Our ammuntion issues.

Duckslayer100

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I think it's a combination of things: Politics, pandemic, and market manipulation by the ammo manufacturers.

You can't tell me they aren't thriving right now. Manufacture what they can with fewer staff (i.e. lower payroll). Sell everything at a premium. And just wait for the next Biden or Supreme Court gun law to pop up and reap the benefits of social-media ridden conspiracy theories and the impending panic shopping sprees.

Trust me, they're loving this shit.
 


guywhofishes

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I think it's a combination of things: Politics, pandemic, and market manipulation by the ammo manufacturers.

You can't tell me they aren't thriving right now. Manufacture what they can with fewer staff (i.e. lower payroll). Sell everything at a premium. And just wait for the next Biden or Supreme Court gun law to pop up and reap the benefits of social-media ridden conspiracy theories and the impending panic shopping sprees.

Trust me, they're loving this shit.

On the other hand they have fixed costs that have to be supported by substantially lower sales volumes IF they really went to 50% or 25% staff like they mention. Insurance, leases, administrative/accounting, yadda all remain fairly fixed - while their sales volumes have potentially declined by 50% or some such. Sure - better margins perhaps - but that doesn't always translate into higher overall profits.
 

snow

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On the other hand they have fixed costs that have to be supported by substantially lower sales volumes IF they really went to 50% or 25% staff like they mention. Insurance, leases, administrative/accounting, yadda all remain fairly fixed - while their sales volumes have potentially declined by 50% or some such. Sure - better margins perhaps - but that doesn't always translate into higher overall profits.

Agreed #guy,last week local ammo supply shop near me ,told me all ammunition companies sent letter's of intent on much higher product price increases.,with little uptick in product coming.
 

remm

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Look at the prices of ammo on sites like gunbroker. People are buying any ammo they can find in the stores at retail price and reselling it for a nice profit, most likely people that have never purchased a gun, let alone ammo before. Seems like things are slowly getting better so people that actually want the ammo for what it's intended for must be slowly deciding to wait and not keep paying premium prices. Soon there will be a lot of dipshits with a closet full of baseball cards, bullets and bitcoin without anyone to buy it.
 

1lessdog

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Agreed #guy,last week local ammo supply shop near me ,told me all ammunition companies sent letter's of intent on much higher product price increases.,with little uptick in product coming.





I have seen lots of ammo at Scheels in the past month or so. I see very little price gouging. The 410 shells they had a few wks ago sold for 4.99 a box. I would guess they had a few hundred boxes and were gone by mid afternoon.
 


SDMF

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. You can't tell me they aren't thriving right now. Manufacture what they can with fewer staff (i.e. lower payroll). Sell everything at a premium. And just wait for the next Biden or Supreme Court gun law to pop up and reap the benefits of social-media ridden conspiracy theories and the impending panic shopping sprees.

Trust me, they're loving this shit.

They're not loving this shit. The ammo/component manufacturers KNOW that their window to correct this is relatively short or people will turn their attention and $$ elsewhere. If Federal/Rem/Win/Hornady decides to start offering ammo direct to consumer at greatly increased pricing, at that time, I'll concede that you Duckslayer100 are correct. Until the ammo manufacturers decide to take ALL of the margin for themselves, I'll tell you and everyone else who believes ammo companies are throttled back on purpose that they're wrong.

This ammo situation is, or at least should be, a cautionary tale regarding WHY we should retain more manufacturing upon our own soil.

There is no conspiracy to keep ammo in low supply. There is a just-in-time industry-wide supply chain that has been thoroughly emptied. There are intangibles that do not plug into an excel spreadsheet. What we're seeing is what happens when you have people running industries in which they do not personally participate/enjoy it's products. Watch the 2013 Wayne LaPierre elephant hunting video if you don't understand what I mean. WLP can't efficiently run a doggone straight-pull Blaser for goodness sakes and that's the guy in charge of protecting our 2nd amendment. There's folks just like him running ammo companies who couldn't figure out an RCBS Rockchucker reloading press. Another case in point to the opposite, Hornady has produced the most consistent supply of components. Hornady is run by a family full of people who love the shooting sports.

