https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-gamJ56Lb4

“I’m not trying to start a buying panic,” gun guru James Yeager announces, as he starts a buying panic, “but if you’re doing any training this year with your 7.62 AK, you should pick up your ammo now.” According to Mr Yeager, there ain’t no Soviet ammo on the boat to The Land of the Free and Wolf is rationing. What with Sipsey Street Irregular Mike Vanderboegh predicting a ban on Russian ammo from our very own Fearless Leader, it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Our good friends at ammunitiontogo.com say they have plenty of stock – for the moment. You guys seeing any runs on Russki ammo at the sharp end? [h/t/ HB]

 

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128 COMMENTS

  3. Yawn, maybe if all the x39 becomes the panic rage then maybe .22lr will become available again.

  6. God f’ing dammit!

    First .22lr now 7.62x39mm? Guess the universe doesn’t want me to shoot ever again.

      • Obuma doesn’t have the nads to hate Putin. If Putin yelled BOO Obuma would wet himself.

        KGB vs ACORN. (or the thugs vs the pansies)

  8. I ain’t falling for it. I got all the commie ammo I need. If it runs out I’ll make bird feeders out of my mosins. I can get non commie ammo for my mak. I plan on only ever using my SKS again if some really truly bad shtf. In which case I got enough ammo.

    Besides, Shotguns!

    This weekend I’m doing a gun shop crawl with my son to get my meat rifle. Should be fun.

    • Ah nice. New hunting rifle with the boy is quite a memorable trip, I remember picking up a couple guns like that with my Dad, and now it looks like theyre going to be mine in the end anyway. I look forward to the day when I have a son/daughter that I can take to do the same.

      • As do I.
        I’m 23 and I’ve never been hunting. Ever. I hope to correct that, VERY soon.

        • The EXACT age I was when I started. You won’t regret it. Your wallet might, but you won’t 🙂

  9. I was thinking about an AK so I could shoot cheap.

    Guess that’s off for this year at least.

    • Same here. Moral of the story; buy cheap ammo regardless of the caliber. One day you might come around to it.

      • Yep. I have ammo and mags for things I don’t even own yet, but plan to someday.

        It seemed to me that ammo and mags were harder to come by than the firearms themselves. And ammo doesn’t usually get cheaper. Case in point 5.45 prices for spam cans and 7.62x54R to a degree.

  10. It’s just a matter of time before POTUS shuts down trade with Russia, and after that say buh-bye to Russkie ammo. Two birds with one stone — the Russkies and us.

    My guess is that POTUS hates us worse.

    • You assume that POTUS has the balls to do so. We have already seen he has a spineless wishy-washy foreign policy. Plus, the EU needs the Russian Natural Gas just survive and POTUS will not go against his socialist brothers.

  11. Our friends the Romanians make 7.62×39 and so do the EvilSerbs. I am sure they will pick up the slack.

    • Bingo. Not to mention that it might push importers to start exploring other options for ammo, maybe from South America, the Pacific Rim, or the more civilized parts of Africa.

      • “More civilized parts of Africa”
        Clearly you’re suggesting that no part of Africa is actually civilized.
        And I don’t disagree

    • I ain’t buying from Serbia, they are sort of the reason I like guns. What with the whole ethnic cleansing thing.

      NOTE: I do know Serbs are not evil, baby-monsters but I don’t trust a good deal of them. My neighbour got almost killed by the man who he drank with for 20 years. If people can switch that quickly when presented an opportunity so can my safety to the “off” position.

  12. I think a secret faction of KGB put a bunch of operatives in positions in US banks and had them authorize bad loans, thus precipitating the mortgage crisis which crippled the US and European economies. Then Putin tested us with Syria by orchestrating the chemical weapon’s scare and backing the regime. When he saw the american people (and therefore the politicians) had no will for any other wars, he decided to invade Ukraine. We got past the cold war. Russia didn’t.

    //tin foil hat off

    • No way. Global warming caused all of this. Bush caused global warming. And Obama is the savior of the world. See?

  13. Nobody buys AK ammo round these parts. I’ve got CASES AND CASES at my shop and I can’t even get rid of them at cost…I don’t see a scare..

  14. I’d better grab a can or two of 7.62x54R just in case, I guess. Just finally got an M44 last weekend, too…

    • One needs do a dusk shoot with ones new m44. And if your m44 shoots better with extended bayonet(Some do) make sure you clean the bayo thoroughly after shooting corrosive surplus thru the carbine.

      And it’s a kick to be on the range with extended bayonet. Quite the attention getter.

