. 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.
