Archive for the 'Ammunition' Category

More perspectives on the ammo shortage.

While Farhat said his store does have ammo in stock, but it’s costing more right now because he’s not able to buy it wholesale.

That’s a lot of slush in his estimate.  Of course, I wouldn’t expect the supply chain ever to catch up with demand depending on the election cycle.

Messenger Inquirer.

Caraway said, “We get 80 to 150 guns in every day and we sell everything we get. I can’t restock. There’s not enough guns and ammunition available now.”

[ … ]

Nine millimeter and .380 ammunition are the ones most affected by the shortage, he said.

[ … ]

For rifles, he said, it’s the .223 and 5.56 mm.

Then there’s this interesting bit.

No, Caraway said.

I hadn’t heard that about the manufacturer’s polls.  We’ll have to see if that holds true.  Even if it does, I don’t expect it to stop the violence currently being perpetrated by the communists.

My takeaways:  (1) The heavier bullets (77 grains) are more effective than the 55 grain bullets, and (2) The muzzle velocity even at close range for the 10.5″ barrel hovers around 2200 FPS, right at the threshold for hydrostatic shock.

As an interesting case study, I watched and refreshed a screen for a couple of weeks at the 2aWarehouse on a sale of run-of-the-mill Winchester range ammunition in 45 ACP.  The sale was 200 rounds for $85.80.  For those who shoot .45 ACP, this is a fairly standard price, and excepting the shipping fees, it’s actually a fairly good deal any time at 43 cents per round.

The screen began at 1000 boxes of 200, and tonight it was at 150.

This means that for this one distributor located via Ammoseek.com, for one caliber, for one brand, 200,000 more pistol rounds are in the hands of ordinary Americans within about two weeks.

Range ammo or PD, it makes no difference.  That tells you something about what’s happening in America, more than you can learn from any MSM outlet even on a good day.

Readers have no doubt encountered a severe ammunition shortage, affecting no only local supplies but online supplies as well.  There are some good explanations for this, some of which I didn’t suspect.

Political climate.

“I can’t keep guns on the shelf,” Carr said. “And I can’t find the guns to replace the ones I’ve sold. It’s the same thing with ammo, especially for the pistols, like the 9s, 38s, 380s – they’re not there. Our vendors don’t have them either. We’ve been advised to order our hunting rounds because it’s not going to be there as they’re trying to fill the pistol ammo that they’re already behind on.”

We’ve actually learned something else besides the affect of political climate.  First time gun buyers are purchasing primarily pistols.  In order to use them, they need ammunition.  Apparently, manufacturers are retooling to supply that ammunition.

So hunters needing 7mm magnum, 6.5 Creedmoor, .308 and 30-06, should go ahead and try to scrounge up those rounds now.  They won’t be available for long.  That also goes for AR-10 operators.

Next up, the logistics chain.

“As far as the ammo is concerned, the number one thing you have to have in order to make ammunition is raw materials, being lead and copper,” Kastner said. “So all of the lead mines in the United States are in the state of Missouri; Missouri shut them down the first of March. All of the copper mines are in South America; South America shut them down in April. … The lead mines are now open in Missouri, but getting copper for the casings is one of the choking points.”

When you tell workers to go home, production stops.  The next thing we learn in this same article is what happened when the manufacturers eventually did open back up.

“A lot of the manufacturers were closed for a few months, and then they opened up and had to social distance inside their plants, so maybe every other machine may work instead of all of them,” Latsha said. “So their capacity is down below half and demand is up 400% because there’s a huge shortage. … All the rioting and things going on … people are scared. And then when a shortage starts, anytime somebody thinks there’s not going to be any they all run out to get some.”

The manufacturers are not at full production capacity.

So when you combine intense demand, with choked logistics chains, on top of manufacturers operating at partial capacity, it leads to a problem.

Will this return to normal?  That remains to be seen.  I’m not a prophet.

Shooting Illustrated.

I have a Remington R1 1911 chambered in .45 ACP. Arthritis has invaded my hands and it’s getting harder for me to rack the slide. Would putting a lighter recoil spring in it be a bad idea? The factory recoil spring is 16 pounds. I bought a 12-pound spring for it, just to see if it solved my racking problem, and it did. I haven’t shot it yet, and I would like to get a knowledgeable opinion on it before doing so. The only thing I have been told so far about putting the lighter spring in it is that the recoil would be increased. I’m not as worried about that as I am about risking unnecessary damage to my pistol. While I’m sure other shooters have this same difficulty, I don’t know anyone in my area who does. Any insight and/or suggestions regarding how to tackle this challenge would be greatly appreciated.
Larry Jones, via e-mail

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While the recoil spring helps to attenuate recoil of the pistol, its main job is to return the slide forward, which strips the next round off the magazine and fully closes the pistol with the barrel and slide locked together, ready to fire the next shot.

The first thing I would do to aid in the function of the gun and help to prevent impact damage of the internal parts is to add a Wilson Combat Shok-Buff, or equivalent, to the recoil-spring guide for the lighter recoil spring to rest against. The Shok-Buff is a polymer shock absorber designed to help prevent slide and frame battering as they transition through the cycle of operation.