        • The US was jealous of the M44 muzzle flame, that is why they built the Saturn 5….

      • Interesting. I had read somewhere that the Mosin was built to be fired with the bayonet extended, and if you folded it back it messed up the “harmonics”, resulting in less accuracy.

        • It varies from m44 to m44. The first one I had shot just fine with bayo folded. The last one I had did much better with bayo extended. I’m not an expert, but in my experience if the folded bayo effects your accuracy it’s to throw your grouping off to the left.

        • It doesn’t really worsen the groups, but M44 (well, all Mosins, really) were supposed to all be zeroed with bayonet attached/extended, since Soviet doctrine of that period called for bayos to be attached at all time except when troops are bunched together in tight spaces (transported on trucks or ships, say). They were even supposed to be attached when on the march.

          So detaching/folding it will alter the PoI quite a bit.

    • I love my M44, after I put earplugs and muffs on. It is fun to shoot and scares people away when I feel like some alone time at the range.

  15. Nothing happens in a vacuum. If 7.62 & 5.45 dries up, all is cheapos will resort to having to hit the standard American calibers again, which furthers the drought in 223 and 22lr. God help us if 54R goes missing!

  17. heeheehhee….. Congratulations you just did !!!

    I just ordered $700 of Russian made ammo THANKS TO YOU !!!

    It makes sense that if Obama is talking about sanctions on Russia the first thing that is going to dry up is my beloved Tul Ammo.

    Of course down the road if I can’t get Tul Ammo… I have to buy other brands… so that is naturally going to have an effect on the availability of Domestic made ammo.

  18. In addition to Russia and Ukraine, 7.62×39 is made and imported from Czech Republic, (Sellier-Bellot) Hungary, (Fiocchi) Romania (Red Army Standard), and Serbia (Prvi Partizan) to name a few.

    To be sure there are about eight or so brands from Russia and Ukraine: Bears, Golden Tiger, Tula, another Ukraine Red Army Standard, various flavors of Wolf. All of the above is usually the less expensive stuff.

    Having said that, I personally ordered a few cases once the trouble seemed to heat up. For the following reasons:

    Beat price gougers to the punch.
    I shoot it a lot.
    I like to buy in bulk to save.
    I buy the Russian and Ukranian stuff anyway because it’s usually the cheapest and works good.
    If the situation there goes to poop, supply might be disrupted by war or trade restriction. If so, might be the last of cheap Russian and Ukranian 7.62×39 for awhile.

    I noticed that a day or two ago SGAmmo put Golden Tiger cases back in stock. It’s sold out now. But, that stuff usually goes quick anyway. So, is that an ammo run? Dunno.

    Now here’s a follow on question for AK fans.

    If there is a blow up over there, will that mean no more Saiga rifles and shotguns, a shortage of SGLs? So if you think it might happen, maybe it means you might want to pick up that Saiga you were meaning to convert, etc. just speculation.

    • It’s a good thing I’m buying an AK in the next 5 days, thanks to my income tax.

      What great timing

    • My AK and AR’s all shoot 5.56 for caliber commonality, and they all have no problem with steel case ammo. Even during the darkest days of 2013 you could find Tula and Wolf .223 for $300 a 1,000 if you looked hard enough. Snagged a case whenever I could. The time to restock on ammo was a month ago, brass 223 can be had for $400 a 1000 right now. This is probably the ammo bottom.

      • I just paid $75.00 for a hundred rounds of 223 Lapua at Cabela’s. You have to pay for quality, but I was hoping not quite so much.

      • Same here. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED my 5.45 Saiga, but I could see the potential problem with keeping it fed with the Georgian clash a few years back. I actually expected that to be one of BHO’s executive orders in 2013, slashing imports.
        Being able to shoot all variety of crappy steel .223 is like driving a high-mileage truck (which I also do), it ain’t pretty, but it’s cheap, and it keeps you running well after the yuppies have all dried out.

    • I checked SGammo last night and they still had cases and cases of the various com-bloc ammos in stock.

      I am not saying this as a call to “buy it all up!”. I am saying that there is no shortage right now, and there’s really no cause for panic buying… ESPECIALLY if you have other calibers to fall back on like 5.56×45 and 9mm.

      I also very much doubt we’ll see any ammo sales restrictions coming from either party. Sanctions will simply draw this out longer, and it’s pretty clear there’s not a whole lot anyone can do at this point to stop the Russians from doing what they want to do. The Ukrainians are not in a position to kick off a war over this, either.

