Ammo shortage does not seem to affect .40 S/W, I wonder why?

[His lordship.]

I have been visiting the local gun ranges/shops in the Austin, TX area and while the shelves holding the .38 special, 9 MM, and .45 ACP are empty, the .40 S/W ammo is available.  I figured that cartridge would be one of the ones you could not get because of the "Obama fear" as there are lots of pistols chambered for it, used by the police, and is a serious pistol defense cartridge.  I wonder why it is more available, is it my imagination that it is not really as popular as I thought?   

[Curtis]

All of the pistol ammo shelves I've observed up here in Dallas are empty, including .40 S&W (except in a couple of gun stores where they're asking up to $49 per box).  Why there is a difference in your area I don't know.

Curtis

[His lordship.]

I wonder when this ammo shortage is going to end, I have heard some say around September.  It would be nice to go to any place that carries ammo and walk out with a box of plain Jane .38 specials, that does not cost over $12.99. 

I cannot see how the ammo hoarders are going to continue to fill up their houses and running up the credit cards on ammo.

[rockbilly]

Same here in the Abilene area, most shelves are totally void of any pistol ammo, and when you do find it the price is out of site. I visited every source of ammo in the immediate Abilene area last week looking reloding items, I ran across one box of Federal Premium .357 Sig---$49.95 p[lus tax.

Two weeks ago I was in Lubbock, went to a couple of shops there, no pistol ammo to speak of.  This past week we paided a short visit to Wichita Falls, same story.  I didn't visit any shops there, but called several looking for .357 Sig, no luck, a gentleman at one shop ask me if I would call him if I found any.

Another issue that makes one wonder about the availability of ammo.  A week or so past, the owner of CDNN (Check them out on the web) walked into the South side Wal Mart and bought all the .223 ammo they had on hand (60,000 rounds), a short while later he visited the North side store and did the same (40,000 rounds).  He then went to Academy and bought all they had in stock.  Customers raised so much "heck" that Wal Mart but a limit on the number of boxes a customer could buy.

I would think that if a company as large as CDNN can not procure ammo through normal channels and has to make it's purchases in this manner, then there must be a verifyed shortage. (and also a "heck-of-a" profitable market for what is available.)

[His lordship.]

Fortunately the rifle ammo is still available, but with the .223 being something that most AR-15s use, I would not be surprised if this gets hard to acquire.  I probably should pick up some.  I was going to shoot the one box of .45 ACP I have left...now I am not so sure if it will cost me $100.00 later on to replace.

[dakotashooter2]

Consider that the manufactures may make a run of 1 or 2 calibers/cartridges at a time, retool. run another , retool and so on. I doubt most are set up to run a dozen or more at once. That means only 1 or 2 will show up on the shelves at a time. I recently noticed a significant supply of 40 cal and 223 at a local store but nothing else new. (it was reasonably priced). It will take a while to get overal stocks up to a decent level under such a production scenario. I can't see them flooding the market with one caliber before moving on to the next. They are gonna try see that everybody gets a little something.

[Autorim]

I think that generally speaking the .40 is not nearly as popular as the other handgun cartridges.

[jhm]

There are alot more old 38/ 45/ and 9mm handguns out there than the 40 cal. the owners of these older weapons are the ones who in the past bought one box of ammo every couple years, they are adding to the ammo shortage by buying it by the case now, I look for alot of ammo to be sold real cheep at garage sales when the character in the WH leaves.   Jim

[jmayton]

Chris, I was in McBride's a couple of weeks ago and they had lots of ammo.  My friend picked up a couple of boxes of 9mm.  They had the best stock I've seen in a while.  Sportman's Finest had a little bit, but not as much as McBrides.   Maybe I just caught them at a good time.

[blhof]

I'm in agreement with Autorim on the lower quantity of 40 S&W guns out there and they seem to not be as popular.  I have a ton of brass from the range here, as they are treated like the 9mm and few are picked up, which is fine for me as I load for both.  People who have them are shooting them though.

[Tiapan64]

The Walmart here in borger texas isn't short on ammo by thier standards.  They have as many boxes now as they had a year ago or two even.  Thier selection is kind of small, but they do have all the popular cals. available.  They don't carry 10mm, never have and they told me...never will!   They have always had a limit on handgun ammo of 4 boxes, you can't buy more than 4 of any certain cal.  except 22, buy all ya want of those.  Rifle ammo is the same way 4 boxes is all you can buy at one time of any one cal.  I guess that is per purchase so you could come in later and get more or send someone else in to get some more for you.
Shotgun isn't rationed, get as many as you want