Where oh where are the shooting supplies

[3Setters]

Was hoping to shoot my new to me 12 gauge this weekend, but after a call yesterday, the shop recommended to me is out of caps and FFFg powder. Now I could try another store, but they are known for price gouging and playing games with their supplies, so I'll just wait it out. So I'll spend the 3 day weekend running dogs and cleaning up around my cabin. Gonna be way to nice a weekend to not be outside having fun.

 

[GANGGREEN]

Nothing wrong with running setters anyway. Might find time to run mine today as well.

 

[Ames]

My setters too old to be run anymore. And I will feel as old as he when those supplies are back in stock.

 

[R.J.Bruce]

I just posted on this subject over at Modern Muzzleloader. Before the pandemic, and the new shooters added because of the political situation, there were 50 million hunters/shooters. Approximately, 5-7 million new hunters/shooters have been added to the total in less than a year. That's a 10%-14% increase, which is significant.

Between the panic buying, and those 5-7 million new shooters getting outfitted, and most of them enthusiasticaly purchasing ammo to shoot, center-fire ammo shortages started early in the pandemic. And since 209 shotshell primers are almost exclusively used as a source of ignition in modern inline muzzleloading rifles, those ran out quickly as well.

When center-fire ammunition and components started drying up, a HUGE proportion of the now 55-57 million shooters/hunters that previously had ignored muzzleloading, now turned their attention to a sport that they had never before paid any attention to.

It doesn't take very many new people added to a very small population of traditional, and inline muzzleloading shooters to overwhelm the supply system.

I am just spitballing here, but I think I am pretty close to the real numbers.

Active m-l shooters prior to Covid-19 : 43,000
Max number of new m-l shooters: 10,000
Percentage of increase: 23.26%

Even if I have vastly over estimated the numbers, say it is only 2000 new shooters. That is still a significant addition to approximately 43,000 active shooters in a long-term stable population (4.652%). Because, all of the new shooters are going to want to shoot enthusiasticaly for at least the first couple of months that they own their weapons. Therefore, they will be purchasing a lot of powder, patches, percussion caps, flints, lubes, etc. Same thing for the inline folks.

That's why EVERYTHING IS IN SHORT SUPPLY!!!!!! A boatload of new shooters with all kinds of time on their hands to shoot. And all of the old shooters that panic purchased, stocked up, hoarded, call it what you want.

Muzzleloading is near the bottom of the firearms industry as far as sales goes. So, any company that makes center-fire components, and also makes muzzleloading components, is NOT going to put a priority on the muzzleloading components until they start catching up on their orders for the center-fire components. That's just how the bean counters think, and unfortunately as muzzleloading enthusiasts, we are at their mercy.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Muzzleloading is near the bottom of the firearms industry as far as sales goes. So, any company that makes center-fire components, and also makes muzzleloading components, is NOT going to put a priority on the muzzleloading components until they start catching up on their orders for the center-fire components.

I'd also add that there is basically only one US manufacturer of powder and caps. So, without market competition it's going to be a slow slow return to normal for muzzleloaders.

 

[Ames]

That's why EVERYTHING IS IN SHORT SUPPLY!!!!!! A boatload of new shooters with all kinds of time on their hands to shoot. And all of the old shooters that panic purchased, stocked up, hoarded, call it what you want.

I don't think my foresight of purchasing powder 5 lbs at a time, or caps at 2 or 3 hundred when I saw them made a shortage. Casual purchasing over the last 5 years when it was on the shelf now equates to I don't worry at all. I'm old, but I don't consider it hoarding. It was planning.
I have to go waste some powder in the back forty now.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Take up archery till this blows over. Slingshots are fun too.
I hear the airgun market is booming.

 

[R.J.Bruce]

Take up archery till this blows over. Slingshots are fun too.
I hear the airgun market is booming.

 

[pilot]

I think you drastically underestimate the number of BP shooters.

 

[R.J.Bruce]

There were a LOT of people that bulk purchased everything that they could afford to, as soon as they thought that Trump might lose. And there were even more people that as soon as the pandemic was several months old, started panicking, and doing the same thing. This resulted in early shortages, which still exist because of the steady influx of new shooters into the firearms population.

Ames, what you have done is not hoarding, as I understand it. If one shoots 5 pounds of black powder per year, and constantly keeps 10 pounds on hand, that is not hoarding. That is smart buying, especially if you are shopping sales.

OTOH, if one shoots 1 pound of black powder per year, and has 50 pounds stashed away, then by my definition, that would be hoarding.

Then, there are an increasingly greater number of what people call preppers that have no problems storing vast amounts of just about anything & everything. Are they hoarders? They don't think so. I guess it all depends on how you look at yourself.

 

[R.J.Bruce]

Pilot, you might be correct. I figure there are about 150,000 people that own some type of muzzleloading firearm in the United States with the intention of shooting it. But, how many of them are truly what you would call daily/weekly/monthly ACTIVE shooters?

If anybody has a better guess, I will be more than happy to change my statistics.

When I say 150,000 m-l guns, I realize that far more than 150,000 have been sold as imports since Dixie Gun Works, Navy Arms, Numrich Arms, and others started the modern muzzleloading revolution in the 1950's. This is in addition to the originals left over from the Revolutionary War to the early 20th Century. There is probably at least 500,000 guns laying around in attics, basements, closets, garages, gun safes, etc.