  19. There’s a mosin with 1 spam can of ammo for sale locally for 200 bucks. Guess I should buy it.
    I really had my heart set on a carbine tho.

    • Spam can of ammo goes for about 80-90 bucks. Mosins are going for about 150 nowadays and up. Seems like a good deal.

    • Where were you? I just sold a Mosin Carbine for $85.00. It didn’t have the bayonet. The same guy I sold the bayonet to, bought the rest of the gun a couple months later. Total for both, $105.00 Paid $95.00 for the gun six months ago.
      The reason I sold it was that I bought a Savage 340 in 30/30 cal. for $125, which replaced the carbine.

    • Don’t pass up what sounds like a really good deal on a 91/30 just because it’s not exactly what you hoped for. The carbines aren’t as common now as they were a few years ago. Also, there’s nothing currently stopping you from having both.

      It can still happen, I’ve been looking for a younger brother (M44) for my 91/30 since I got the 91/30 home four or five years ago. I finally found one, payed a bit of a premium to a reluctant seller, and now have a desire to “hoard” some ammo to feed both of the family members.

      And, as far as paying a little high (though still close to what I considered to be fair market value), I noticed the next day my M44 was imported before the import stamp requirement, so I feel like I won out on this one. Besides, I’m willing to pay a little more for something I plan to keep for a long time.

  20. i buy ak ammo for no more than 20 cents a round any more than that and ill feed my ar

  21. please please! say it aint so! I’m starting to forget what .22 looks like and now the x39… i think i will take up building model airplanes.

  22. One thing about the AR based rifles – they’re “our” rifle and they use “our” ammo. Import restrictions and diplomatic issues won’t cut off the supply.

  23. yeah, whatever the truth of the matter, people are already out there losing their minds over. not going to say that there’s nothing to it… but damn, it’s just going to snowball from here.

  26. Maybe the price of of .30-06 will come down then? (Just bought a Garand, experiencing mild ammo sticker shock)

    • About the cheapest I can find is the CMP HXP. It went up in price a bit from when I last bought my 600. I need to get into reloading so I won’t have to worry about availability as much.

  27. There are so many 7.62 weapons around, why doesn’t someone manufacture this stuff?

    • 1. US manufacturers cannot compete on volume, so they don’t bother trying

      2. “Not Invented Here” + Commie rahffuls.

  31. Yes pretties, buy all that 7.62×39, you don’t need all that annoying .308 ammo. It will be all mine! Hahahaha!

  32. Crap. Maybe I should have been buying more ammo for my Mini-30 instead of knives and flashlights.

  39. This will not start an ammo run. Credit cards are maxed out and bank accounts are deleted after the ammo and AR run we just had.

  41. Just checked Gunbot. Lots of commie stuff out there from .21/rnd on up. Don’t make it worse than it is until it’s proven through reliable channels.

  42. MAC called Wolf and debunked this.

    I love the first amendment, but hate that it means I have to let Yaeger have a voice. Too bad too many idiots who don’t know any better will listen to him and ruin it all for the rest of us

  43. way to contribute to inflation, TTAG. are you fucking serious? “post Russian invasion”??? more like peaceful Russian occupation of a region which is predominantly populated with Russians. and there is no panic buying. titling articles like this to inspire drama to get more readers makes you as credible as James Yeager.

  44. Never let a good crises go to waste? I guess the ammo companies will get the gun buying public all worked up and jack up the prices and their profits again.

    Isn’t everyone already stocked up and broke from the panic buying last year?

  45. I’m seeing no real panic on x39. Plenty out there and basically the same price it was before.

  46. There are lots of OUT OF STOCK buttons popping up on various ammo sites. They either want to hold it back until they raise the prices or there has been a sudden run on it. Would not be surprised for another contrived “shortage” since this Russian stuff slipped thru the cracks last go around. Speaking of which the libtards seem to be running behind schedule on their next “event” so they can harp on bans again and divert more press from Obamacare and the resulting financial meltdown thats right around the corner.

  47. This frickin’ rumor has been debunked. Yeager probably got his “information” from the same stupid “source” that got spread around to all the blogs. And TTAG posting crap like this is a reason another reason why I don’t come here as often as I used too.

    Thanks.

  48. One day later from this post, most online vendors are OUT OF STOCK of steel case cheap stuff. Price a few days ago was 219.00 per 1K. Lets see how high it goes with this Ukraine situation. Looks like another ammo drought on hand. Prices still high for all other calibers. 22LR tough to find. Hope and change keeps spreading like cancer. Yes We F’ing Can.

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