Guns America Digest has a recent interview with Jason Hornady about their current production efforts and his expectations for ammo sales. It's interesting reading and may alleviate some fears about longer term ammo and component supplies. He confirms that much (most) of the current situation is the result of panic buying.

I met a gal at a local motorcycle shop who is from Grand Island. She says that Hornady is going full blast 24/7 and there is plenty of opportunity for over time. So, they are producing.

kwg

Good info from both posts!
Thanks

So does he have any idea when the panic buying will end? I'm still doing it. It's self defense.

It will end when we stop doing it to ourselves.

I’m surprised hornady never got into selling primers as well..

10-1/2 years from now .

Given that Hornady doesn't make primers or powder, as a handloader I'm not very concerned about Hornady's production. If anything, I am competing with them for primer availability.

The term "panic buying" assumes that things are going back to a pre-2020 status quo, and that seems like a pretty shaky assumption.

Not just shaky, but flawed. There are more guns and more gun owners by a significant number than there were pre-panic.

Seems there is a hole in the distribution system where product is disappearing and no one seems too concerned to find where that hole is.

If Biden taxes guns and ammo like he's threatened to do in the past, the buying might slow WAY down. It'll be hell getting stuff in the months before it goes into affect, though.

panic buying is the dumbest thing there is. If you were not prepared then starting now is too late.
If its something new, I'll buy a bit to get by. This will pass too an THEN you buy unless you are still stupid. If it doesn't pass it won't matter either.

no hole. People buying stupidly....

That hole is in the "Just in Time" inventory that every level of manufacturing from raw product to consumer retailers aspire to. Nobody wants inventory carrying costs, so there's no inventory.

Local Scheels gets ammo every weekday, prices it and puts it on the shelves, basically normal price with 1-3 box limits.

Can you provide a link...would appreciate it.

Triple whammy panic buying between an election, civil unrest, and Covid-19.

Go figure. I’m fine waiting for quality ammo and not boxes of bang clicks....

There is no hole.

Everybody that formerly had 1,000 primers on hand now wants 2,000 or 5,000.

Everybody that formerly had a box of .30-30s now wants 3 boxes or 5.

Everybody that had 3 boxes of cheap dove loads now wants 6 or 10 boxes.

Everybody that had 10 Flats of AAs it STSs for target shoots now wants 20 or 40 flats.

Everybody that had a box of .22s, now wants 5 boxes.

Everybody that had 1,000 .22s now wants 10,0000.

Everybody that had 3 lbs of powder, now wants 10 lbs.

If anybody sees something on the shelf that kinda might work but isn’t their ideal solution, they’re buying it anyway, either to use regrettingly, or to use as trade bait or to flip.

The stuff hits the shelves and sells immediately, rather than sitting for weeks.

Just wish that someone woulda asked about shooting 5.56 in a .223

I think that your second sentence contains the answer to the question contained in your first sentence.

I could have used 2lb of powder but I couldn't find it. I finally found an 8lb jug, WAY more than I need. It was either buy it or quit shooting. Now I'm looking for someone who can buy half of it from me.

Here is an interesting quote from the article:

"As to when the shortage will end, Hornady doesn’t see the situation improving in the next 18 months. It may even be two years before gun owners start seeing ammo back on the shelves. His prediction is based on the events of the last year but also on the cyclical nature of previous ammunition shortages."


https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/...merica-exclusive-interview-with-hornady/

405wcf

I am buying a bit more than normal. I normally use the powder I have, and when I run out, I go buy another pound. That is how I normally do. But now I don't. I don't want to find a good load that works well, only to run out of powder before I can load more than 10 or 20. I am now making sure I have a full pound as backup. Primers I have about a 2 years supply. Figure I will wait on the primers. If things are just as crazy in 2 years, I may need to look for another hobby.

I'm pretty sure somewhere in the ammo/camping/fishing/tools mess that constitutes the interior of my shop, there are some boxes of ammo for guns that fell out of the boat or were sold before I came back to Kommiefornia. I am not a prepper, but I figure in the event of TEOTWAWKI I can use some of it for bartering for some Kalamata olives or chocolate which will become unavailable due to lack of shipping and blown up ports.

