Posted on 04/11/2013 1:10:34 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Try going to your neighborhood Wal-Mart to buy some .22 bullets for target shooting, or a couple of boxes of shotgun shells, and you’ll discover what hunters and gun enthusiasts have been muttering about for months now: The shelves are bare.
Manufacturers are operating flat-out but can’t keep up with demand, as consumers snap up every box of ammo as soon as it comes on the market. Wal-Mart limits buyers to three boxes when they’re available, and Cabela‘s is limiting online orders to one box per day of the popular .22 long shells increasingly used as cheap ammo for target rifles and pistols.
The buying frenzy is understandable here in Connecticut, where the General Assembly recently tightened gun regulations in response to the Newtown school massacre. The new law includes a $35 permit to buy ammo that requires a background check and is good for five years — until the legislature decides it can shorten the term and increase the fee as a new source of tax revenue.
But why the national shortage? Here’s my theory: Bullets are easy to store, non-perishable, and they hold their value or even increase in times of crisis. So they’re a lot like gold or any other commodity that has served as hard money through the ages (or even the canned mackerel fillets that serve as currency in U.S. prisons....
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
The good news about all this public awareness of scarcity of ammo and guns, and the public awareness of the growing cost and difficulty of acquiring these goods, the more the cool factor, the competitive factor, the collector factor enters the picture and the more non-gun owners are drawn to the field.
Guns and gun ranges are becoming hip, and kind of special, this is good news. The more suburban and city cocktail parties involve bragging about a new gun acquisition, or ammo purchase, or a day at the local range, or the wife's new holster, then the better for us.
Are the manufacturers really running full out?
They may say they are, but are they?
Soon they will have ammo boutiques, ammunition with the names of our fascist politicians engraved thereon?
Yes they are.
There is big money to be made and they are making as much as they can while they can
Be great to see ammo made south of the border come flooding in.
Unmarked, untaxed.
US ammo guys have picked the DHS over the people.
From a business POV, is it better to really pump out everything until the demand is finally sated, or is it more profitable to keep manufacturing quotas just short of what is needed to continue the shortage and keep the prices up?
What the manufacturing folks have said....is that they haven’t downsized....same number of employees....and they are making the same number of bullets as they did in the past.
Historically....at least since World War II....things have been stable and I think local gun shops would all say that up until 2008....they could predict what they’d sell each quarter with good accuracy. Since 2008...they can’t predict because of the current trend.
All this said, if a guy could get the manufacturing equipment, in a gun-friendly state, and start a small production line...over the next five years...just max out your production, you’d make enough to retire for the rest of your life.
The question I would have....across the nation (because no one is reporting this)...how much have ammo prices changed since 2008. It would be curious to see local prices and how they have changed.
I’m only asking because the length of time of the shortage seems to be getting a little long in the tooth for it to be a real shortage.
All this said, if a guy could get the manufacturing equipment, in a gun-friendly state, and start a small production line...over the next five years...just max out your production, you’d make enough to retire for the rest of your life>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thats a fact, and one could accomplish this in making just .45 ACP alone.
If you could get your hands on raw material. If it is a real shortage, there’s a good chance the manufacturers have all the raw material locked up.
Most ammo makers are producing as ammo fast as they can and prices at their level have increased as much as the rest of the supply chain.
People are buying up ammo faster than it can be made.
This will probably go on for a good many months.
I bought 525-ct .22LR in Feb for $25 a box from a private seler. The price tag on the box said $12.99 from its’ original sale. That box is now selling for $150 online.
First he says ammo is non-perishable. Then he lifts the quote above from a Federal Premium website and doesn't bat an eye. Did the contradiction just fly over his head like a bat out of hades with its butt on fire?
I don't mind that he got contradictory input from various sources. But you'd think a pro would dig a little deeper to resolve the issue and not use contradictory claims to support different parts of his theory; namely, that we're in a bubble.
It's just sloppy, I-don't-care journalism. I don't care that my article makes no sense and I don't care whether my readers are confused by it or not. Par for the course nowadays.
If there are any liberals out there who believe everything in this article and are terrified that that properly stored box of 10-year-old ammo in their nightstand might blow up any minute and level their entire block, please drop it off at my house and I'll be sure to properly dispose of it, per EPA regulations, yes I will.
That leaves an interesting thought, if you think about it. Although I know that ammo, that is kept dry, is good for longer than 10 years, if that were the case anyway, it makes one think about when the feds intend to use the 1.6 billion rounds they are currently purchasing.
Indeed; the one place where you can still get a bargain is with cans of MilSurp Eastern Bloc ammo from the 1960-1980ies.
What they've said is that they are way ahead of last year's production (which was way ahead of the previous year's production,) have added people, equipment, and shifts so that they're running 24 hours.
Ammo Manufacturers Producing ’24 Hours a Day’ to Match Demand
After The Won was first elected in ‘08, it was several years before supplies got back to normal, particularly for primers.
Shelf life depends mostly upon WHICH powder is used. And perhaps what primer formula for the older formulas.
I’ve fired lots (As in Lot number ####, AND ‘in significant quantities’) of military ammo 50 + years old that mostly functioned just as intended when it was manufactured. Maybe a few duds, but I’d bet that it was probably due to storage conditions that weren’t optimal, rather than just age.
Lately I’ve popped off some stuff I handloaded 27 years with commercial components that were a few years old even then.
Things loaded with 296 and Unique powders functioned just as they did back then... But interestingly, the ones loaded with Blue Dot powder GAINED in power... Enough to show some significant pressure problems.
But become unstable to the point that it goes off on its own? Only if you are storing it in the oven, and turn it on to broil.
Keep in mind, you don’t need to OWN a gun to purchase ammunition and shooting supplies. Even the demodummies can purchase the same stuff thus, helping to keep the shelves bare. (Probably a waste of their own money but if it hurts a gun enthuiast no big deal, it’s just part of their “cause expense”.
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