wetted nitrocellulose (a key component of smokeless powder) reclassified by ATF?

[Tamara]

Thread title is SUPER misleading.

[Hauptmann]

Not my fault I can't read... I've already texted my guy that I was coming buy. See what you've made me do Internet!?

Dude, you are still a slacker. Get your stocks back up before the apocalypse!

[MistWolf]

Now we know why the .gov has been buying up so much ammo

[Hauptmann]

Now we know why the .gov has been buying up so much ammo

No more than usual to supply ammo to tens of thousands of officers/agents. Previously, field offices would order all their ammo on their own. Now with DHS centralized orders, every field office from Alaska, to Guam, to the Solomon Islands orders their ammo through DHS, and then DHS distributes it out to the field offices. The only difference now is that there are a few bulk purchase orders available via the freedom of information act that make the media headlines. My field office has a decent stock, but we maintain that because we have been unable to order in previous years so we need to be stocked for a minimum of two years.

[Josh Runkle]

...but I read on infowars that...

[LittleLebowski]

This will surely fix many problems.

[Rich@CCC]

OK, I mis read both of the articles the first time through and saw that the new classification encompassed the finished smokeless powder, not just the key raw component of the powder.

I can't edit the OP an longer so if one of the mods would please change the title to something a bit more accurate? That'd be greeat..

[Rich@CCC]

Beat me to the punch again Tom!

[Rich@CCC]

How much you want to bet that the price of powder goes up drastically regardless of whether there's a hording run or not?

[HCM]

No more than usual to supply ammo to tens of thousands of officers/agents. Previously, field offices would order all their ammo on their own. Now with DHS centralized orders, every field office from Alaska, to Guam, to the Solomon Islands orders their ammo through DHS, and then DHS distributes it out to the field offices. The only difference now is that there are a few bulk purchase orders available via the freedom of information act that make the media headlines. My field office has a decent stock, but we maintain that because we have been unable to order in previous years so we need to be stocked for a minimum of two years.

....and multiple agencies buying on one contract = cheaper prices. It's simply the Costco /Sams Club theory of ammo purchasing.

Writing Federal contracts costs money so one centralized multi year contract saves $$$ in admin costs.

For a demonstration of scale, ICE, and CBP/USBP combined have about 62,000 sworn LEO's. Each is issued 12 round .40 cal HK or SIG duty pistol and 4 magazines. So 4 full 12 round mags plus one in the chamber is 49 rounds of duty carry ( 1 in the chamber plus one mag in gun, two spares and one in your bag / glove box / vest carrier etc).

That's 3,038,000 rounds just in current duty carry "walking around" ammo.

That ammo is shot up and replaced during quarterly qualification and training ( 150 to 250 rounds per quarter). Some will shoot more depending on assignment. 62,000 x 250 = 15,500,00 rounds just in minimum qualification and sustainment training. That is just handguns.

Now add other DHS agencies like the US Coast Guard, USSS, FAMS etc getting ammo via the same contract. Then add non DHS agencies like NCIS which also get their ammo off the DHS contract.

Then there is FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which is also part of DHS. All federal LEA's except the FBI and DEA do all or part of their training at FLETC using FLETC supplied ammo.