Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Help a brother understand ammo shortage

That's the scary part. If these tards keep paying the prices they'll never come back down for the rest of us.

-Jake

Fleet & farm local had large pistol magnum primers this AM 4.79/100 limit 3 boxes picked them up for my neighbor for 45acp loads. They factory 30-06 Remington 150 & 165 gr loads limit 2 boxes per customer 19.99 a box. Not as cheap as wallyworld but they don't have sh*t.

Trump will be back as President before this ammo [bleep] will slow down.

Pretty much spot on here. But it sure is a bad time for a guy who thought he had every caliber/ long gun he would ever need to buy a new caliber he doesn't have brass, dies or ammo for. Damn my bad luck. Had to have a new Christensen-Arms in .300WM and 6.5CM. Just couldn't wait.

I agree...

Dang gasoline isn't $0.99 a gallon anymore either cause folks keep buying it at almost double and triple of that.

I ain't buying no more gasoline until it gets back to under a dollar.

You can ask any ammo hoarder on this site, it has nothing to do with ammo hoarders. They'll tell ya.

I don't disagree that fear is driving the demand, but one man's greed is another man's capitalism. It seems pretty left wing to me to demonize a man for making money off the market. Unless you are feeding your family (and most if not all here are not) ammo is not a "necessity" for survival, and I, for one would not want local, state, or federal government intervening in the market. I get that legally owning guns and ammo is a right and is central to our way of life, but we should be careful what we wish for as far as gouging lest big brother decides to "help "us regulate prices in times of market disruption. If you don't like the "gouger" or "scalper" prices, don't pay them and contribute to continuing shortages. Eventually, supply and demand will again become balanced and prices will stabilize. Will, it go back to pre-panic prices? I doubt it, but you should prepare yourself for inflation on food, energy, and about every other product and service out there.given the current state of politics here. You can't keep printing money and expect it to buy the same basket of goods. And until our economy is back on track, real wages will not keep up.

As to the conspiracy theorists who believe the government is preventing the manufacture of 7-08, 30-30, and 25-06, I have a different view. Ammunition manufacturers are capitalists too. If they can sell every 223, 308, 9 40, and 45 round they make and the pent up demand is larger there, that is what they will make. They don't have different plants for every caliber, the mix is based on what maximizes profitability. Some bean counter such as myself has neat little formula that dictates what that is.

Do government contracts limit commercial productions? Sure they do. The purchasers of 50 million rounds at a time and government contract provisions get preference even over the larger commercial purchasers. However, for damn sure the government ain't buying anything but the typical military calibers. The manufacturers are allocating their limited production capacity to the most in demand cartridges, which anecdotally are likely 223 and 9, Running that equipment 24/7 involves OT, maintenance on the fly, and other increased costs. That manufacturer is not going to eat that cost. It will be passed on to the wholesaler, retailer, and customer. The retailer has less to sell in these times and is looking to make his monthly nut (salaries, rent, utilities, taxes, etc) and is trying to make it up somewhere. If they can't get as many guns or as much ammo to sell, how can they survive without raising prices? The alternative is that most LGS will go out of business. Again, I, for one, don't want my only choices to be BPS/Cabela's or Academy.

Is it unfortunate that some people have to pay really high prices? Of course it is and I have some empathy for them. However, there are still supplies out there at reasonable prices. In the last 6 months. I have bought dies, brass, powder and bullets for 2 new calibers (35 Rem and 45-70) from both commercial and private sources without paying "gouger" prices. Today, I bought 5 boxes of bullets from 3 different retailers at "normal" prices today and bought a pound of Shooters World powder and another box of bullets earlier in the week from yet another retailers. I didn't camp out or wait in line, I just added LGS stops to other errands. I bought what I wanted sometimes taking the last box and sometimes leaving boxes on the shelf. They will be used and it is not my responsibility to compensate for someone else's lack of foresight nor is it theirs to compensate for mine. Do I get my first choice like Varget? Nope, I make do with what I can and substitute as necessary. I have had fun developing new loads in several calibers out of necessity.

The only thing I haven't been able to buy has been primers. Fortunately,I planned ahead and have a decent supply, but if this goes much over two years, I will be in trouble there as well. The manufactures are not going to sell primers and components at a lower margin when they can make loaded ammunition to sell at higher margins. They owe us nothing and have a fiduciary duty to maximize the return of their shareholders.

You can piss and moan all you want about "boycotting": these SOBs when things return to normal, but it floors me that everyone all of a sudden is anti-capitalist when it affects their pocketbook. The reality is governmental regulation, litigation, and poor business practices have decreased the number of ammunition and component makers to just a few and you are unlikely to be able to boycott all of them or even some of them. As for the gouging sellers, they are likely the only ones who will make it through so likely you will have to deal with them also. I understand the frustration, but free market conservatives/ 2A supporters generally don't begrudge those making a legal profit. Suck it up and pay the prices. do the work to find supplies at more reasonable prices, or sit it out until prices normalize. We all have the same choices.

Flame away.

Regards,

Kris

This video from Nosler says what you think, estimated 8-9 million NEW gun owners, panic buyers no mega orders from the gummint. When there is demand they chase it. The new gun owners bought 9mm, 223/556, .308 etc. so that is where the ammo demand went. The component makers followed that same demand.They will eventually get back to the less mainstream calibers. IN the meantime I'll reload if I really want to go out and shoot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzZgGChsyDI&t=8s&ab_channel=ColionNoir

You dash along thinking that all you have is go to your local walley world and all of the problems are ok, never had to live thru times of strife wondering why the world is wrapping on you

Stuff shows up but you gotta be there when it does .picked up a brick of CCI BR-4 PRIMERS TODAY FOR $65/ brick. Limit 1.per customer just got lucky I guess. Mb

Good contribution

i was in 3 stores over the weekend. one store had awhole bunck of 223 and 9mm ammo, a mixing of some other common stuff. second store had much the same but did say they are kpeeing a bunch of ammo in the back so when people buy a gun they can sell them a box or two of ammo to shoot from it. 3rd store had a prety large selection of powder and primers and bullets in all but 30 cal. they had big signs over the powder one pound per week and were keeping a sales log. owner says he has turned folks away when they come in da after day to buy a can of powder, also says he knows the same folks probably have their wives and friends come in and buy it, but he is trying to do what he can to ake sure everyone ahs a chance to get stuff

I was in a Walmart up north this week. Witnessed exactly what you spoke of. An older gentleman walked out of store with two new ammo cans, looked like American Eagle but I did not get a good read. So, I walk to the sporting goods and virtually no ammo on shelves. Something is awry here and wrong!