Iraq war slows flow of bullets to police

[unhappycamper]

Iraq war slows flow of bullets to police


PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- Law enforcement officials in South Dakota say the need for bullets used by the military in Iraq has made it more difficult to get the ammunition police need for training and patrol work.

It takes more than a year to fill bullet orders for police and gun shops, an ammunition manufacturer in Rapid City confirms.

Kristi Hoffman, co-owner of Black Hills Ammunition, a mid-sized ammunition company that has contracts with the U.S. Navy, said her firm has an order backlog of 16-18 months for gun shops and law agencies that want rifle bullets.

Black Hills Ammunition specializes in .223-caliber rifle rounds, and the need to meet deadlines in military contracts means other customers must wait, she said. The company is running at capacity to fill orders, Hoffman added.


~snip~

"It would be a disaster if we had firearms training and we didn't have enough ammunition to accommodate the officers," he said.

"The moral of the story is, you've got to plan ahead, and we always do that for our training courses. But it does add an additional element of difficulty when it is an essential item," Bierne said. "When you can't depend on ammunition to arrive in eight or 10 months, you start getting into the danger zone."

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uhc note: Interesting. We're using about 250,000 bullets in Iraq to kill a person.

[acmavm]

1. Somewhere in there is one hell of a Twilight Zone episode.

[Pavulon]

2. I guess they are using ss109

That was the standard issue round 10 years ago, guess it still is.

They could use some other make of 556 ammo. A little googling revealed this ammo is available in mass from many distributors. I cant imagine they use that much select fire ammo in day to day policing but it is out there.

The idea of supressive fire being put out while allowing a force to move up or back is pretty standard. That round is used by machine gunners in place of the 7.62 round.