Federal "Subscription" begins as reported in July by Forbes

[wild cat mccane]

https://www.federalpremium.com/handgun/subscriptions/

$28 for 115gr American Eagle.

Interesting considering more socialized (more expensive workforce) and good Swiss 124gr Norma being imported at $15.

Something is wrong.

[Onward Allusion]

Yikes, if that's the subscription price . . . I'll stick with Tula or Wolf for now.

[Doc Intrepid]

+1

Tula or Wolf have worked very well for me for about half that cost.

[FITASC]

When you own both Federal and Remington and imports are still somewhat scarce, you control a large segment of the market and this can price accordingly. When cheap basic Gun Club shotgun shells were $4.75 to $5.25 before the insanity and now Vista has a MAP of $11/box, one can see what is truly happening.

[KyJim]

Speer is also part of the Vista ammo empire.

[JohnKSa]

Interesting considering more socialized (more expensive workforce) and good Swiss 124gr Norma being imported at $15.

1. Norma is made in Sweden, not Switzerland.

2. Sweden isn't really as socialist as people think.
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/the-p...int-socialist/

3. Where are you seeing Norma 9mm for sale and in stock at 30 cents a round in 250 round quantities? I just did a quick check for 9mm ammo prices and the best price I see is steel cased stuff with a price that works out to about 32 cents a round in 1000 round quantities by the time you factor in shipping.

[Hawg]

My LGS has 200 round boxes of Browning 9mm FMJ for 35 cents per round. That's about the best I've seen

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

1. Norma is made in Sweden, not Switzerland.

2. Sweden isn't really as socialist as people think.
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/the-p...int-socialist/

3. Where are you seeing Norma 9mm for sale and in stock at 30 cents a round in 250 round quantities? I just did a quick check for 9mm ammo prices and the best price I see is steel cased stuff with a price that works out to about 32 cents a round in 1000 round quantities by the time you factor in shipping.

normashooting.com and ammoshoponline.com had sales with prices that low for Black Friday, including shipping. I got a case (1,000 rd) of 124 gr Norma for $300 shipped (pre-tax). Prior to that they’ve had Norma and Ruag for around $0.32-$0.34 a round (you can still find 94 gr frangible from ammosho currently for $0.34 a round https://www.ammoshoponline.com/shop/...-94-gr-qty-50/). I think it is fair to point out that ammoshoponline seems to often be contract overrun ammunition, and that likely helps with the cost.


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[NeverEnough]

Those prices are robbery

[wild cat mccane]

Norma is owned by Ruag. Ruag is most certainly a Swiss based company. They also sell Swiss made ammo on both of their websites, Ammoshoponline.com and Normashooting.com.

I have a case of Norma 124gr Swiss made ammo right in front of me. On the box and on the shipping box.

So...

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by wild cat mccane

Norma is owned by Ruag. Ruag is most certainly a Swiss based company. They also sell Swiss made ammo on both of their websites, Ammoshoponline.com and Normashooting.com.

So...

All the Norma I’ve bought from them was made in Germany. That includes the 9mm and 223 Remington. Ruag and Norma make ammunition in a number of countries.


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[JohnKSa]

Interesting. The Norma ammo factory is in Sweden. Sounds like Ruag is using the Norma name on ammo made by other companies they hold. I guess that makes good business sense given that the Norma name has more of a cachet than Ammotec.

Ruag Ammotec has factories in Germany, Hungary and Switzerland--possibly others.

[TruthTellers]

What's wrong is that we've had massive high demand for ammo going for nearly 2 years and the manufacturers of ammo are refusing to expand production. Maybe labor shortages have added to that, but looking at Federal and CCI's job listings CCI is looking for a night shift worker at $20/hr and Federal a weekend machine maintenance guy; these are NOT critical hires that are going to put a dent in increasing supply.

So, why aren't ammo makers building new facilities or expanding their current facilities? They don't see this high demand continuing and have said they see it dropping considerably by 2023 (after the mid terms).

Obviously you expand operations when you see a long term trend of increased demand and if the millions of new gun owners isn't a flashing neon sign that there is going to be an increase in long term demand then the executives who are paid big bucks to forecast these changes in the future have failed at their jobs.

Since the industry has zero interest in expanding their production capabilities then there's no reason to not spend every extra cent you can on ammo when prices come back down in 2023, which means that prices really won't come down at all because the demand is going to remain.

Of course the industry has no interest in spending money, spending money hurts the stock price and the stock price getting hurt means the execs don't get their fat Christmas bonus and their spouses (and mistresses) don't get their fancy new Lexus or BMW under the tree and that leads to sad faces and divorce cases.

So what's the solution the industry has come up with? Why, it's a subscription based service where if you pay double or triple the normal price you'll be guaranteed ammo delivered right to your door and when you decide that's too much and you want to cancel, well you gotta pay $300 bucks for a cancellation fee.

This obsession within companies to nail people into a subscription is getting out of control, you can even argue the pharmaceuticals are salivating over every new Covid variant because it's billions more they can make with vaccines and boosters and pills and tests. The video game industry is following with this trend as now instead of selling people one game on one disc they'd rather offer you access to many games that you will never own for $10 or $15 a month.

