Good evening everybody.

Looking through my powder stores and see six bottles of Alliant Power Pro "Varmint" Lost interest in finding a great load for it because I'm thinkin it's now discontinued.

Might unload some it at a "Fun" show.

Have about a 1/2 ounce of H322 left and never thought about stocking that AWSOME powder deep because 8208-XBR came along and I'm completely out of that now.

Purchased 16lbs of Midwest Powder's pull-down powder designated "MP-450." and having great success with it and 69gr RMR BTHP-Match bullets and just a matter of time when I'll have the bullets and no more MP-450.

Purchased 10lbs of Shooter's World "AR-Plus" two months ago at a price I'd have been crazy to pass on. And just as worried that I'll become attached to it a "poof," disappear like a fart in a hurican.

Now primers:

Great success with Tula KVB 556 small rifle primers, dirt cheap, consistant and reliable...poof, gone.

Wolf 223Rem small rifle primers were the cheapest SR anywhere...poof.

Sellier & Bellot large rifle mag primers. I remeber like it was last week, but in 2008 I jumped on my local Cabela's credit card promotion and walked out of the store with 4K primers for $48.00. Now, poof.

Bullets:

Sierra bullets may fluctuate a bit in price but availability has always been reliable. And 52gr SMKs are the same bullet they were 30 years ago.

Nosler bullets play with designs and (arguably) gimmicky tricks but their classic bullets are always around, at least the ones I've gotten used to.

Hornady bullets are great for their CONSISTENT quality and pricing.

Barnes bullets are a relative new-comer and a "wiz-bang" line of innovative bullets but their availability seems rock-steady.

Speer bullets seem to be the only bullet supplier that I see as having spotty availability.

Find some Sierra 70 gr. Blitzkings for me....

It’s a cycle thing. One cycle is primers, one powder and then bullets/brass.  This is the way.

I could not find any 9mm Zero or Precision Delta for a few years starting around 2009.

The American domestic commercial smokeless powder market is trending towards monopoly or trust with Hodgdon controlling through ownership of brand names, sales and marketing agreements with the three domestic producers, or import arrangements.

There are only three smokeless powder factories in North America (General Dynamics Saint Marks in Florida and Valleyfield in Canada; Alliant in Virginia).

There are smaller brands that come through that do not seem to be aligned with Hodgdon (Vihtavuori, Norma, and Explosia).  Maybe a few others.

I am currently saving towards laying in a really good order on a few different flavors of those.

Going to cost me dearly for the order I want to place but I can justify it to myself because buying in bulk is always at least a little bit cheaper and the inflation thing. They are not likely to be cheaper next year...

The few manufacturers that control the supply figured out that by making the supply chaotic and unpredictable, they can keep the price (and therefore the profit) high.

We don’t have a free market in anything, but reloading components are one of the least-free markets we have.

The interesting thing about this topic is that metal working is way easier for multiple people to pick up and just do, compared to reactive chemicals.  Anybody can get machining and metal and set up a gun manufacturing process - and we have more gun manufacturers than you can shake a stick at.  Same thing for bullet forming.  Get lead, get copper, get a press - you have bullets.   But more then that, you can flip off the lights, and leave Friday at 5:00 - no problem.  THAT is the big difference.  Bullets have always been the easiest of the reloading components to get, and always will be, because there's not much to it, and almost anybody can make bullets.  And if they want to stop, they can stop basically at any time, and come back next week.  

Chemical manufacturing and handling is a whole other animal. Now you have energetic reactive chemicals that have to be made with great care.  they require raw materials mixed at just the right ratios, temperature, timing, in just the right equipment.  You can't just leave if there's a hang-up.  Once made, it has to be cleaned out and stored.  And that storage has to be done right, and maintained.  And if you do it wrong - you blow up.  Now things are harder, and intimidating.  And right now, basically nobody has the gumption to do it other than one, maybe two, facilities in the US to manufacture gunpowder.  

The magic that makes all of this work isn't yet another guy buying steel, or lead and squishing it together.  It's the gunpowder.  

What we need is for PSA to get into the gunpowder business.  The guns are the easy part.  It's the chemical-engineering of designing, manufacturing, and storing gunpowder that's the hard part.

Also, I believe they tend to make this stuff in batches.    Crank out 4350 for awhile until the market is saturated and others, say Varget, are withering.   Then crank out Varget for awhile, while others get in shorter and shorter supply.   I don't KNOW this from personal experience, but I think that's a factor, too.   Take H322; I don't think they've made that stuff for a year or two.
I remember when H1000 was impossible to find a couple years ago.    Then you start seeing it all over the place.

Awsome insight.

Thank you.

The cycle thing applies to powder mostly.

