Pellet Availability Moving In Wrong Direction

Amazon has JSB’s in stock, with free shipping (for prime members)……$57.95! It’d be cheaper to invent an airgun that shoots dimes…..

Just looked and it appears that A LOT of Amazon vendors are price gouging right now. And let's not overlook inaccurate descriptions like "Predator Polymag Hades .22 Cal."

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Honestly I took a chance with a company I haven't used before. They claim to have pellets in stock. I asked other members about their experiences with the company and all I received was positive feedback about them. ere's a link to the thread where other members spoke positively about this company from their own experiences https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/can-any-members-share-their-experience-shopping-w-new-england-airgun/?referrer=1 When I called, I spoke with a very friendly young man. I received an email update on an item I had a question about earlier in the day and I decided to place an order. The company is New England Airgun out of Massachusetts. If you're interested check them out www.NewEnglandAirgun.com. Here's a link to their pellet page https://www.newenglandairgun.com/pellets1.html Navigating the site takes some getting used to. My only caveat is that I placed an order this week and I HAVE NOT RECEIVED MY PELLETS YET NOR HAVE I EVER DONE BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY BEFORE, therefore I cannot vouch for them personally. Purchase at your own discretion. I can say that I researched them and deiced to take a chance on them based upon my findings. 
 
Just looked and it appears that A LOT of Amazon vendors are price gouging right now.

I'm taking all of this as an opportunity to test out H&N pellets for really the first time. I don't have any illusions that they will be 'magic' in any of my guns, but hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised. And one of my orders of them placed through PA just shipped!
 
TMH, most of what you say is true. The real problem is we still have the outdated import restrictions on ammo left over from the repealed assult ban. They repealed the rifles but left all the import restrictions. Could you even imagine the pricing and availability of cellphones, scopes, appliances, clothing and thousands of other items if we had to rely on domestic manufacturing and could only import from industrial midgets like Russia, Italy, Australia and Mexico? Get Norinco and others in China cranking up ammo for export in a 24/7/365 factory the size of a football field with no regulations or ties to US or allied millitary industrial complex contracting and we are talking some volume. 

This lets US manufacturers manufacture in a highly profitable environment with zero warehousing for such shortages and situations. They don't have to take risk and invest in larger facilities, machinery, warehouses, stock rotation etc etc. It is a non competative sitaution where they can do as they please. The shelves will simply stay bare for as long as it takes even years for them to catch up. No chance of imports taking over their shelf space with adequate ammo.

If you did this with any high demand product the result would be exactly the same. 
 
Having pellets on hand is just like everything ekse in life, plan ahead, be ready to modify your plans. Not having your particular pellet availiable is no ones fault but your own. This has been comming for over a year, so why didnt people plan ahead? Just like retirement time, people dont plan ahead for themselves but expect everyone else to give up what they have to help them !! If you cant plan ahead then go without or find a substitute!!
 
Random lame wanderings but, this forum has something like 100,000+ members. Think about that because if even a 1/4 of that number posted daily, some several times, you'd be very hard pressed, if you even could, to keep up with the 50-60,000+ posts daily. I bring it up because a lot of members are silent. Why? They only joined for info, it's here and the members gave it to them: Where to get guns, where to get the best deals and discounts, where to get scopes, rings, other accessories and the biggest? Where to get pellets...lol. Now they're armed with the info they want and trot off to all the websites they just learned about to try and buy like you are.

Why have retailers suddenly cancelled backordering?? I've seen any number here flat admit they have and in a few cases, placed several and with different companies. Don't think those silent members are doing the same thing? Guess again. The guess is retailers had to stop allowing backorders because they've been flooded so badly with them, they'd never get a tin of pellets on a shelf. They get a pallet or 2 in and they never hit a shelf, they get parceled out to fill backorders. They had to limit quantities because the minute shooters find out there are any, out comes a credit card while they dial a phone to ask about on hand, then buy every tin they can at every retailer they can. All those silent members are too but again, they never post and even if they did, they won't say they did.

