Is ammo really this hard to come by?

Funny!

The stores around here are low on ammo - but I have yet to have any problem purchasing ammo of any sort from the big-name online retailers.

@Chri:

How about .45ACP FMJ? All of the big name online retailers are showing backorder until august for me. If you can direct me to somewhere that has it (preferably for less than .50 a shot), I'd certainly appreciate it.

45 acp is long gone from the stores. I've wanted some for a while now but no luck.

Never mind ammo, the only primers I have been able to find for sale are once-fired.

Ouch! I stand corrected. You are right about .45 ACP. (Not a caliber I purchase.)

My last orders were from Cabela's.

You'll find .40 s&w, 9mm, shot shells, and .223 without problem at Cabela's.

Another item of note that surprised me: .380 ammo is also 10+ weeks out. Amazing.

As an addendum: You may have some luck on gunbroker.com. At least you can find .45 ammo there.

Better bid on that .45 ACP round now, before it gets REALLY expensive! As of yesterday afternoon, the ammo aisles at Cabela's in Hamburg PA looked like they had been picked over by a mob of drunken looters. No .45ACP FMJ at all, although they did have some scattered boxes of upper-end defensive and target loads (Hornaday, Cor-Bon, etc.) in 20-round boxes, the cheapest of which was almost $1/round (and you could pay double that if you wanted). No .380, but lots of .40 S&W for some reason. Not much 9mm or .357 and only a little .38 Spl., although they did have a lot of .44 Mag and other serious big-bore revolver calibers in stock.

There were even holes in the rifle calibers. Lots of .30-06 and .30-30, a surprising amount of .223 (including a few bulk cans) and even some .308, but several of the less-common calibers were sold out. I wanted to buy .30 Carbine - sold out, and .35 Rem - just a couple boxes left of the most expensive boxes they stocked in that caliber ($30 for 20 rounds).

But no shortage of shotgun shells -- fully stocked.

The gun counter was mobbed like the snow shovel aisle at Home Depot just before a blizzard; not sure what was in stock since I didn't feel like pushing thru the crowd to look. I did notice that the used long-gun section had basically no semi-auto rifles or C&R mil-surp guns of any sort (not counting the expensive stuff in their "gun library"). But there were lots of used shotguns for sale; maybe everyone is trading them in for ARs?

Dudes and Dudettes, .380 is almost impossible to find right now. About the only stuff available is the high dollar personal defense boutique type loads. The makers only do runs of it from time to time, they use the same production lines as they use for 9mm Parabellum, and they are running 9mm full capacity and selling all they can make.

Calguns.net had posted reports that the Cow Palace gun show this past weekend had folks standing 5 deep at one of the large ammo vendors as well as lines around the building just to get in.

Ammo was expensive and moved quickly.

Interestingly, on Sunday afternoon there remained a decent supply of .380.

I was up in the Sierra Gold Country the past few days. The local hardware store in one of the dinky towns had very little or none of the ammo calibers they usually stock. No .30-06! They said everthing is backordered, and they just can't seem to get it.

I went to a larger sporting goods store in Auburn, CA, and it was the same story. They did have some .30-06, but only a few boxes of the premium Barnes brand at fifty bucks for a box of twenty.

As a dealer I have had cases of Wolf 9mm on order from RSR since the second week of November. According to them as of last week my order was still a valid order but they had had no Wolf 9mm in stock to ship. What puzzles me about this situation is that Wolf is not made in the USA so the stories regarding demand affecting availability should not apply to ammunition manufactured in another country.