4-8 Million new gun owners in 2020 alone. Depends upon whom you wish to believe, or not believe. If those numbers are off by 50% then the number is somewhere between 2 and 12 million new gun owners in 2020. By any standard, there's a whole bunch of new gun owners in 2020 and they all need at least SOME ammo.

Remington produced 0 ammo in 2020.

Just a WAG by me based upon what I saw on the shelves, Fiocchi shipped the US ~ 25% of it's normal production in 2020. Remember Italy was one of the very hardest hit by CV-19.

Federal has a huge plant in Anoka N of MLPS. They spent MONTHS of 2020 running @ 25% then 50% staffing levels. 50% staff level doesn't mean you're back up to 50% production capacity. Same could and should be said for Winchester as one of their plants is in East Alton IL. Hornady is in Grand Island NE.

I recently had a face-to-face conversation with a gentleman who's eyeballs-deep involved in the ammunition industry. He's toured every major ammo plant in the US already this year. What he tells me directly is that every ammo plant is running 3 shifts (24hrs/day), 7 days/wk.

The thing that we cannot expect any time soon is for more capacity to be brought on-line. Not with the current administration publicly stating that their goal is to essentially end the 2nd amendment.

The secondary/gray market is the largest current hurdle to filling the shelves back up. When people can walk into a gun store, purchase ammo or components then turn around and sell them for 2x-5x more than they just paid for them, the shelves aren't going to fill anytime soon. There's too much untraceable/untaxable income to be made. It's the same folks who'd pay a grieving widow $5K for her husbands $100K + gun collection.
 
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Zogman

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SDMF is correct. Old guy coffee club of 6 members. 3 of the 6 never had an interest in shooting sports. Those 3 have purchased 4 new pistols in the last 8 months. And they are all out there buying and storing up AMMO.
 

Migrator Man

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Scheels in Fargo hasn't put powder on shelves in months. Can't even hoard when it hasn't been available
Been seeing a lot more powder lately but most of it is going as fast as it is put out. Amounts of powder that would last most of the year are sold in one day.

- - - Updated - - -

Rogers sporting goods has finally started to drop their 9mm prices as I think it isn’t selling very fast at $35 a box. I also think more ammo is hitting the shelves lately so finding non gouge prices is easier.

These guys trying to gouge better start to offload quick because I think production catching up. People are not paying gouge prices anymore on 9mm or .223
 

snow

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Agreed MM , local shop had one pallet of various remington ammo drop off last friday,by noon saturday sold out,9mm was $50/box last month,last week $30/box.last fall last box of of CCI 9mm I paid $9.95 /box hollow pts,glad I loaded up.
 
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shorthairsrus

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what i am surprised about is the new owners. I can see the kids and crooks but adults that never thought about it and now they are buying? Plus the number of guns that exist currently; the obumma scare I would of thought they bought them then. Hand me downs - how many people have all those and they dont use em. Yes I believe shooting sports is on the increase but hunting (except for 2020) was on decreasing. Will the new hunter stay with the sport that is yet to be determined. I see alot of boats for sale (before this crunch) with little or no hours on them- somebody bought and didnt use and now selling. Hopefully hunting can hold on. The guy who wanted the AR or pistola got one years ago; in fact he got several; now he must getting more. It is just plain and simple wrong time to buy.

Who is buying --- here in little minni we have shootings every day almost. guy who shot killed the cabby last night and then if its not crime its suicide. How does that guy who shot the cabby not get 1st degree murder ??? We need hannging trees plural and we need a laws that prod the justice system to swing quickly if found guilty.
 


SDMF

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what i am surprised about is the new owners. I can see the kids and crooks but adults that never thought about it and now they are buying?

Empty grocery store shelves Feb-May 2020 coupled with the "Summer of Love" prompted an awful lot of folks to decide being responsible for their own personal protection is a thing.
 

SupressYourself

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Yep, I don't even know that many people, but I know 2 guys, both near their 40s that had never owned a gun a year ago. Now they have like 10 between them. They've both been buying a lot of ammo that previously would have sat on shelves.
That's anecdotal of course, but I think certain extrapolations can be made.
 

SDMF

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PV has a few this afternoon. CFE223, H110, 4955, Ramshot LRT, H380, Superformance, WW748.
 

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