Ammunition and the Cost

I reload almost everything but defense ammo, and components are constantly in short supply. Sure, in pandemics like this, components get scare. But it always pays to stay stocked up. Last year for instance, there were some very popular powders that get sourced from Australia that had supply disruptions and they became hard to find.

Also, one would think, why dont the ammo companies just hire more people and crank out the ammo 24/7 to meet the demand? Well, I was talking with one of my industry contacts once and they say that its not worth it to them from a financial standpoint. This is a temporary buying binge and in a couple months after the election, things will get back to normal and supply will catch up with demand. Financially, they cant commit to all the new equipment and people only to have to shutter production lines and lay off employees once the buying binge is over.

So, another lesson in staying prepared. We as shooters have gone through enough of these cycles to know that supply gets tight sometimes, especially in an election year. So, plan accordingly. We by nature are planners and like to be prepared. That is one reason we carry a gun. We are prepared. So, keep a stock of ammo and reloading supplies, food, water, fuel, etc. Plus, if you have “lots” of ammo on hand, I think you will be more likely to practice more. Its just a matter of grabbing a box or two of ammo off the shelf instead of having to stop by the store, etc. So stay stocked so you can ride these waves out. After all, we will make it through this shortage, and it WILL happen again, so be ready.

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With the drawdown of overseas troops, reduced training, and a general downsizing of the miliary, ammo suppliers are to the point of tightening their belts. One CCI plant can produce 4.5 million 22cal bullets per 10-hour shift. My point is: No company is so rich that they can stop the production of their product. Russian ammo is in supply albeit the price has doubled or more, Korean ammo (9MM) is in supply at .36-.55 cents per round. American companies,e.g., Remmington, CCI, Fiocchi, and Sig are still in business. I think the businesses are trying to cash in on the panic and to enlarge their profits.
We have the power to rebuke this action, with our wallets. Don’t pay high prices and tell the company that via CS or by calling names on forums like this. If all of the USCCA members put the shoulders to it the prices would go down.
It only takes a snowball to start an avalanche.

My rant is over, I will return you to your normal schedule program.

Larry

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Its to the point now that if you don’t have it you are not going to find the ammo you need. Prices are sky high and rationing is common place. And that AR you saw back in March for 600 is now 800 or higher. I use the price of guns and ammo as a panic index and the country is on full blown panic mode.

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Hi William. I’m not sure that I understand your point. This is simple supply and demand the same as for anything, no? Are you saying that ammo suppliers and their supply chain are somehow exempt from those forces, or that people should not plan ahead and buy when supply is available so that they are not affected by these things?

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You will find some ammunition very costly and you will have to plain ahead for training and practice. Prices have doubled and there maybe some trouble in importing the supplies of ammo. Somewhere, there is problems due to a virus that has been effecting our nation and countries.

The ammunition at hand like 9 mm are rationed heavy, including 223/556 ammo. Other ammos are hard to find.

Somebody may be planning a bad game on us and it is not funny to hold back supplies and hike the cost. Please research other options and I have to stock pile some ammo

Thank you!

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As a follow-up to my previous comment, the other side of it is that the manufacturers only have so many production lines, so they are going to run those producing the crap out of the .223, 9mm, etc. As a result, less pandemic popular calibers will be available on the shelves, but will not get replenished at the same rate as they will not make it to the production schedule.

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Update: I called my gun store and they have 556 ammo but rationing it. You can only buy 6 boxes at a time. 6 20 round boxes is still a lot of ammo.

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I have a tendency to only buy loaded ammo for a new platform to give me a base line and then start gathering components for building bunker stocks. This past October I built an AR-47 for deer hunting and bought 2 boxes of 7.62x39 Hornady Black because I am a fan of the SST boolit and the battle cans I have for my AK and SKS platforms are really not good deer medicine as they are 2 -4 MOA. I already had an ammo can of reloadable brass that I had been gathering for some time. The SST boolits were like $35.00 / 100 so I ordered 2 boxes and scored some bulk SP boolits for like $35.00 for 500 and a couple hundred more rounds of brass for $12.00 / 100. I had a couple pounds of various powders that were recommended sitting on the shelf from other projects. Primers were getting hard to find but having a friend in the business I was able to lock down 30K of various flavors for less than $28 / 1K. Obviously having a bit of disposable cash is handy or a CC for OH Man!! That’s a good deal!!

Staying ahead of panic buys is tough if you are not able to bunker some ammo or components to make more. The total amount of ammo I keep on hand at any time makes most people uncomfortable. Even more so the amount of components to make more. The panic buying will continue well into October. If Biden wins it will be hell’s bells until it is all banned. If Trump wins it will go back to “normal” long about March 2021. Hunker down, get it when you can and dry fire.

Cheers,

Craig6

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You survive Panics by not panicking.
Keep a cool head. Having 500 or 1000 rounds of expensive “iffy” ammo is a waste of resources compared to a couple of boxes of quality ammo you trust and a whole lot of dry firing.
A few bricks of .22lr helps too.
So does a reloading press.
My thoughts anyway.

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500 to 1000 rounds is one range day with friends.

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Ammo is going to be unavailable for a while, especially at reasonable prices. I would compare this to the .22 drought.
I’m dry firing more and reloading.

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Thank you very much.

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Fortunately I am an ammo hoarder. I bought so much 9mm, 40 Cal, 556, and 22lr last year that I’m not concerned for my personal stock at all right now. I haven’t been shooting in three weeks now because of supply and prices. I don’t see an end in sight for this. That said I have to wonder if someone (wink wink) is buying everything so we the people don’t have access. I see a place like Freedom Munitions with their production capabilities just flat out of all 9mm for months now and it makes me wonder if they are cutting production to increase cost or someone is buying all of it up before it is available to us. Just a thought.

