Ammo & Reloader's report from Knob Creek

[MinerJohn]

I was set up at Knob Creek last weekend and the reloading stuff was slim. Pat's Reloading had WC844 and WC846 for $195 for 8lbs. Primers were non existent. Grunt67 was on the money. ALL the primers are going into ammo orders at the moment. A couple vendors had a few boxes, but they were asking $125 and $145 per 1000. Saw a couple boxes get sold. One vendor had ten one pound bottles of Varget. He wanted $50/pound. Another vendor was set up with a collection of powder but it was all $45/pound and higher. None of it sold. A brass vendor was selling .223 fired brass at $125/1000 and .45acp at $100/1000. It didn't sell. On the flip side of that projectiles sold like crazy. Spectre Supply brought 1-1/2 Tons of 9mm, .223 and .30 cal. They were completely sold out by 11:30 Friday morning. Every projectile they had was sold in less than 2 hours! Ammo sales were hit and miss. The big vendors were trying to sell Barnaul steel case .223 at $390/1000. We did not see a lot of it moving. 9mm was at $25 a box. .45 acp was at $30 and $35 per box. We did have a good talk with the guys from Pat's reloading. They have a direct line to the primer producers. They said there are huge orders out there for primers. When those orders finally get delivered to the vendors, most wont be able to handle the elevated price on the bill and there will be a big dumping of primers on the market. First quarter of 2022 is when a lot of these orders are slated to be filled. I guess we'll see how it plays out then. 

[DO-TN]

I don't that ammo wasn't selling. I saw plenty of cases of ammo in various flavors leaving to the parking lots on the goats and being packed on shoulders. The ammo vender next to the Century tent seemed to be doing well and thier pallets kept getting smaller and smaller over the two days. 

The ammo that Apex had also dwindled down quite a bit.

Not too mention the cases headed out to the fireing lines but I suppose that was the point of the weekend.

That said, I didn't buy one round of ammo as I thought it was way over priced and I wasn't really there for ammo. 

I was still a great weekend and glad I made it to the last one.

[hipower]

I really regret that I was never an attendee. Seems like a turning point with the loss of Knob Creek events. Glad you were able to experience it for yourself.

[Beltfed]

My company (Hawkeye’’s Refinishing) was a vendor there several years ago.  On Sunday we could purchase any rifle caliper for 12 cents or less by case price.  8mm went from 6 to 8 cents a round, .308 about 10 cents.  Boy, for the good old days.  It just got to be just a zoo with the kids, dogs, and of course the strippers.

[MinerJohn]

7 hours ago, Beltfed said:

My company (Hawkeye’’s Refinishing) was a vendor there several years ago.  On Sunday we could purchase any rifle caliper for 12 cents or less by case price.  8mm went from 6 to 8 cents a round, .308 about 10 cents.  Boy, for the good old days.  It just got to be just a zoo with the kids, dogs, and of course the strippers.

The crowd and show sure did change over the years. Years ago there were crates full of surplus guns, box lots full of parts, ammo. It all went away.

[Moped]

18 hours ago, MinerJohn said:

The crowd and show sure did change over the years. Years ago there were crates full of surplus guns, box lots full of parts, ammo. It all went away.

You can thank Washington D.C. for that.

[mike_f]

We didn't go until Saturday, and weren't tempted by any of the reloading offerings that were left.  Still have a couple of jugs I bought from Pat's a few years ago, so I passed on the powder they still had for sale on Saturday. Am I misremembering or were those 8lb jugs $80 back then?  It was nice looking through everything that was for sale, but I only bought 6 USGI M16 cleaning kits that were in good shape at good price.

Our main reason for going was just to see it for the last time.  I first went in '95 and haven't gone in several years. My son hasn't been since he was in High School in the 2000's. We shot machineguns down on the rental range. Glad we went, but was reminded why I stopped.

 

[MinerJohn]

2 hours ago, mike_f said:

We didn't go until Saturday, and weren't tempted by any of the reloading offerings that were left.  Still have a couple of jugs I bought from Pat's a few years ago, so I passed on the powder they still had for sale on Saturday. Am I misremembering or were those 8lb jugs $80 back then?  It was nice looking through everything that was for sale, but I only bought 6 USGI M16 cleaning kits that were in good shape at good price.

Our main reason for going was just to see it for the last time.  I first went in '95 and haven't gone in several years. My son hasn't been since he was in High School in the 2000's. We shot machineguns down on the rental range. Glad we went, but was reminded why I stopped.

 

You're right. Powder back then was $10 pound. I used to buy all my primers off of Hi'Tech. Last time I bought they were $125/5000! I sold a bunch of cleaning rod sets. I sold the rods and handle for the Garand/Carbine for $5.00 set. Same on the .50 cal. Sold the old M16 sets for $10 set. People bought parts like crazy. Most I've ever sold there.

[mike_f]

23 hours ago, MinerJohn said:

You're right. Powder back then was $10 pound. I used to buy all my primers off of Hi'Tech. Last time I bought they were $125/5000! I sold a bunch of cleaning rod sets. I sold the rods and handle for the Garand/Carbine for $5.00 set. Same on the .50 cal. Sold the old M16 sets for $10 set. People bought parts like crazy. Most I've ever sold there.

I may have bought them from you then.  They were $10 each and the only sets that I saw there Saturday.

[seez52]

How was the firing line? Lots of folks there shooting? 

I wanted to go, but did find anyone here that really wanted to make the trip. I've been a couple times in the past and just decided that maybe it was better remembering the way it was than experiencing it today. It was certainly one of a kind.

[DO-TN]

8 hours ago, seez52 said:

How was the firing line? Lots of folks there shooting? 

I wanted to go, but did find anyone here that really wanted to make the trip. I've been a couple times in the past and just decided that maybe it was better remembering the way it was than experiencing it today. It was certainly one of a kind.

The rental range was going hot and heavy, the main line went hot every hour or so (except when they let folks wonder all over the range). The round count was amazing. Just the minigun alone, 30 second bursts. using the math, conservative rate of 3000 rds a minute, so 1500 rounds per burst, 4 bursts per session, 10 sessions per day, 2 days = 120,000 rds from the minigun alone. Even at .50 cents per that is more than my annual salary. Full auto is certainly a rich man's game. 

[MinerJohn]

On 10/18/2021 at 7:19 PM, mike_f said:

I may have bought them from you then.  They were $10 each and the only sets that I saw there Saturday.

I was set up in the sheds at #7

[seez52]

There are some vids on YouTube. One gun has a pile of brass 2 and a half feet tall and three feet around. Heard there was a massive crowd and hours waiting to get in. 

[MinerJohn]

8 hours ago, seez52 said:

There are some vids on YouTube. One gun has a pile of brass 2 and a half feet tall and three feet around. Heard there was a massive crowd and hours waiting to get in. 

It was the biggest crowd they've ever had. People waited in traffic up to five hours on Friday and were turned away. Others parked on the side of the road and walked up to two miles to get in. They delayed the start on Friday because dealers were stuck in traffic and couldn't open their booths. Some dealers didn't make it in until noon. 8600 people Friday and 14,400 on Saturday.