PIERRE - 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.

"It's not getting any better. It's not getting any worse," she said. "We've been running the same amount of backlog time for the past six months."

The military uses .223 bullets in most of its rifles. Black Hills ammunition also makes pistol ammo, but Hoffman said there is no backlog for that.

Pierre Police Chief Al Aden said his department first got wind of a potential ammo shortage about a year ago and put in an order for .223 cartridges right away. It took six months to get the bullets instead of the usual week or so.

"Normally that stuff is readily available. There were warehouses full of it. Now, that isn't the case," Aden said. "It's an interesting phenomenon that's touched law enforcement because of the Iraq War."

But Aden said the department has not run short of ammo, either for on-duty officers or for training.

"We have not backed off on our training because we planned for this situation," he said.

In addition to the slowness in getting ammunition, Aden said prices also have increased by 50 percent to 100 percent in the last year.

Jon Bierne, administrator of the state training program for new law enforcement officers, also said it is taking much longer to get ammunition these days.

"What used to take 30 days was put off for 60 days and then it went to 120 days and then it was put off for 10 months," he said, adding that the lengthy delay forced the state to search around several months ago until it could find enough rifle and pistol bullets to last for at least a year.

"If we have a situation in the future where we can't get the ammo that we need, the cupboard will not be bare," Bierne said.

The four classes of law-enforcement trainees each year, which range from 25 to 42 members, will go through about 200,000 rounds of ammunition, he said. Most of that is pistol ammo, Bierne said.

"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."

Gun shop owners seemed to find out before most law agencies that rifle ammunition was getting short, Hoffman said, nearly apologetic that police must wait to get the needed supplies. Her husband, Jeff, co-owner of the firm, is a former police officer.

"It's hard for them because it's something that they have to have, whereas John Q. Public may want it but doesn't have to have it," she said.

"We don't find people getting irate about it. They're obviously unhappy about it, but everybody understands and has been very supportive," Hoffman added.

From a business standpoint, the bullet backlog does keep the cash flowing, she said.

"It is a good problem to have," Hoffman said. "It's better than worrying about where your next order is going to come from."