Half a million, a million, more?? is just a wild guess and likely very low, but get that many shooters trying to order in bulk and all wanting those same prized pellets? And again, they aren't trying to order Buy 3 Get 1 free. They're trying to order anything from a sleeve to a case with fingers crossed. Likely placing a backorder, then doing that 3 or 4 more times every 10-15 minutes and probably at 2 or 3 or even 4 retailers. 

Now add in all the other air gun forums out there with lots of members and a large part of them silent. Getting it yet :)
 
I don't need any but I am trying to get a buddy into a quality PCP to have a shooting buddy. Tractor Supply and Wally's are not going to work for a $1000 to $2000 PCP setup for 50yd plus range work. Many of us have guns with months of tuning invested in getting a pellet to work for our purposes. 

Fine if all you own is a Crossman 760 Pumpmaster or maybe a Gamo springer and shoot cans at 15yds.

Really? With my Bantam Sniper HR I regularly and I mean almost daily hit black walnut husks, half husk out to 64 yards consistently with 14.3 Gr. Crosman Premiers. Many kills out to 60 yards on birds. Rats out to 45-50 yards. Do they group as well as my JSB Exact Jumbo 18s? No, but the pests don’t know the difference. A good/great PCP should shoot a variety of pellets accurately (sub 3/4”) at 50 yards, if it can’t what is the point if all it can accurately shoot, is ammo you can’t buy at the moment. Gonna go shoot my 760 at cans now
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Exactly my thought. Seems like most all of the "High End" guns I have owned do exactly that. My present RTI shoots like that. 18.1JSB and Crosman Ultra are single hole 25yds. Others like the 15.9, H&N's, CPHP all about 1/4-3/8" at 25yds, and 3/4" at 50yds. In the past if I had a gun that only shoots a single pellet "good" it's not staying around long.

But all of my Taipan, Daystate, FX were multi pellet shooters just as the RTI. Now I've had a bunch of Crosman, Hatsan, AVI etc that were "picky". Yes they got tuned and were very accurate, but with just that single pellets.

What I was trying to convey is that when the pre orders dissappeard with the powder burner ammo it was the beginning of the drought. The dealers have massive backlogs of orders and no supply or supply dates even. They are down to rumors, hopes and wish dates. 



My area Walmarts carry 177cal 7.9gr hollow points and that is it. Even that is on/off. Been like that for a year now. My Tractor Supply carries two 177cal daisy pellets and some BB's. Been like that for years. The 22 cal CP Heavies have disappeared even in 177. Been like that for over a month now. Three months for the brown box 177. 



I guess this is all subjective as is the term "good". He is not buying a RAW to plink walnuts at 65yds. With no other criteria you can do that OK with a 177 HW springer pretty good for $450. Same with birds and rats or 25yd groups for that matter. Most guns, unlike Bantam Sniper with dial, you have to break it down to do more than hammer spring tweaking which is a real pain and say goodbye to the factory tune which is for 18.1 to 25.4gr pellet range or heavier. Many of these 50ftlb high end PCP's are tuned way too hot to shoot the light pellets as they spiral and groups open up quite a bit much over 920fps in most guns. The 22cal light pellets are closer to shooting 177 than getting the benefits of a 22cal. The light pellets are still available for a reason. If you are happy with that more power to you.



You can always lower your expectations and shooting to match the market.




Yes we get it Austin, your super pricey, very powerful PCPs only shoot pellets you can’t get. As for lowering accuracy expectations? I have recorded 1/4” 50 yard groups with the same gun. And target shoot and plink out to 102 yards with the same rig. Your buddy won’t be shooting walnut husk because he doesn’t have pellets. Give him some of yours. Good luck in your search for your buddies pellets. Like I said before a good/great PCP should be able to do sub 3/4" groups at fifty yards with a variety of pellets.
 
During this time of pellet shortages I also find I'm shooting my .177 cal guns more. If one looks at what is currently in stock and available from U.S. outlets, most of it is .177. And some of my .177 guns shoot heavier pellets (16.2 gr) really well (Crown, Pulsar HP, Wolverine). At least out to the ~60 yards I have shot them.

