powder shortage!?

I blame the hoarders amongst us.

Maybe some of you who have amassed a 20 year supply could put some up on EE.

Hording is a result of reduced supply... it is not the problem.

As for Alliant... I spoke with a sales rep at a distributor personally and he told me that close to 100% of their production is going directly to large ammunition manufacturers and that is likely to be the story for 2015... He guesstimated that small consumer quantities will begin to be produced again in early 2016... that is as close to the horses mouth as I can get.
 
A fellow I know that loaded ammunition commercially used to drive to General Dynamics in PQ and go home with a pickup full. Not sure if that is still doable or not.
You would probably need special licenses/contracts/permits to buy that much powder at once straight from the factory. NRCan and the RCMP would probably want to be involved.

It's crazy though and has been going on now for what 3 years?
December 14, 2012

The panic buying and shortages started in the US immediately after the Sandy Hook school shooting when many were saying Obama was going to ban guns, ban ammo, or ban this or that. Canada was insulated since most retailers can't sell to the US but once the Canadian market ate up everything here, and it couldn't be replaced due to the shortages in the US, our shortage started. I'd say peak shortages here was 4-5 months after the Sandy Hook shooting; early summer 2012.

The entire industry has been recovering from that ever since. Shortages beget more hoarding which begets more shortages so the recovery/restocking of store shelves has been hampered by consumers.

There have been many more mini-panics in the US from various sources, mostly social unrest, that have strained the system even further. There were reports of thousands of first time gun buyers because of what happened in Ferguson that cleared gun stores of all stock in the area. One liquor store owner made the news and said he bought over 20 shotguns and several thousand shells to defend his business from looters. I don't know what a single man will do with 20 shotguns but that didn't stop him.

Who's to blame? Every single consumer who bought ammo or components; that's me, you, and probably everyone else in this thread. Even if there was no panic buying/hoarding in Canada (there were, I'm speaking hypothetically) we would still have acute shortages because of the US shortages. Some people are more to blame than others, such as people who didn't start hoarding until after the shortages started, but technically everyone is to blame.

I wouldn't be too quick to blame people who have 20 years stockpiled unless they didn't start stockpiling until after December 2012. There are many CGN members with 10, 20 or more years worth of stockpiles but have kept that large of a stockpile for many decades. They are a part of the regular economy with predictable behaviour. It's the people who started stockpiling/hoarding after December 2012 who put an unexpected strain on this segment of the economy. I'm among them in a small way; I increased from a ~12 month stockpile to a 2-3 year stockpile hoping it would be enough to get through the current shortages. I'm just finishing college and have been in school for several years now so I didn't have enough disposable income to amass a 20 year stockpile. I doubt I would have but it would have been nice to get a 4-5 year stockpile to sit on just in case.

If we were talking about some plastic widget that's made in China, the shortage could be recovered from much faster because you can just pay more Chinese factories to tool up and make the same widget in a matter of weeks or months. All the powder manufacturers could do was ramp up to 24-hour production in the facilities they had which still wasn't enough. The millions of dollars and years of paperwork and construction to open a new chemical/explosives factory is a lot more involved than hiring more Chinese factories to make a plastic widget. The powder manufacturers don't trust Chinese companies to make their proprietary products (and I don't blame them) and importing gunpowder from China would be a whole other headache. I think the US embargo on Chinese ammunition might extend to that anyway. What other countries have the facilities to produce that kind of stuff on short notice? Canada shut down all that type of production and decommissioned all the factories, Europe is regulated and legislated to death and can barely produce what they already do, Russia and the US aren't getting along, Africa and the rest of the world doesn't have the facilities or local expertise to do it at all.
 
I blame the hoarders amongst us.

Maybe some of you who have amassed a 20 year supply could put some up on EE.