What my gist of the post is not so much a cycle but completely disappearing, gone, like Norma powders (an entire brand) are gone; Alliant's Varmint powder, gone; etc., etc., etc.

I havent seen Alliant Reloader 19 in forever, same for many of the Reloader type powders, 22, 23, 25.

Again, another solid point of reference of powder(s) simply vanishing into thin-air.

I remember when Alliant's Reloader 15 went missing for an extended period and reloaders turned to Norma 203-B and I remember quite well sources (I am well of the scetchyness of internet sources) claiming they

were the same powders in different branded containers.

Reloader 15 is available now for astronomical prices, BUT, for how long? I don't see this happening with bullets and like "lazyengineer" said I would love an outfit like PSA to produce a powder lable.

If you want RE-15 then buy a bunch now. That's how I roll. I buy in bulk, usually when things are on sale. This gets me through the lean times without skipping a beat.

Let's add complications:  Varget, Retumbo, 8208 XBR, and a bunch of other really popular powders are manufactured in Australia.  You re-set production lines to do different mixes and grain-granule size.  Once you've made and bulk-packaged your product, restrict to only a few shipments a year from Down Under to the States by sea.

I have had great results in match .223 and .308 guns with RL15 but it’s not as temp stable as others.  It’s a good powder but in my opinion it doesn’t rate the current price.  I was easing myself away from it but I still have a pound or two left in a 5 or 8 pound jug.

As far as those six pounds on the OP’s shelf,......use them for what you bought it for.  That’s a fair amount of shooting after a load development.  It’s not like it’s just a pound or two of disco’d powder.


Varget was cheaper and available on sale the last time I saw RL15.  I’d sooner pay less for the temp stable Varget every time.  The only reason I quit working with Varget as it was always unavailable so I worked up loads with less popular at the time powders.  It seems that everything I figure is a great powder and a sleeper...so does everyone else and it’s the new cool kid hard to find boutique powder. Like chasing the stock market.

Nobel Sport released a batch of Vectan powders a few years ago and they have been extinct since that time. I don't fully understand it either.

Bullets:

Sierra bullets may fluctuate a bit in price but availability has always been reliable. And 52gr SMKs are the same bullet they were 30 years ago.
Sierra sucks at making anything but 22 and 30 cal high demand match bullets.  Even they supply is sketchy!!!!


Nosler bullets play with designs and (arguably) gimmicky tricks but their classic bullets are always around, at least the ones I've gotten used to.
Nosler is worse than Sierra they make enough bullets to put in their ammo and that of their cohorts but none for the reloader!!! And they sure have raised their prices!

Hornady bullets are great for their CONSISTENT quality and pricing.
Exactly they have done well!  The only bad thing is that took away the bulk boxes of ELD bullets!  

Barnes bullets are a relative new-comer and a "wiz-bang" line of innovative bullets but their availability seems rock-steady.
Recent newcomer who are you kidding? Decent supply they could give their parent company lessons

Speer bullets seem to be the only bullet supplier that I see as having spotty availability
Yeah the Gold Dot Rifle bullets are nowhere to be found in 22 and other calibers.  Their pricing has not gone up like NOSLER

World when VV is the cheap option.

I'd love to stock-up on some of the best powder for 223Rem I've ever tried, but finantial priorities are shifting and $64 per pound powder(s) are just not doable.

Bruno's Shooting Supplies in Phoenix, AZ has 8 pounders for $466 but still.

And like the last poster comically, yet reality, stated Vihtavuori powders are cheaper. And not just a little cheaper either--8lbs of N133 for $278.

When has any reloader ever seen Hornady 68gr BTHP-Match sell for $150 per 100??? and a Barnes 62gr TSX sell for $22 per 100??? at the same retailer, that's what I see in the smokeless powder realm.

How much current production is going for our .gov replacing everything we've sent to the Ukraine?

That does not make sense.  If General Dynamics has time to make new powders for Hodgdon.  It is pretty obvious that they have production capacity at St. Marks in FL.
This was a problem before the Ukraine.  

TAC is reasonably priced powder for now.  And, for most purposes does well with mid to heavy 223 bullets.  Not to shabby in 308, either.

I'm spit balling. Not much makes sense. I heard it was a raw material problem as well.

This is ancient history now, but about 25 years ago, I worked at a pipe organ company and a cabinetry-making* company.  I was a finisher, and I sprayed a lot of nitrocellulose lacquer back then.  It was great!  That stuff would dry FAST

Of course, because of EPA stuff, waterborne or water based finishes are the norm now.

Back on topic….

Somewhere up in an attic, I have a copy of the “A,B, C’s of Reloading”.  It had a really good chapter on how gun powder is made.  I should go re-read it



* = I wanted to differentiate cabinetry-making from being a cabinetmaker.

I concur .. i reload tac 308 for m1...