Well, folks, there are two wars going on.
A single yank of the lanyard of a 155mm howitzer can burn 25 pounds of "propellant". For the record, each "can" of propellant in the current system contains about five pounds of triple-base propellant, of which the largest proportion is nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. NC and NG are also the primary components of the propellants used in small-arms like 9mm Luger, .223 Remington and other common firearms.
When the enemy is close and fire-command calls for lobbing in shots, relatively few "cans" of propellant are used. When the enemy is distant then five cans are used. As a rule, the crews manning the artillery prefer shooting at the enemy at-distance. Consequently, many/most of the shots use five cans per shot.
How much is 25 pounds of propellant? This not intended to imply that the powder used in artillery can be loaded into small arms. It cannot be. Rather, it is an attempt to quantify how much propellant cannot be manufactured for small arms because critical resources are being diverted to military consumption.
25 pounds of smokeless propellant is enough to make 35,000 9mm Luger, 45 ACP or 38 Special cartridges.
25 pounds of smokeless propellant is enough to make 7000 5.56mm NATO or 12 gauge shotgun shells.
25 pounds of smokeless propellant is enough to make 3900 7.62mm NATO or 6.5 Creedmoor.
THERE IS NO "EXCESS CAPACITY" for smokeless propellant ingredients that can be activated.
Every yank of the lanyard makes 35,000 handgun cartridges disappear.
The price of smokeless powder doubled in the past year or so. Expect that trend to continue as wars pop up like mushrooms after a rain.
If you are thinking of reloading then the following table may be useful:
A pound of smokeless propellant is running between $40 and $60 per pound. The good news is that you can find it on-the-shelves at this price. And the drought for large rifle primers seems to be easing.
A pound of smokeless propellant is enough to to make 1400 of the most common pistol cartridges.
A pound of smokeless propellant is enough to make 440 20 gauge reloads.
A pound of smokeless propellant is enough to make about 270 5.56 NATO or high-end 12 gauge reloads.
A pound of smokeless propellant is enough to make 160 7.62 NATO (.308 Win) or 6.5 Creedmoor or 120 30-06 Springfield.
A final note
The type of powder used in handguns is almost never used in rifle cartridges like 5.56mm or 7.62mm NATO but some handgun powders are used in shotguns (and vice versa).
As an aside the original 303 British issue ammo was a full charged of compressed black powder topped with a 200 grain round nose lead bullet. Many pistol rounds have "cowboy action shooting" loads of black powder.
ReplyDeleteA bit simpler chemistry than nitrocellose.
Economics:
ReplyDeleteThe study of scare resources with alternative uses..................
Economics is quite a word to study.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_%28Aristotle%29
Aristotle wrote 2 books about it. I was amazed how some of what I read in Wikipedia resembled this:
Ephesians 5: 28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
Before Christ dude that understood the value of a loving husband-wife relationship.
If I had known what primers were going to be worth, I would have bought cases....
ReplyDeleteSame here...
DeleteI have plenty of ammo to last until I get blasted, or die from disease, starvation, alien/zombie/foreign/vibrant/ dot.mil hordes, etc. I'm more like a tank ( or Bradly) with a thrown track. Where ever I am when it start's, is likely where it's gonna end. If fortune smiles on me, I'll give better than I receive, for awhile. Living with integrity and honor is my main goal (of course, I also have a shit ton of other necessities to deal with).
ReplyDeleteToo broke to push fiat bucks at ammo these days.
If you reload, and have not been stocking up, best start.
ReplyDeletetoo late, really. Shoulda done it 6 months ago when the price dropped hard.
DeleteDollar cost average your way in though. Buy a bit at a time over the next few months.
The issue is lack of manufacturing capacity. We allowed much of the capacity for making ammo to slowly wither and cease after WWII. Bringing back that manufacturing ability would require a huge capital investment. One nobody is willing to make right now. It would require the Fed Gov to step up and make the investment to bring significant capacity back online. I don't see that happening. Anyone who hasn't been acquiring and storing necessary supplies including ammo may find doing so now to be difficult and very expensive. We are are war and open shooting war is just around the corner. Anyone not ready by now is way behind the curve, perhaps irretrievably
ReplyDeleteWhile 'onshoring' of lost manufacturing shows signs of developing a head of steam, I see the advent of cottage industries to become much like the days of the Revolution. This particulary due to the regulatory climate of today.
ReplyDelete(Of note; WWII Japan relied on such small scale enterprises. This presented difficulty for American aerial bombing.)
There was an early competitor to smokeless powder, amonpulver / amidpulver. It was ammonium nitrate mixed with carbon. It had a lot of advantages but the big two disadvantages were a crystalline phase change at normal temperatures and being hygroscopic. I've wondered if you could eliminate those disadvantages by leaving out the carbon and encapsulating the AN in something. Cellulose Acetate would allow a thicker encapsulating layer while still allowing complete combustion. Obviously this would need thorough testing by qualified people.
ReplyDelete