I don't have a 20 year supply, but I do have a comfortable supply, because I never wait until I am out before looking for more, and I don't purchase powder one pound at a time. Oddly enough, I was telling people to stock up over a year ago, but most of those people chose to ignore me. Now some people expect me to give up my reserves, because they ignored my advice.
 
Nice summary Lutnit.

Once supplies start to flow again, there will be another spurt of hoarding. Soon after that there will likely be a glut since the hoarders will have all they want and demand will dry up. Prices will drop and all the hoarded inventory will be worth much less than what it was bought for it.

SELL IT NOW ON EE WHILE PRICES ARE HIGH !!!
 
First I've heard of this 8 pound rule. Thought powder was a no go.


Some people only read the Canadian regulations, and can't be bothered to inquire as to the USA regulations. It is illegal to export smokeless powder out of the USA without the proper permits. If you are caught on the USA side of the border at one of the Homeland Security check stops, they will seize the powder, and you will likely not be allowed to visit the USA, for quite some time.

There really needs to be a sticky on what exactly is itar exempt. I meet someone today that was bringing projectiles back, is that good or not?

Smokeless powder ,primers, brass, and projectiles are all restricted, so the proper permits must be in place to export any of them from the USA. To obtain those permits, you must be a licensed exporter.


I just brought the 8 of limit from the States that we are allowed. 4xR33 and 4xR22. They have lots on the shelves. If you know someone going get them to bring back. Cheap too. 26 bucks US a pd.

There is no 8lb exemption, for exporting powder out of the USA without the proper permits. What you are suggesting is a violation of the USA laws that could get the people that are caught with the powder banned from the USA.
 
Last edited:
There's no use blaming hoarders. A good hoarder stocked up on powder when it was cheap (and where it was cheap) a couple of shortages ago. He's the guy who kept the gun stores open when things were slow and that the owners and managers whispered volume deals to because bullets weren't moveing . By the time you guys were wondering if you should buy a brick of primers instead of 100 he'd moved onto barrel makers that hadn't run their prices up, and when gun prices go up because of currency rates he doesn't care because the gunsmith never changed his rates. He's also the guy that always knew if the gunsmith was running low on work and dreamed up a project or six. He never paid double for powder because he doesn't have to, and isn't scouring the earth for a can now.

No, there's no use blaming the hoarder. He was always there, picking up deals when they could be had and he isn't the competition now. The problem now is the panic buyer. That's the guy who realized too late that he had nothing to shoot and will clean out a shelf now but never bought more than one at a time before. The higher the price the more he buys. No, you don't need to hate the hoarder, you need to fear the guys that don't have any.
 
I can usually find what I need before I run out.

I had stocked up before the last shortage. Just lucky I guess.

Mind you, I don't shoot high volume compared to a lot of guys.

I needed a pound of H4198 and picked it up today, not a popular powder I guess.
 
And to think I just sold close to 20 pounds from my personal stash for a good price. Well damn I should have charged $75 a pound and sold it on here to you guys lol
 
There's no use blaming hoarders. A good hoarder stocked up on powder when it was cheap (and where it was cheap) a couple of shortages ago. He's the guy who kept the gun stores open when things were slow and that the owners and managers whispered volume deals to because bullets weren't moveing . By the time you guys were wondering if you should buy a brick of primers instead of 100 he'd moved onto barrel makers that hadn't run their prices up, and when gun prices go up because of currency rates he doesn't care because the gunsmith never changed his rates. He's also the guy that always knew if the gunsmith was running low on work and dreamed up a project or six. He never paid double for powder because he doesn't have to, and isn't scouring the earth for a can now.

No, there's no use blaming the hoarder. He was always there, picking up deals when they could be had and he isn't the competition now. The problem now is the panic buyer. That's the guy who realized too late that he had nothing to shoot and will clean out a shelf now but never bought more than one at a time before. The higher the price the more he buys. No, you don't need to hate the hoarder, you need to fear the guys that don't have any.


Bang on..........����
 
Back
Top Bottom