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Old February 17, 2013, 04:43 PM   #6
overthere
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Join Date: July 20, 2012
Posts: 290
Nothing breeds demand like scarcity. As long as the shelves are empty and items out of stock online, people will be involuntarily drawn to snapping up whatever comes in stock when they see some.

It is a self-feeding cycle that will only be broken when one of two things happen.

Either the demand side (people buying) gets so saturated that even the most ardent hoarder cannot muster to buy more stuff. Will this happen when the average Joe has 50K 22lr, or 100K 22lr, or more? Hard to tell.

The other solution is that the supply side (ammo and component manufacturers) ratches up their production. Keep in mind that they know that this demand surge will not last forever. They don't want to make the investments to triple their production for a short-term surge only to end up holding the bag with excess capacity and load of inventory once this folly dies down.

If I was to guess there will be some increase on the supply side but the true return to normal will be when people stop hoarding either due to running out of money or coming to their senses as to how much ammo / components makes sense to have on hand.

Once it reaches the point of some stocklevels being maintained in the retail channel I think it will return to normal fairly quickly. I.e. when there is enough stock on the shelves to worry about "do I really want to buy this brick of 22lr that is $3 more than the other brand" rather than "OMG, OMG, a box of 17WMR, I don't have a 17WMR rifle but I better buy this because if I don't, someone else will".
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