I loves me some Kalamata olives.

Oh, I saw some 30-378 Weatherby on the shelves at Sportsman's the other day. I considered buying it even though I don't have anything chambered in that round, nor do I plan on it.

I didn't, I left it for perhaps some poor soul that needed it for his next dinosaur hunt.

There will be a lot of trading back and forth between reloaders, that’s for sure.

There is a shop in town that asks what you are loading for before selling you powder.

Most of the new faces just want "powder"....dont care what it is.

Capitalists probably.

Same hole all the toilet paper fell into a few months ago.

Most of us decided we needed four weeks worth on hand instead of two weeks. Voila, the supermarket shelves were bare and rationed.

Heck, I have been looking for H1000 for three years. I do not want to work up another load for the 7mm STW.

Hell I used to grab different powders and work up loads just for S&G. Many times when I already had a hunting rifle at .75 moa. That was recreation.Toasted the barrel on Win Classic in 264 with 2500 rounds just playing and experimenting.

Don't dare burn components like that today. Not to mention, old age is getting in the way.

Exactly what I've been saying. We, collectively, are the problem. Panic buying leads to more panic buying and it grows exponentially.

I wonder how many millions of primers are sitting in closets across the country that will never see the light of day. Primers are always the first to go, cause they are cheap and easy to store. I haven't bought any components in 2 years, but if I saw some tomorrow, you can bet I would grab a couple pounds of powder......

I just hope it returns to somewhat normal in a couple of years......

Then comes the crash.

Yep. But it was a faked shortage and panic, created by Facebook and promoted on Twitter. Facebook, a year or so after they came into being admitted to running lots of experiments involving what sorts of items they put in people's feeds as far as advertising and fake FB account posts, to see what effects they would have. The TP thing was most likely the same thing. It was a test to see if they could alter people's behavior by causing a panic through the promotion of the idea that there was already a shortage, and panic-buying was already occurring. It worked.

6.5 creedmoor
6.5 grendel
450 bushmaster
.224 valkyrie
CCI .22wmr
Aguilar .22 lr

On shelfs at a academy today around noon.

They must have had a good amount of it when they opened at 9am.


No ot6 ..........

I bet the price was around 80.00 or so.

Know a fellow that just came into a 300 Weatherby mag for a real good price.

He chocked when he saw the price for a box of 20.

As far as i know he still has not found any brass or dies to load with.

There ya go.

https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/...merica-exclusive-interview-with-hornady/
Just what the doctor ordered.

"The cure for high prices is high prices, the cure for low prices is low prices."

Panic buying is not the cause of the ammunition shortage. The ammo market has long shown a pattern of rapid and extreme peaks in demand over ~15 years, so that's a BS excuse.

We have an ammunition shortage because the companies in the industry have placed a static cap on their capacity and are reluctant to scale to meet periods of rapid increase in demand. That won't change until an innovative competitor enters the market and disrupts the status quo.

B.S.

If they had a fake cap, they would raise it just enough to sell
as much as possible while keeping prices high.

Increasing capacity is very expensive and requires machines,
trained people and supply.

What do you do when things slow.

Give the machines back to the bank and fire the people you hired and trained?

Do yourself a favor. Got to Rocky Mountain Reloading's website and email the owner. Ask him where he started, and how he has grown his business. Ask him how much volume he is doing now and what his plans are for the next few years.

There are people who make excuses, and then there are people who get things done, because they like money. Strangely, none of the major companies seems to like money anymore. Or they are getting a significant amount of money to NOT make money. Sound familiar?

The government has never used letter agencies like the IRS to threaten or blackmail companies, have they? It sounds familiar....

Static not fake. They can only produce so much with the equipment on hand.

Innovation solves a lot problems. Whining and excuses solve none and that's exactly why a company like Amazon becomes a Titan... because everyone else was to busy coming up with excuses for why something can't be done while they're finding solutions.

I wonder whose primers they use in their ammunition line?

Is the factory running at 100% capacity?

How would you have them increase beyond 100%

Trained people do not grow on trees. At $20/hr, you can not even hire trainable people.

