sound of abacus beads sliding back and forth, furious scribbles on chalkboard, peering at slide rule...)

42,608 bullets!

Assuming a 6 cavity bullet mold, that means...

(more number crunching...)

7,101 separate pours and cooling!


That's some bit o' "reloading therapy", myfriend! Just out of curiosity, how long does it take to cast a single set of bullets, then size/lubricate them afterwards?

 

[clocker]

Time to get more lead or cast lighter bullets

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Time to get more lead or cast lighter bullets

Heh!

Casting 185 grain bullets would net slightly more than 10,000 additional bullets...



You know, if he's reeeeealy serious about "reloading therapy", he'll use a Classic Lee Loader or, at most, a Lee Hand Press...

 

[Navy_Guns]

How long? Well, since having kids, the answer is "too long" with a few exceptions. My last run of 1,200 took quite a few hours to cast, size, and lube even with the 6-cavity mold. I've started telling myself that casting is for special things I can't buy (Lyman slugs, odd-sized round balls, etc.) or for when the day comes I can no longer buy what I need. Thankfully, my career's at the point where I have more money than time, so casting isn't the necessity it was when I was younger.

 

[Ky Larry]

I've got buckets and coffee can of brass sitting around. Cleaning, sorting, trimming, and priming will keep me busy for a while. I bought 8,000 lead bullets of various calibers a couple of weeks ago. I have an old Rock Chucker so it takes a while to load 500 rounds. I've loaded a couple thousand .38spl. Now I'll start loading .40 S&W. I've loaded all my .357 JHP bullets (had 1,000) and I've got 800 .44gr Nosler 240gr JHPs.I have 3,000 .223 bullets and 2,000 .243 bullets. If I start digging I'm sure I find a lot more stuff. Think I'll go have a bowl of chilli and head out to the reloading room.

 

[dragon813gt]

I've been complaining about LPP 45acp brass the last year or so. I hate having to stock primers for just one cartridge. With my current stock of SPP and how much I like shooting my 9mm I'm glad I have the LPP brass and a healthy stock of primers. I went through the unsorted 45 brass I had and segregated them by primer type. First of all it's an extremely mind numbing job and I hated it more than trimming brass. But it yielded five gallons of LPP and three gallons of SPP. I think I'm good on 45 brass for a long time


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[johnc486]

When the weather permits, I'll ride it out on my Harley Road King and keep my head clear and plan way ahead for the next bout, have enough supplies for the near future. It definitely has cut my excess shooting out and half the time at the range (doing a lot more hobby welding). Being retired, I can't let one hobby dictate my other hobbies, ( I do enjoy reloading a lot tho). We'll get thru this one as well, find another hobby to fill the gap in the mean time.

 

[4895]

There was a time in my life when I was content to have a 50 round box onhand and not even shoot it all at once.

 

[GLOOB]

My solution is to look at all the "reloading crumbs" I have lying around. Leftover partial cans of powder that I have not been particularly fond of. Partial boxes of bullets I no longer buy. And all the setup time required to use up all that stuff.... 50 rounds here, 100 rounds there, with a new setup between each mini batch... It will take a lot of work for me to run out of components, completely. Heck, first I'd have to find them all.

I have to admit, I'm in pretty good shape, though. I was a little surprised by the scale of this shortage. But after taking stock, I have just the right amount of powder, primers, bullets, and lead to pretty well match up - and enough of each to keep me shooting for at least a year. I was just short on some gas checks; luckily, these are still easily available in most calibers. I was able to patch that hole in time.

 

[greybeard57]

Well, I'm a complete noob at reloading. I had been planning on reloading for a long while but only got financially solvent enough to buy what I wanted in December. On Jan 1 I sent my order in for a LLM and some accessories. Still haven't received any of it. However, at the last gun show a few weeks ago I did pick up 4lbs w231 and 1lb of titegroup powder, some new 9mm brass (plus all the saved brass from my backyard outings), and a brick of spp's. I'm only going to start loading 9mm for now mostly because most of my handguns are 9mm either 9x19, or 9x18. But getting Mak sized supplies isn't all that easy either.
I'm looking forward to reading up on how things are done here. I've gone through a lot already. But trying to change careers at my age (56) has me broke (got laid off from last job of 23 years due to closing doors) so I'm now going to college full time. Hopefully I'll be able to finish with my BAS in October. Regardless...I'm getting antsy about getting my equipment in hand and set up.
Anyway, I've got what I think is a good start for never having done it before; a semi-forgiving set of pistol powders, both jacketed and cast bullets, and enough primers to last me, at the rates I shoot, for at least a few months. At least I hope so.