 

[Hawken]

Then, there are an increasingly greater number of what people call preppers that have no problems storing vast amounts of just about anything & everything. Are they hoarders? They don't think so. I guess it all depends on how you look at yourself.

Prudent individuals and organizations have been squirreling away food and supplies for a long, long time. That ain't hoarding, it's practically the opposite in fact. They have been stockpiling, nobody argues that. Hoarding is much different, it is actually a pretty narrow and specific situation where an individual or small number of individuals completely deprives everybody else from purchasing any amount of necessary items, by their acquiring unreasonable and unusable amounts in excess of any rational need in times of great scarcity.

There are definitely hoarders out there for sure, but "preppers" ain't it, it's the yo-yos running around now, or the idiots who built Ft. Charmin in their living room last year.

Putting up an extra case of spaghettios or flour or whatever when there aren't shortages going on doesn't hurt anybody. That's the difference.

 

[ord sgt]

I try to keep a goodly supply of materials for both old and modern firearms. Since I haven't fired a shot from any firearm for a year, due to this danged flu, my supplies have not diminished, at least not to the point of resupply.

 

[pilot]

Pilot, you might be correct. I figure there are about 150,000 people that own some type of muzzleloading firearm in the United States with the intention of shooting it. But, how many of them are truly what you would call daily/weekly/monthly ACTIVE shooters?

I tried to look up Missouri license sales, but they don't sell "muzzle loader" permits now. You buy a firearms permit and can use it during any of the appropriate seasons. Instead of Muzzle loader season, it is now Alternative Weapons season. You can use Muzzle loaders, arrows, atl-atls, spears, and hand guns.

Still, the use of front stuffers is quite popular here. There could be 43,000 just in the state of Missouri.

 

[R.J.Bruce]

Growing up my mother had a pantry that she stocked almost exclusively with canned goods, and boxed/bagged foods that were purchased on sale. We were too poor to buy very much at full price. About 90% was purchased at sale prices. Between the chest freezer in the basement, the pantry, and what we canned/froze each fall, our family had at least a 6 months supply of food on hand to live off of. We weren't preppers, we were just the kids (3) of parents that had lived through the tail end of the depression, and the rationing of WWII.

My baby boomer generation as a general rule doesn't understand that kind of frugality. I try to practice it, but often times find it difficult, because I have never truly experienced great want. At least not for any significant period of time.

 

[CTShooter]

I never really worried about "stocking up", just sort of "oh cool, caps on clearance, grab 3 or 4 tins" powder, when I started it was so much cheaper to just get a case, patch material, Joann's has some killer 60% off coupons, 4 yards lasts a really long time.
Kind of like being a carpenter for 40 years, I didn't buy 500 pounds worth of screws and nails at one time, but some how I ended up with them.

 

[smoothshooter]

I think you drastically underestimate the number of BP shooters.

I think the number of BP shooters is tiny.
Most shoot those "other" muzzleloaders, and those guys are not typically high-volume shooters, only shooting as much as the have to, and don’t have any particular interest in shooting muzzleloading as an end, or hobby in itself. It is only a means to an end ( an extra big game hunting season ).
Which is fine, of course; whatever floats your boat.

 

[pilot]

Alternative methods hunters killed 10,000 deer in Missouri last year. The vast majority of them are muzzle loader shooters. The average success is between 20% and 30%. So, Missouri has around 40,000 muzzle loader hunters. I don't care if they shoot in line or side lock, that's a lot of shooters. That is one state.

 

[Whitworth]

Growing up my mother had a pantry that she stocked almost exclusively with canned goods, and boxed/bagged foods that were purchased on sale. We were too poor to buy very much at full price. About 90% was purchased at sale prices. Between the chest freezer in the basement, the pantry, and what we canned/froze each fall, our family had at least a 6 months supply of food on hand to live off of. We weren't preppers, we were just the kids (3) of parents that had lived through the tail end of the depression, and the rationing of WWII.

My baby boomer generation as a general rule doesn't understand that kind of frugality. I try to practice it, but often times find it difficult, because I have never truly experienced great want. At least not for any significant period of time.

I do, my same age friend (70) calls us "the children of the children of the depression". "Use it up, eat it all, wear it out or do without", those are values mostly lost today in the consumer society we live in but were echoed by our parents and grandparents.

 

[smoothshooter]

Alternative methods hunters killed 10,000 deer in Missouri last year. The vast majority of them are muzzle loader shooters. The average success is between 20% and 30%. So, Missouri has around 40,000 muzzle loader hunters. I don't care if they shoot in line or side lock, that's a lot of shooters. That is one state.

I do not doubt they shoot a lot of deer.
But generally, they do not shoot actual black powder, and they do not shoot their muzzleloaders for fun.
They shoot just enough to get zeroed in, or to check their zero just before the season, and little more.
At a dollar or two per shot for the components they typically use, who could blame them?
Enough components on hand to shoot, for example, 75 rounds, would last an in-line shooter a very long time, typically. I know or have known probably 25 to 30 in-line shooters over the years, and have never heard even one say they enjoyed shooting them.
Totally different story with almost all the very few shooters of traditional BP guns I have known, though.