Stock up? Ammo in short supply for civilians, due to China curtailing key ingredients, report says

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SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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56

Ammunition is in short supply, according to Ammoland, a website dedicated to news about firearms and ammunition.

“In the wake of mounting global tensions and disruptions to key supply chains, the U.S. ammunition industry is facing significant challenges. Several recent developments are converging to create a perfect storm that could lead to a gunpowder shortage, threatening both military and civilian ammunition supplies,” the news site reports.

In May, Alliant Powders, a leading producer of reloading powders l(Bullseye and Unique), suspended shipments of its smokeless powders, a decision driven by global conflicts — most notably the war in Ukraine. the company could not get a key ingredient — nitrocellulose — so prioritized its military contracts, diverting all nitrocellulose to ammunition production for defense purposes. This has left civilian reloaders scrambling for alternatives, Ammoland reports.

In addition to military customers being prioritized, there’s China. In August, China started restricting export of nitrocellulose and antimony, two critical components in ammunition production, Ammoland reports.

“Antimony, essential for hardening lead bullets, and nitrocellulose, used in propellants, are both vital to keeping the U.S. ammunition industry running. China’s decision has created widespread concern in the defense sector as the U.S. relies heavily on Chinese imports of these materials,” the report says.

Read more about the shortage of ammunition at Ammoland, at this link.

In January, Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor signed a letter to the Biden-Harris Administration, objecting to the administration’s attempt to curtail ammunition to the general public.

Alaska’s governor, attorney general join pushback against federal limits on ammunition sales to civilians
Exports of civilian firearms, ammunitions paused for 90 days

56 COMMENTS

    • Not true. Just gotta know where to look. Also, you can use large rifle primers.

      Check out the primer burn chart.

      • LOL……..Ammo Seek shows one vender in Alabama. it’s an old, junk site. Scam sites offer them occasionally. Three Bears? LOL!

          • Their website opens with the warning that it has no valid certificate, and is likely a scam site. As I’ve written before, I’m not interested in feeding criminals. I’m looking for primers. Any reasonable measure of experience should tell one that if the Big Houses (Midway, Graf & Sons, etc) don’t have them (and haven’t for years), a site boasting a stock but lacking certification is likely a foreign scam site.
            But I’m willing to believe you. Go ahead and order me a brick, and I’ll buy it from you at cost +20%. That offer is also valid for Citizen Kane.

  3. Whom specifically is the senior contributor? It’s election season, so, of course, someone HAS to whip up hysteria about ammo, just to make sure prices are through the roof and shelves are empty. It’s just traditional at this point.

  4. This has been a known issue for a while now. Powder prices are through the roof, along with primers and other components.

    • IMR 7977? Check your magic sites. LiKE Hodgden.
      Folks, it has been happening for years. The environmental attack has been what has delivered us to foreign dependency, and the feds shut down ammo importation from numerous foreign sources as well. Stupidity tends to consume the entire mind, not just portions. Now the feds are fighting a world war with foreign soldiers (and our dwindled munitions) just like they’re producing milk at American dairy farms with imported labor from Latin America. Running out of ammo while supplying Ukraine while simultaneously “upgrading” to a new standard rifle caliber has forced the Army to upgrade and re-open their own long closed or neglected ammunition plants while our civilian plants close and consolidate. Despite the monopoly, Vista is already in trouble again. It’s classic mismanagement by ideology. It’s everywhere.

  6. Surely somewhere among America’s dustiest archives lies the ancient American scroll showing how Americans made this stuff in years BC*?
    .
    Or is it only a matter of time before intrepid entrepeneurs realize our narcotraficante friends south of the border may have even more to offer?
    .
    *Before China

    • South American companies have been producing and selling nitrates such as nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose on the American market for a long time.

  7. More importantly than ammo is food. There is a war coming, a big one. Alaska is vulnerable to freight being slowed or stopped. Famine will be rampid. You will sell anything you have, even yourself. It’s best to prepare for the worst. Hope for the best because it will get worse before it gets better.

  8. China can’t be the only place to get these supplies. That why we shouldn’t rely on China. Now it is biting us in the butt. I bet it is just another way to take away our gun rights. We can blame our past leaders for this mess. Better pray that Yeshua comes soon.

  10. Good comments above. Yes, stock up on ammo. “A man cannot have too much in wines, good books, and ammunition.”

    And why, WHY?, have our so-called elites in U.S. politics and business permitted our nation’s greatest and most determined adversary, communist China, to have any kind of stranglehold on so many vital manufactured goods and raw materials? If anyone remains unaware of the answer, well, pay attention, now – it’s the Siamese-twin corruptions of money and power. We have greedy traitors in our midst, which is the natural condition of a sinking civilization.