The factory I work is relevant. 52 weeks/year at 40 hrs/week equals 2080 hours per year.

Many of our employees worked over 3000 hours last year, some came very close to 3500 hrs.

Our schedule is 4/10 hour shifts per week. But the crews typically work 5/12s for 12 weeks, 6/12s for 16 weeks, and 7/12s for 24 weeks.

With two crews this allows us to run 24 hrs for five, six, or seven days per week. Yes, this is a huge amount of overtime pay, with double time for any Sunday worked. But as benefits cost about half as much as and on top of wages, it is a wash between overtime or adding employees.

The bottom line is: we can barely find enough competent new hires to replace those who retire or quit. There has been much discussion about putting on an additional shift and doing a 5/8 schedule so 7 days would only make 56 hour weeks instead of 84 hours.

But we simply can not find the people to fill out the crews. Every time we need two, we bring in six or eight then fire all but one in the first two weeks for dirty piss test, tardiness, or just simple laziness.

Now these are simple entry level jobs. But the guys who do work them sure do drive some expensive rigs.

So, back to the ammo factory. I doubt they can find people to put on additional shifts. If they are already running 24/7, they can not do much better than that.

Perhaps the shareholders would like to pay for a nice new factory and gamble they could sell enough product to pay for the factory before the craziness ends and they have to close the doors?

Hard problems get solved all the time. That's what propels us forward. Thankfully there are people among us who work around the excuses or won't settle for them.

If not mistaken, it was close to $90

So, how much of your personal fortune are YOU willing to invest in this new ammunition factory?

Or, is someone else supposed to take all the risk, so that you do not become inconvenienced by a lack of ammunition?

honestly, who want's to work 7/12s for 1/2 the year at entry level wages?

or 72 hrs?

Even at $20/hr it's going to be hard to find someone who would rather have a job than a life.

We had similar issues where I retired from. Hard to get someone that would work hours like that, especially the job I had where one is gone for 4 days at a time, gets back for a few hours on the 4th day, then turns around for another 4 day trip at 0800 the next morning.

Have you gone in and said "everything I own " when asked what you're loading for...........................







Then asked for a can of Unique?

You should hear the workers here scream when we talk about reducing overtime. Many of them are living paycheck to paycheck and depending on those 72 hour weeks. Quite a few would lose that shiny new pickup and/or their house.

A few of them have some brains. One foreman at about 30 years has his pension plus about $500K in his 401k. He is at about $27/hr now. He will be retired at 55 at the latest.

I'd invest if the plan makes sense. Why would I not?

So what's your solution... sit around and belly ache about to much customer demand? lol

Sounds right. A while back I picked up 3 boxes of new RP STW brass planning a build. No 700s, no powder, no bullets on my shelf and few floating around. I considered a 6.5x.300 .. neck down and turn the necks .. but still, no powder. This time planning ahead bit me in the ass.

Tom

Not at all. I am tickled to death that folks' interest in guns and ammo is high. I am not bellyaching at all.

If I run low on components, I will pull something else out of the safe. I will restock when the crazy is over. But I really doubt I could run out of anything in twenty years. I always buy in bulk when prices are low.

I do use a lot of Unique!

Smart guy. I wish I had started the same routine when younger.

This happens in the steel industry all the time. A steel company sees that a lot of steel is going into a particular industry and their current mill is running at full capacity. They then build a new mill. When the new mill is up and going the market has slowed down and they are running both mills less than 50% and they lay half of the workers off. Its great to have excess capacity when the market is picking up and you can sell more product. It sucks to have excess capacity when no one is buying your product and you are in a cyclical market. You can only tell your workers for so long to wait until the next election cycle and it will get better.

I love them on pizza, along with roasted red peppers. I also use them in my Pesce Livornese recipe, along with capers.

No capers tonight, but we had a simple dinner of Costco noodles with some jar spaghetti sauce over it, The wife doctored up the sauce with some red peppers she roasted in the oven last night for our bluefin dinner. I suggested some Kalamatas too, which really made it better.

Do you know how you catch a Unique bird?














































Unique up on him Dummy!

Hahahahahaha!

This, I believe.