Booth / first look: Shot Show 2022 Media Day at the Range interview with Charles Brown of MKS Supply (Hi-Point / U.S. importer of Barnaul ammo) on the then-new Russian ammo import ban (~6 min). This is a show-floor interview tape, not a multi-month SlavGuns T&E and not a Short. Policy, Form 6 windows, pricing, and availability are as taped (upload Feb 2022) and have almost certainly moved — verify current import rules and what’s actually on shelves before you buy or stockpile.
Channel fans and family — one of the questions that kept showing up (and honestly kept me up at night) was simple: what happens to Russian ammo? Here’s my Shot Show 2022 range-day chat with Charles Brown of MKS — the folks behind Hi-Point and the U.S. import side of Barnaul — about the executive-order ban, Form 6 approvals, which calibers get hit hardest, and what he was telling buyers at the time.
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Who we talked to (and why)
We went straight to the importer. Charles walked the situation from the business side: MKS had been bringing in Barnaul — steel-case ammo a lot of us ran hard in AKs and other platforms — and then an executive order cut off new Russian ammo imports. The tape is early 2022 range-day context. Treat every “how long” and “what happens next” answer as historical as taped.
Form 6: the two-year clock
Charles’s key mechanics point: imports needed an approved Form 6, and those approvals carried an expiration of about two years. When they saw the ban coming, MKS filed a bunch of new Form 6s to pad supply under already-approved windows. Past that window? He was blunt — yes, yes, and probably on whether people get squeezed, because they still needed clarity from the administration on how far the ban went.
One open question on the tape: whether the ban would also cover components. If components got swept in, the “reload offshore / re-import finished rounds” workaround gets a lot harder. As of the booth, they didn’t have a clean answer.
Which calibers get hammered
Most impacted, in Charles’s words: the typical Russian military calibers — 7.62×39, 5.45×39, and 7.62×54R. Those are the ones where cheap steel-case volume mattered most.
On replacements, he didn’t expect a U.S. plant to magically recreate “good and cheap” Russian steel-case. Domestic labor and materials don’t land at the old discount-to-brass pricing. More realistic on the tape: other countries with some of that equipment/ties (he floated places like Serbia or Turkey) stepping into the lane — still a Europe/overseas manufacturing story, not a “built in Ohio for the same money” story.
Price, hoarding, and the 6.5 bubble-burst
At the time of the interview, Charles said prices had come back down to a more palatable level after the first panic spike — but he expected them to climb again as the Form 6 expiration approached and people started hoarding, maybe on the order of ~9 months before that cliff (as he estimated then).
Personal stab for me on the tape: Barnaul’s 6.5 Grendel was some of the good stuff in that lane, and I’d been looking forward to a Barnaul 6.5 Creedmoor steel-case SKU for the U.S. market. Charles said they were weeks from finalizing that Creedmoor import when the order hit — and then they couldn’t even get a Form 6 for it. Other new calibers in the pipeline got the same axe. That one still hurts.
Advice from the importer (as taped)
Charles’s line to shooters: keep buying it, keep shooting it, and use your judgment as the two-year window tightens — niche Russian-parent calibers and the classic AK rounds are where the squeeze shows up first. That’s importer guidance from early 2022, not a crystal ball for 2026 shelves.
Honest caveats
This is a ~6-minute Shot Show Media Day interview, not me chronographing Barnaul lots or auditing current ATF/commerce rules. Import policy, Form 6 practice, brand availability, and street prices have all moved since Feb 2022. If you run 7.62×39, 5.45, 54R, Grendel, or anything else that used to lean on Russian steel-case volume, check what’s actually importable and in stock now — don’t plan a stash off a four-year-old booth tape.
Bottom line
If you want the importer’s contemporaneous take on the Russian ammo ban — Form 6 clocks, which calibers get hit, why “just make it here” doesn’t recreate the old price, and the Creedmoor steel-case that never made it — this range-day chat with Charles from MKS / Barnaul is the tape. Watch it for the history; shop today’s market for what you actually need.
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Keep squatting.
Still running steel-case 7.62×39 / 5.45, or did you jump ship to other makers after the ban?
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