Reality strikes...

A while back, late one night, or more likely, very early in the morning that followed, a guest on Coast to Coast AM mentioned that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had placed a tremendously huge order for small arms ammunition. I don't recall if George Noory was hosting the show that night or if it was one of the now rare nights where Art Bell returned to the microphone, but whichever of them it was wondered aloud exactly what Homeland Security wanted all of that ammunition for. I think the guest for the night mentioned something about prison camps being built in the desert shortly after that...

I take everything I hear on that show with a grain of salt for obvious reasons, but I enjoy it because it always gets a person to think.

Not to long after that, I recall reading a short article in one of the newspapers I read daily about this very large ammunition order.

I was at Cabela's in Owatonna, Minnesota last night. I had some good coupons to use, one of which expired last night, hence the trip. I had a short list of things to stock up on, mostly personal field equipment, such as accessories for my Sure-Fire flashlight and other things.

One thing I just can't get over is the vast number of things this store was out of. To be fair, they are having their annual inventory conducted today, so perhaps they were holding off on replenishing the shelves for that very reason. However, this wasn't the case in all parts of the store...

The cartridge loading section looked to be generally picked over, with a lot of empty slots on the shelf. I noticed signs politely advising customers of increasing prices and shortages.

I've been seeing these for a few years now. The value of copper and brass has multiplied, so ammunition and components have become startlingly expensive. .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridges which used to be commonly available at my local Mills Fleet Farm store for $7.90 per 'brick' of 500 now sell for twelve dollars, and Remington 'Thunderbolts' that had been $9.70 for that same quantity now retail for $16.90! Brass cartridge cases have shot up, as have copper jacketed bullets. Cast lead bullets are up, but not as dramatically. What struck me last night was primers. A shelf that used to be full of them had only a few scattered boxes on it, most of which were #209 shotshell 'battery cup' style primers. Rifle and pistol primers in both small and large sizes were few and far between. And, yes, the cost was up significantly.

No examples of Federal Cartridge Co. primers were to be seen.

A few years ago, Federal, of Minnetonka, MN, was awarded the contract to run the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, near Independence, MO. Much of Federal's resources are currently being put to production of government contract ammunition, especially in 9x19mm and 5.56x45mm NATO spec varieties. Guess who has that huge contract to supply ammunition to the Department of Homeland Security? Yep, Federal!

It's pretty obvious to see why the Department of Defense is ordering a lot of ammunition these days. It's (mostly) all going overseas! But, as was asked, what is Homeland Security doing with all of that ammunition?

I don't know this for a fact, but my very educated guess is that at least some of it will end up very near you, provided you're an American citizen living in the USA as you read this.

In the aftermath of 9/11/2001, emergency response of all types received a significant shot in the arm. Fire departments, emergency management, law enforcement - all saw a significant boost in financial and logistical support. Law enforcement agencies nationwide had the opportunity to improve their ability to respond to critical incidents of all types.

Often, a critical incident is going to involve armed response of some sort. Even if no shots are fired, there is a high likelihood that a dangerous situation will escalate into a deadly one, and the local constabulary is expected to be ready to deal with it, and, naturally, to prevail at all costs.

Decades ago, a rookie officer got some basic firearms instruction at the academy or through on the job mentoring. After that, it was very common for an 'average' officer to never fire their issued service weapon again unless they needed to. Few departments ever provided ammunition for officers to practice with, so if they chose to do so, they were on their own. Some did, most didn't.

Some years back, departments started to require annual qualification tests. Officers had to prove they could hit what they were aiming at and handle their service weapons safely. Departments decided to provide 50 rounds of ammunition per officer to be expended in annual qualification shooting. Practicing for qualification was the officer's responsibility!

As things have progressed, good law enforcement agencies have seen the need to supply time, training, and ammunition for more frequent and expanded qualification shooting.

Today, it is practically required. Not by regulation, but by case law. It's a byproduct of our litigious society today. Anytime the police shoot someone, it seems lawyers are going to become involved very quickly. Police bullets are magic - the most total, abject loser and scum of the earth becomes a wonderful saint of a prized son after he is killed in a shootout with law enforcement, worth at least a million dollars when the dead criminal's family files a wrongful death lawsuit. As a result, departments now understand in no uncertain terms that all officers need to be proven experts in weapon handling and use. You should hear a police firing range today. You'd think there was a war going on there. Each officer now burns through hundreds of pistol, sub-machine gun, rifle, and shotgun rounds. A lot of those rifle rounds are now fired in full automatic bursts. A training officer supervises and records everything. All officers have a complete training record that can be produced in court when the officer's competence is called into question should he or she shoot a suspect during a critical incident.

