Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Where is it?

Looking on the store shelves .. no powder, primers, brass. We hear "oh, it's going into factory ammo 'cause the profit margin is higher." Ok ... those same store shelves don't have ammo either. Online places don't have more than the tiniest fraction of what they normally carry. So where is it? No, it is not all being sold because to sell it you have to have it and if they have it, we could see it pass through inventory and we don't. Something stinks.

What am I not seeing?

Several months of record number of firearm sales to first time firearm owners, they all need ammo. This plus hoarders, the chicken little who feel they need to have five years or more supply of ammo & reloading components. There was a pic on here not long ago of a stash of ammo the size of the bathroom in most folk's home. Custom built shelves packed from floor to ceiling with ammo, all this plus flippers/gougers. Manufacturer's only have so much capacity and the combined demand has far exceeded that capacity. Nothing nefarious going on.

Items are selling out within minutes of hitting the shelf instead of weeks. That’s what’s happening.

You ain’t lying ! I ‘seen’ that.

Was at the Bloomsburg gun show today. Only saw one vendor with powder. At $50/lb. I'm good, thanks.

I was at a gun show last saturday. The little powder I saw was 100 dollars per lb and the primers I saw was 145 dollars per 1000. Glad I started buying after the last shortage so I had plenty of both. I couldn't afford todays prices if I needed components.

As a semi-geezer, am always astonished that so many "mature" shooters are astonished at this so-called "shortage." This is because I've been through two before, the first when the Clinton administration passed the so-called "assault rifle ban" in the 1990s--which resulted in a primer-buying panic, due to rumors that all new primers were designed to "go dud" within six months. This resulted in quite a few people burying primers inside PVC pipe. So far I am still shooting primers purchased as far back as the early 1990s, and they still go bang. (Maybe I'm a "hoarder.")

That "shortage" lasted at most a year, but apparently very few people learned anything from it. When the Obama "shortage" started, the big deal (for some reason, perhaps to many primers buried in yards) wasn't primers but rimfire ammo. This lasted maybe 2 years until manufacturing caught up to demand. The extreme demand, of course, was partly fueled by those who bought up any rimfire ammo they could find, and jacked up the prices--which is exactly what's happening today, (A few years after the Great Rimfire Shortage I went to a local garage sale, where the guy had a pile of rimfire ammo for sale at the same panic-prices of a few years ago. Since all the local stores were now selling the same stuff for a far lower price, his ammo just sat there. Apparently he couldn't figure out why.)

No, there is nothing "fishy" about this "shortage." Instead it's the same BS which happens every time. First, shooters who didn't learn from the previous two "shortages," and kept expecting to be able to buy 100 primers, or .22 Long Rifles, or bullets, or .223 ammo, or a pound of their favorite powder at a local store, suddenly discovered that wasn't so. So they bought all they could afford.

Once that started to happen other people who decided to make a profit on the remaining components and ammo, so bought up the rest. Which they're now attempting on the Campfire Classfieds, or wherever. Some of them will end up with a garage full of stuff, Some won't.

So no, it isn't a "something stinks" mystery. It's capitalism at work.

My buddy in Wendell Idaho stated simerlys aka ( if we ain't got it U don't need it! Got a pallet of powder last week!)

Talked with my buddy just yesterday about this. I’m thinking that, as a result of three “panics” in recent history, Clinton, Obama and now Harris/Biden, reloading components and ammo will continue to carry outrageous prices for the duration. This situation will become our new normal. Fool me once? Shame on you. Fool me twice? Etc ....A third time? Holy crap! Every man for himself! Anything hitting the shelves will be gobbled up by the hoarders because the next panic just might be around the corner. Gosh I hope I’m wrong...

The other factor is that manufacturers who went through the Clinton/Obama shortages also leaned that building/ buying ne factories and machinery to catch up to demand resulted in excess capacity when the "shortage" ended, whether due to shooters buying as much as they could ever need, or exceeding their credit-card limit. In fact, some companies which expanded went broke. Other added workers and shifts until demand started to slacken, which is what some are doing now.

Back before the ammo crunch really hit, there was one guy down in the rimfire forum bragging about buying 13, 50 round boxes of target 22 ammo that was on closeout. The nerve of some people huh?

Was that you?

I stepped into Sportsman's Whorehouse today to buy some cat gland lure and noticed they had 15 or so 50 round boxes of Aguila .22 Super Extra. Nothing fancy, but it was there. In the 20 or so seconds I was there looking at it to see if it was hollow point or solid point, a line had formed. I nabbed 2 and got out of the way. I watched as every person in the line did the same. It was gone in just a few minutes.

Was I part of the problem? Hell if I know but I do need .22 rounds for my trap gun.

And you didn't have any before then? Say a brick?

I'm fairly close to you in age I think and I went through those same shortages. Maybe it's a regional difference but here the hole feels .. bigger .. this time around.

That's E-Z, the millions and millions of gun owners across this country buying up ammo the second it becomes available - either on one of the hundreds of websites or the tens of thousands of retail outlets across the land. What is amazing is how many gun owners alive today lived through the first couple of nationwide ammo/component shortages over the last 30 years, and couldn't see this one coming.

It does feel different this time, for one thing I think folks realize anything can happen now. Best be prepared.
My clinton era primer stash is now down to under 300 large rifle magnum primers.

I had 50 or so on me, but used it the last few months on random rabbits and such. I've got 2-3000 at my mom's place in the Bitterroot and 2-3000 more in my enclosed cargo trailer which is buried under snow. I took a transfer last summer and most everything I have is in that trailer. Until I close on a house (hopefully in a few weeks) I don't feel like digging it all out. I think I know where it is at in the trailer but I'd have to move a lot of furniture and tools out of the way to get to it. I should have thought ahead but I didn't think it would take this long to find and close on a place.

This was specifically why I put a WTB add on the classifieds a while back for a single six with the mag cylinder...because a local store had 2 boxes of .22 mag ammo. I bought it, then looked for a gun to shoot it through!

The last two shortages had people concerned with the same fear: that anything could happen.
We'll get through this. It'll suck, and our freedoms will get chipped away a bit more which isn't acceptable to me, but we'll survive.

That's the point .. it's *not* hitting the shelves or the websites. Stores that are normally stocking dealers tell me they haven't seen so much as a carton of .22 long rifle come into inventory in 4-6 months. Been out of 9mm since October and haven't seen a single round come in. I can't speak for every online retailer but I'm on waiting lists with several. They're not getting stock. ARE NOT. I understand how demand can keep retailers from accumulating supply, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying they are not getting supply. None.