[ … ]

Keep in mind the recoil spring and Shok-Buff are being worked hard with the lower-power rating of the spring and should be replaced at 500-round intervals or when obvious signs of wear are evident. The Shok-Buff will start to lose its shape and the recoil-spring length will shorten by several coils, indicating it’s time to replace them.

To begin with, I’m no stranger to severe RA in my hands.  Mostly, my right hand (shooting hand) is affected.  It is affected to the point that my hand appears deformed, and I usually hide it when I meet people.  It helps to put my hand in my pocket.

RA is caused by the same affliction as Psoriasis, that is, an overactive and confused immune system.  My immune system thinks my cartilage is a foreign object and attacks it, making scar tissue of it.  I have thus far refused to take a biologic like Methotrexate, and so I simply make it by day to day.

So I sympathize in the superlative with the writer.  With that said, I find no discomfort in shooting .45 ACP.  I enjoy it more than shooting any other round, and I enjoy shooting a 1911 more than any other firearm.  I also find that the best thing for me is to exercise, and that means not being courteous to my RA.  The more I can push myself, the better off I am.

One of my [modified] 1911s came with an 18# spring, not 16#.  I didn’t know that the Remington came with a 16# spring.  That seems a little light to me.  Readers may recall that I replaced my 18# spring with a 22# spring from Wolff Gunsprings for my trip to the Weminuche Wilderness.  I did that so that I can shoot 450 SMC out of that gun, achieving 1120 FPS with 230 grain bullets (the 450 SMC has to be purchased from Double Tap Ammunition).  I still have that gun modified that way, although it’s an easy spring switch to change it back if I wanted to.

I also find that it eats all other .45 ACP ammunition flawlessly.  The heavier spring doesn’t cause problems with normal bulk range ammunition, although I wouldn’t shoot 450 SMC out of my other 1911s without a similar spring modification.

Double Tap and Buffalo Bore make very hot .45 ACP +P ammunition (~ 1000 FPS), and the heavier spring would work well with that choice.  If I switched to a light spring, like the analyst said, I would want to make sure I had put it through its paces to see what ammunition worked well with it.

As RA progresses, I wouldn’t be opposed to changing to a lighter spring, but I’m a long way from that.

I believe he likes the 350 Legend.

I was actually a little surprised at the results with dry wall.  I also expected a little different results from the heavier rounds (I expected the rounds greater than 70 grains to expand a bit more since they are “open tip”).

But it does, in rifles.  There are plenty of them, and good ones.

In the comments he had to amend (refine or clarify) what he was saying to indicate handguns.

Ammoland.

Through the first half of the Twentieth Century, military rifle cartridges were all between 6.5mm and 8mm (25-31 caliber), in order to achieve an acceptable rifle/ammunition compromise that balances:

• Adequate range
• Adequate penetration
• Accuracy
• Manageable recoil
• Weight
• Bulk
• Durability
• Overheating
• Barrel length
• Barrel life
• Magazine capacity, and
• Terminal effect

Those twelve issues represent competing, unavoidable trade-offs confronting weapon and ammunition designers. It is not possible to “adjust” any one of those without affecting all the rest. Go too far in any one direction, and you immediately run into deal-busting troubles!

That weapon design is a perpetual tradeoff is certainly true.  There is no debating that point.

In the first half of the Twentieth Century, horse-mounted cavalry units persisted, although mostly obsolete by the end of WWI.

However, with cavalry still a military consideration, “adequate terminal effect” implied an ability to take-down a horse with one shot!

In our modern era, with horses no longer a consideration, 5.5mm (22 caliber) bullets (5.56×45 NATO, 5.45×39 Soviet, 5.7×28 FN) have emerged and are considered (by some) appropriate chamberings for modern, military main-battle rifles, but there is far from “universal agreement” on that!

Inadequate penetration and inadequate range have been persistently (since the 1960s) cited as critical failings with this modern generation small-caliber military cartridges.

Interminable technological attempts to address these two issues have failed to silence critics, including me.

And so the point of the article was what – that Farnam is still an opponent of the 5.56mm cartridge?  We needed to be reminded of that?

So just to float the same point I’ve made before, Farnam leaves out the most important point in the discussion, and that is military doctrine.  Doctrine leads to or produces tactics, and tactics produces weapons design, not vice versa.

There is no point in rehearsing the doctrinal changes that occurred to bring about the advent of the 5.56mm cartridge.  But it is sufficient to say: that the use of fire and maneuver tactics (e.g., squad rushes), the reliance on crew served weapons for longer range combat (because more than 80% of enemy killed occurred throughout military history from crew served weapons, not rifles), and the reliance on DMs for even longer range shooting (those who have been specifically schooled in that science, and have been issued the weapons and gear for it), is legitimate military doctrine.

Farnam’s objections not withstanding.  In a perfect world in which Soldiers and Marines didn’t have to wear body armor because they were never shot at, they were in perfect shape, they didn’t have to leave the line at 100 pounds of kit, and the U.S. military had unlimited resources, time and money, everyone could carry rifles that weighed twice as much and carry ammunition that weighed twice as much.