    We have a stark choice to make in the upcoming election. Let’s both pray to Heaven (repentance, for starters) and vote.

  11. Why would we want to be dependent on foreign countries for our weapons and and food? That makes no sense to me.

  13. We used to get most of our antimony from used car batteries, but the communists shut down the last recycler in 2013. So yes, we are stuck with China until a new mine can be opened in Northern Idaho, but don’t hold your breath, the EPA is doing its’ level best to keep it shut down.
    Nitrocellulose can be VERY easily made from mixing concentrated sulfuric acid and nitric acid (both almost strangled out of existence by….the EPA), with plain old shredded cotton. Because of the EPA it costs vastly less to get it from foreign suppliers.

  14. This is a story and matter that is of importance to at least 300,000 Alaskans yet you won’t see any other media coverage, not radio, newspapers, television or even social media – except of course Must Read.

    Good chance to remind everyone that dry firing is worthwhile. I suppose that even dry firing is objectionable to Democrats.

  15. I will only start selling my ammo when I become too infirm to fight. Until then I will continue to “hoard”. If anyone has a problem with that, well that’s their problem.

    • Your ammo will be found at Primer Auctions after your family buries you. That’s where odd caliber ammo is now found, because it isn’t being manufactured, and if it’s being manufactured and you can find it online from a marketer in Tennessee, you will have to pay hazmat fees to get it shipped to Alaska.

  16. 19k rounds in the safe, 100 high cap mags preloaded, tannerite in oversized terra cotta planters scattered out toward the road and a bullet proof jacket in the closet. Am I doing this right? Might need some tunnels.

    Talk to me, Goose.

  17. We depend on our enemies for ammo? I think maybe the traitor China Joe soiled himself one too many times… STUPID.

  18. Ammo ingredients are the tip of the iceberg. Everything comes from China. If not China, SE Asia whose shipping lanes will soon be controlled by China.

    • Yep. China has been stockpiling gold for a few years now. Gold is up a thousand dollars in the past year alone. Once they collapse, the US dollar
      And shuts down trade when trump tariffs the hell out of them, Good luck in getting anything up to alaska. At least my native friends will still be able to eat.

      • Your envy, jealously and pure nastiness makes you disgusting, Fork. Keep bragging about all the gold you have…but you are probably lying about that too.

  19. Scare tactics. Part of the problem is munition manufacturers are cranking out ammo and shipping it to Ukraine. Past problem is/was fed gov contracts. Ordering 9 billion rounds to be delivered ASAP cuts into civilian market production. Fed contracts come first, civilians (the serfs) come last. Ammo companies screwed Americans over to cover fed contracts. Some companies are taking powder off the market to support their new lines of ammo they plan to produce. Alliant is one of these companies. Exhibit A: Reloder #19.

  21. “………Vista Outdoor Inc. Vista Outdoor is the parent company to many ammunition makers, including Federal, CCI, and Remington. In October 2023, the company announced that its firearms and ammunition business will be sold off to Czech company Czechoslovak Group for a value of $1.91 billion, pending regulatory approval………..”
    ‘https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vista_Outdoor

  24. All you guys saying this is fake don’t understand what is going on. Nitrocellulos is used in the packaging of the covid vaccines, the war in Ukraine. There is a shortage. You are only buying old stock piles of ammo that’s been in storage. A year from now you’ll be saying “where is all the ammunition? What happened? Why is it so much more expensive?”

  25. And yet the Feds do everything possible to prevent any new harvest of mineral or chemical resources in the Territory of Alaska.

    Sorry folks, when a cabbie in New York City has more say about what happens in your backyard than you do, you’re not really a full citizen anymore than just a resident of a territory or protectorate…or worse.

  26. “……..A year from now you’ll be saying “where is all the ammunition?………”
    It is beginning to appear that the election of a Democrat POTUS (and, thus, a political panic buying surge) isn’t going to happen, but world war and/or domestic civil unrest will. Federal, state, and local governments have known for the past 25 years that their legal abilities to control guns themselves is severely limited, not to mention the 100 million guns already out there. They’ve gone into the control of ammo, which is a non-durable commodity. They do it in several ways, one of which is to buy it up themselves, and another is to limit its production and distribution with environmental regulation. It has gotten to the point where their own access to munitions is now in jeopardy. The Army has gone back into production itself in a big way, investing in modernization and expanding operations at already operating Army ammunition plants, and re-opening several mothballed plants. This production will not be available to the civilian market. Vista Outdoors, the consolidation of the older generation of ammunition manufacturers (Remington, Winchester, CCI) is looking to get out of its guns and ammo business after less than 10 years. Now, why would that be?

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