For the O.P.'s question, if getting into airguns right now you might want to look at picking up a gun in .177. Especially one which is easily converted over to a larger caliber later. For a quality gun the Crown really comes to mind. I can be as accurate with a nicely set up Crown (especially with a GRS stock) as I can with my RAWs, at least out the the 100 yards I have shot them.
 
@austin870, was plinking at these bottles at 102 yards with the 14.3 gr. Crosman Premier. My Bantam sends them in the low 940-945 FPS average on level six. First or second round hits are the norm in good conditions. Would I shoot at an animal at the same distance? With the same pellets? No. I use my JSB Exact Jumbo 18s at 875 FPS for that. Give them a try at lesser speeds you might be pleasantly surprised. That piece a chalk used to be a bigger piece of chalk. And that’s a shot up black walnut in the background 😀

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Well Pyramid just put an 8 tin limit on the 22 cal JSB 18.1 pellets. Eight tins means you get one extra tin with a purchase of eight now. You can't put 10 in the box to get two extra tins and spread the shipping charge. If that was the only pellet you need the shipping per tin will be higher. 

It wasn't there yesterday so the rationing is beginning. I didn't check any others. 

I believe 14gr is the absolute lightest 22cal before moving to wadcutters which only go down to 12 or so. I would negate everything I went to a 22 cal for. I have 177's to shoot those weight pellets cheaper and can get JSB. Not saying that is not a good situation for others. It just doesn't make sense to me to shoot 22 cal pellets under 18gr. I might as well shoot the 177 guns. The difference is nominal. 


 
Unfortunately for your situation PA had JSB variant (Air Arms labeled) 18.13's and .25 cal 25.4's available a few weeks ago. As well as some actual JSB labeled .25 cal 25.4's. They all had the 8 tin limit, so I think that this has been going on with PA for about the last month.

Fortunately the limit was per day. You just needed to add some other stuff to the order to get the faster (4-day) free shipping. And it always seems like I need some 'other stuff.'

I still think that pellets will continue to come into stock randomly as shipping containers get off-loaded and some vendor stocking orders get through. But it will be random (and likely short term), and you will need to check the inventory on your favorite sites at least daily, or even multiple times per day if you want to get pellets.
 
During this time of pellet shortages I also find I'm shooting my .177 cal guns more. If one looks at what is currently in stock and available from U.S. outlets, most of it is .177. And some of my .177 guns shoot heavier pellets (16.2 gr) really well (Crown, Pulsar HP, Wolverine). At least out to the ~60 yards I have shot them.

For the O.P.'s question, if getting into airguns right now you might want to look at picking up a gun in .177. Especially one which is easily converted over to a larger caliber later. For a quality gun the Crown really comes to mind. I can be as accurate with a nicely set up Crown (especially with a GRS stock) as I can with my RAWs, at least out the the 100 yards I have shot them.

Unfortunately for your situation PA had JSB variant (Air Arms labeled) 18.13's and .25 cal 25.4's available a few weeks ago. As well as some actual JSB labeled .25 cal 25.4's. They all had the 8 tin limit, so I think that this has been going on with PA for about the last month.

Fortunately the limit was per day. You just needed to add some other stuff to the order to get the faster (4-day) free shipping. And it always seems like I need some 'other stuff.'

I still think that pellets will continue to come into stock randomly as shipping containers get off-loaded and some vendor stocking orders get through. But it will be random (and likely short term), and you will need to check the inventory on your favorite sites at least daily, or even multiple times per day if you want to get pellets.

I was thinking about that when I saw it. I don't really see what the once a day limit solves unless they only have stock for a day or two (or hour or two) then it's all gone for several weeks. That does seem to be the pattern now. Creates more profits for Pyramid shipping small orders with same or close to shipping cost as larger ones. They also get more people to the website per day placing orders getting them some high margin add on items to a pellet order.