So, who pays for this? A lot of gear that local agencies have been acquiring in recent years has come from Uncle Sam via grants from the Department of Justice. A lot of it is manifest in the form of surplus equipment and ammunition from the Department of Defense.

This has been a tremendous boon for smaller, rural jurisdictions that don't have the tax base to support the accelerated operations and training of late. Not everything interesting happens in urban areas! Dangerous people figured that out long ago. There's a reason Iowa and other Midwestern states had record numbers of methamphetamine laboratories a few years back. Those folks love their privacy, and where else to get it but out in the 'boonies'?

Ammunition isn't getting any cheaper, and a lot of municipalities can't afford to keep their police departments and sheriff's offices supplied adequately for them to train as much as they need to be to be 'on top of the game' in today's world. Enter the Department of Homeland Security. I suspect a LOT of that ammunition they contracted with Federal for is in .40 Smith and Wesson caliber, almost universally carried by today's officers.

If the government orders a million rounds of small arms ammunition, that sounds huge! Consider this: There are about 850,000 certified law enforcement officers in America today. To provide each one of them one box of fifty .40 S&W cartridges, which would cost about $12, would require an order of 42.5 MILLION rounds. With modern automatic pistols, you can just about carry fifty rounds between the pistol and two spare magazines! So, to provide each officer one box of fifty to carry on duty and one box of fifty to perform a traditional annual qualification with, and we're talking eighty five million rounds of ammunition! How much to train all of our 'boys (and girls) in blue' to currently accepted standards? Hundreds of millions of cartridges every year. And this is assuming that no perpetrators are shot by the police - just training for that eventuality.

In a way, it gets worse. In the preceding paragraph, I referred to boxes of fifty cartridges, costing $12 to $18. Generally, that's how handgun ammunition is packaged in the American market. But that's typical for standard ammunition, such as what one would use for recreational shooting or training. Speer Lawman comes in fifty round boxes, and it's commonly used by officers for training and qualifications. I don't know of any these days who actually carry that, however. For serious use, Winchester SXT, Speer Gold Dot, and Federal Premium are the order of the day. These are sold in boxes of twenty and generally cost roughly $20 per box. That's right, a dollar per round!

I carry Federal Premium in my pistol on the rare occasions when I actually carry it. I load all my own for training and annual qualifications, so my expense is typically $5 per box of 50. I use both Remington and Winchester components in my own loads, with propellant and bullets of various prominent manufacturer's lines.

Lately, though, I've noticed that Remington primers seem to be a bit on the hard side. My pistol has a double action trigger with repetitive strike capacity, so if it goes 'click' instead of 'BOOM!' when I pull the trigger, I can pull it again right away and most of the time it will fire. When I maintain my proficiency on my own time, it's annoying. At qualifications, it's embarrassing. In real life, it could be deadly! This is precisely why I carry the very best ammunition I can buy and absolutely none of my own handloads. This doesn't mean that I don't wonder if Remington primers really are hard these days or if my pistol just has a light striker.

One of the things I was hoping to find at Cabela's was a box or three of Federal pistol primers. I assume that Federal uses their own primers in all of the ammunition they make, so if I use Federal primers in my handloads for a while and no misfires occur, I can rest assured that it's just the brass Remington uses in theirs. If that happens with Federal primers, too, then my carry pistol is probably getting sent back to its maker for service!

Of course, the real gurus out there would advise me to just shoot up my supply of Federal Premium cartridges and buy new ones. Yikes! Great advice if your conscience allows you to follow it! At a dollar a piece, I think I'll not follow that anytime soon and just have faith that the stuff will function just fine.

It'd sure be nice if I could get some of their primers to try out first, though. With world events being what they are, who knows when that'll be!

At least the grocery stores and the gas stations don't (yet) resemble the primer shelf at Cabela's right now!

Take care,

theTiGor