Alliant Powder suspends production??

The tell-tale will be in a few days.
If Hodgdon/ Lovex/ Whateverelse comes out and says the same thing, its a shortage and theres some truth to it.
If not, its Vista going under and selling off various parts of its business.

If Nitrocellulose is under such a short supply it seems silly to me that Hodgdon would buy out RCBS if they saw such writing on the wall with the alleged shortage, unless they're banking on panic equipment purchases, or they are predicting that the shortage isn't going to be a long term issue.

Will certainly be interesting to see what comes out shortly, the last Alliant powder I bought was a couple 8 lb jugs of Sport Pistol a few years back.
 
You can blame Putin…

Sure, in 2022 and 2023...

Russian imports of nitrocellulose, a highly flammable cotton product central to gunpowder and rocket propellant manufacture, surged 70% in 2022, the first year of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and midway through 2023 had amounted to 3,039 tons of the product, nearly double the 2021 level.
 
Sure, in 2022 and 2023...

Russian imports of nitrocellulose, a highly flammable cotton product central to gunpowder and rocket propellant manufacture, surged 70% in 2022, the first year of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and midway through 2023 had amounted to 3,039 tons of the product, nearly double the 2021 level.
Wait, did Russia stop shooting and shelling Ukrainians in 2024? That’s FANTASTIC news!!!!! 😜
 
Alliant can’t be the only powder company affected by this “nitrocellulose shortage”.
I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg
Gotta keep a close eye on it. I have been building reserves the past few months. May need to keep building. Not sure how much is enough. Who am I kidding. It's never enough.
 
Can someone explain why we don’t produce nitrocellulose domestically in any meaningful amounts?
There are several domestic manufacturers. However, I think their main focus is on other nitrocellulose applications (cosmetics, packaging, pharmaceuticals to name a few) than gun powder.

reached out to a former colleague in a membrane manufacturing plant and he was not aware of a nitrocellulose shortage they use to make nitrocellulose membranes.

I'm guessing the shortage is in the cotton/cellulose that is used in making the nitrocellulose.
 
Given the reliable shortages that occur, esp during an election cycle,
how do some/most of you NOT stock deep ALL THE TIME?

I learned that lesson in 2019-2020
Yep, learned that lesson- at least for the powders I use regularly in matches. For those, I have ~ 3 years of powder and primers. For the fun stuff that I shoot occasionally I could probably use another pound or two but have at least a full and partial jar of what I need. I will say that the continued supply chain problems are disappointing- you'd think they would have taken care of that by now. I chalk it up to companies being skinflints more than some evil Putin plot, LOL.

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Glad I bought a bunch of Blue Dot before the pandemic. I haven't seen any of that on shelves in years.
 
Vista owns or is a parent company to federal and cci and probably a few other ammo brands that I can't be bothered to look up right now.
Probably redirecting powder to ammo manufacture to either ship over seas as some kind of foreign aid package or some 3 letter .gov agency that all of the sudden needs 6 million rounds of 5.56 and 9mm, like the i.r.s.
Because accountants need belt fed everything.

Alliant probably just sold out of stuff that hasn't moved in years, thanks to a panic surge.
 
Alliant can’t be the only powder company affected by this “nitrocellulose shortage”.
I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg
I guess I did need a reason to pull the trigger on a couple purchases, so thanks?

Not Alliant but one vendor still had HS-6 and H335 at the old prices. $300 for 8 lbs. [crying]
 
Placed an order in the valley (wink, wink) yesterday. 8LB's of H335 is $55 more than my last order 7 months ago. According to my math that's like a 3000% increase on top of what was *already* an inflated price.

Reloading....it's a rich man's game now. Dark days for us skinflints....
 
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Can someone explain why we don’t produce nitrocellulose domestically in any meaningful amounts?
Because our government sucks, and most American corporations put profits/greed miles ahead of doing things that people need but may not be as profitable.
 
Greedy MBAs playing spreadsheet games, regulatory friction, deliberate action by foreign countries to subsidize production to undercut competition.
Also a discernable lack of care about corporate image vs profits etc. It used to be that corporations would choose to serve markets that weren't quite as desirable to reinforce their image as being a good company. Now nobody takes pride in anything anymore. It's "all cosby, all the time"
 
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