Same with guns as well, ARs in particular. Try and find one at a reasonable price. I have a hard time believing this is all liberals buying their first gun. I’m not buying it. Something is going on.

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I tend to stay stocked up on ammo also and since March have been frugal in my expenditure of it, although last month I went through 3 boxes vs the 1 box I’ve been limiting myself to.

My regular online source had dried up currently, however I’ve been pleasantly surprised that my favorite gun shop has had ammo (9mm and 40), although the prices are a little higher than normal (as it is everywhere), but happy to support my local shop by purchasing a couple cases.

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I’m with you on this one. I honestly had to read OP twice to make sure I was understanding what was trying to be conveyed. I’ve read allot of comments but yours was the 1st that mentioned the fact about supply and demand! I also have not seen anything about how components are also in short supply. Components go up, the ammo goes up. This has been the case for months now, nothing new. I know of one site that is gouging but I have yet to pay more for any ammo I regularly use. But yes, prices are in the rise and will continue. It also appears that many have forgotten about the last time we faced a major shortage not to long ago. It took 4 years for many calibers to return to “regular” prices. I don’t like this, but it’s simple cause and effect! Thank you for you rational post lol!

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I spoke with Bayou Bullets last month. Interesting conversation. China Virus was the culprit (prior to the riots) according to him. Rationing employees work schedules and getting raw material for manufacturing was a major player in his business. You can’t produce what you don’t have. Ammunition companies apparently were affected as well. Pile that on to the panic buying/hoarding and well we all get the picture. I hope the price and availability stabilize quicker that the last event.

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@Douglas59 @kidiraq

Correct.
On the input/supply side we are resource limited due to the virus and regional/national/global shutdowns. Most global supply pipelines are very long with regard to ‘in process’ time to the end user. They take a long time to run out, and correspondingly take a long time to refill. We haven’t seen the worst of that impact yet.

On the output/demand side we are presently driven by emotion. First the virus and get it now because the cost is going to go up. Then the riots and I have to get it now because I might need it. And finally fear and oh my God it’s so hard to find and I need it now. Without a crystal ball, no one can say for sure where this will go but the trend isnt promising.

In the end, and at the extremes there are two options.

  1. expect inflation and recession on a global scale (if everyone in the world deals with the issue the same) and tighten your seatbelts kids because it going to be a hell of a ride.
  2. turn into the threat and charge it head on. Reopen society with the long term implications of the virus unknown and hope and pray that medical science can ultimately keep up with whatever they might be. IF there are no long term effect then we are now at a point where the death rate is lower then some strains of flu which we face annually.

I can’t say which is right, but I am fairly confident that this sums up the situation. Bullets (and everything else) will get and stay expensive for a long time unless we accept that some people will die.

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Right. There is no conspiracy. It’s simple supply and demand. Since February, gun sales, especially to first-time buyers, are up hundreds of percent from last year. These new gun owners need among just like us old hands. At the same time, manufacturing of guns and ammo slowed down because of COVID-19. THEN the supply chain for raw materials to MAKE the guns and ammo slowed down and dried up for a while. For good or ill, we really do have a global economy that’s all tied together. Half my ammo is made in South Korea and the Czech Republic. I’ve got no idea where they get their raw materials. My in-laws are retired and live in Mexico half the year. There was no lock-down there in April, but my father-in-law said a nearby Aquila ammo plant was idle for the entire month. No raw materials!

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Thank you Carl for that information, valuable!

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I posted this in another thread back in April during the early COVID era (man those were the good 'ol days), the owner of SGAmmo put the following into one of his email newsletters. It is more true today than back then…

Sam from SGAmmo has been pretty forthright in his emails over the last few years saying “stock up while the prices are good”. Last year, even before the beer flu, he was saying that prices would begin creeping up soon because the price of raw materials had gone up and most of his upstream had notified about upcoming price increases.

Forward to today, and here’s what he had to say in his newsletter (emphasis mine):

A lot has changed in the ammo business over the past 45 days as the Covid-19 outbreak created the largest rush to purchase ammo in all of history. Supply has been badly diminished, and bottlenecks in manufacturing and distribution will continue cause shortages for months yet to come . From what I am seeing the worst is yet to come on ammunition availability which I believe will reach its worst in the next 30 to 90 days . The buyer’s market conditions which I have talked about in so many prior newsletters that brought ammo prices to 12 year lows in 2018, 2019 and early 2020 have passed. I hope most people followed my advice in the past and stocked up while supply and prices were at their best. At this time supply has for the most part been bought up, most ammo factories and importers have done substantial price increases , and moving forward availability will be limited to what the factories can make and allocate to their distributors. Covid-19 has caused some ammunition factories in Europe and Russia to close and / or reduce production, and most likely that will spill over here to some of the manufacturers in the USA at some point. I’d love to stay positive but realistically there are dark times ahead for the ammunition supply chain. All things considered, I believe we still have some decent deals in stock, admittedly not as good as they were, but not as bad as I expect them to become. If you are sitting on large quantities of ammo it might be wise to sit it out for a while but if you are short in supply it might be a good idea to get a few cases before availability gets worse . We thank you for your support of our family owned and operated business and will do our best to serve our clients well in these strange times, so please stay subscribed for future SGAmmo newsletters. If you have some spare time please take a few minutes and look over the online catalog at www.SGAmmo.com

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