Companies across industries are swiftly becoming anti-consumer and with the service based products it's tough to fight that change other than to speak out against it, but with goods like ammo and this ammo subscription it's easy for people to say no because the price is so extreme and traditional methods of acquiring ammo will still be available. That said, Federal and Vista can pound sand with this, it almost makes me want to boycott their products now.

[Willie Lowman]

why aren't ammo makers building new facilities

Because it takes years and several millions of dollars to set up a new factory.

[wild cat mccane]

It's a US only problem that benefits the company that owns almost all the US ammo brands. Vista has never made more money by doing nothing. Well, I mean the CEO keeps getting on Youtube to tell you the problem...but wait....

That's why I make a point that my Swiss made Norma 124gr FMJ, cheapest on the market, is coming from a more socialized country with less raw goods purchasing power than the US...imports no less...and is a better product that crap Blazer 115gr.

That's a problem. Forbes said this subscription service was going to help the backlog of orders. At $28 for 115gr American Eagle is Vista's way to correct the US only ammo problem? no. That's hosing your customer once again.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

Interesting. The Norma ammo factory is in Sweden. Sounds like Ruag is using the Norma name on ammo made by other companies they hold. I guess that makes good business sense given that the Norma name has more of a cachet than Ammotec.

Ruag Ammotec has factories in Germany, Hungary and Switzerland--possibly others.

There is also Norma labeled ammunition produced in the US.

https://www.ammoshoponline.com/shop/...-94-gr-qty-50/

Look at the label. There was also a FMJ option with a similar label, but that sold out.

Whether it is Ruag or Norma it has been relatively cheap.


As for Federal/Vista, we’ve beaten this drum a number of times this year and I don’t really see why it still surprises people. Yes now they have a subscription service, and I don’t doubt some people will in fact subscribe. Some people keep buying at these prices, and as long as that happens there is little motivation for sellers to lower prices. We can talk about sellers taking advantage of buyers, but many buyers are feeding into this. It’s a two way street.

Around me $20 a box or so has been the going rate for a while, and the inventory has been sitting lately, even when it was $17 a box locally for Black Friday. I’ve tapered my own purchasing because 1. I don’t want to feed this market and 2. As good as $0.30 a round seems, I think we’ll see lower in months ahead. Availability online hasn’t been a problem in months now. If you don’t have some kind of backlog by now (this is in general, not to members here) then I feel like you either aren’t motivated to buy or aren’t trying. I think we are also still seeing people that were used to periods where they couldn’t get anything buying now simply because they fear supply will go away again rather than because they don’t have ammunition or are continuously running out. That’s a mentality that needs to taper for prices to keep going down.


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[JohnKSa]

There is also Norma labeled ammunition produced in the US.

https://www.ammoshoponline.com/shop/...-94-gr-qty-50/

Look at the label. There was also a FMJ option with a similar label, but that sold out.

I've been trying to find anything about a Norma ammunition factory in the U.S. If anyone can find information on that, I'd be interested to read about it.

I know Fiocchi, based in Italy, decided that it was cheaper to produce ammo in the U.S. if they were going to sell it here, but it was no problem to find that the Fiocchi U.S. factory is in Missouri. For some reason I can't find anything on Norma's U.S. production facilities.

[jetinteriorguy]

Originally Posted by wild cat mccane

It's a US only problem that benefits the company that owns almost all the US ammo brands. Vista has never made more money by doing nothing. Well, I mean the CEO keeps getting on Youtube to tell you the problem...but wait....

That's why I make a point that my Swiss made Norma 124gr FMJ, cheapest on the market, is coming from a more socialized country with less raw goods purchasing power than the US...imports no less...and is a better product that crap Blazer 115gr.

That's a problem. Forbes said this subscription service was going to help the backlog of orders. At $28 for 115gr American Eagle is Vista's way to correct the US only ammo problem? no. That's hosing your customer once again.

So if the situation were reversed and the company was selling at cost just to keep the doors open, you’d not take advantage of the situation and stock up? You do realize that no one is forcing anyone to buy their products at whatever price they put on it, right.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

I've been trying to find anything about a Norma ammunition factory in the U.S. If anyone can find information on that, I'd be interested to read about it.

I know Fiocchi, based in Italy, decided that it was cheaper to produce ammo in the U.S. if they were going to sell it here, but it was no problem to find that the Fiocchi U.S. factory is in Missouri. For some reason I can't find anything on Norma's U.S. production facilities.

As I said, “whether it’s Ruag or Norma”. When I said this I meant it may well be Ruag ammunition marketed as Norma, per your explanation earlier.

Ruag has a US subsidiary in Tampa, Florida (scroll down the page):
https://ruag-ammotec.com/

This article seems to suggest that relationship started in 2009:
http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/...e-ammo-in-usa/

There has also been Geco ammunition (another Ruag owned entity) that has been marked as made in the US:
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.ph...merica.834043/

My guess is the same plant is behind both, but I could be wrong.


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[JohnKSa]

That makes sense. Which gets us back to my earlier statement about Ruag rebranding ammo made by other companies with the Norma name.

[TunnelRat]

Yes, just as I acknowledged at the beginning of my previous post. For me personally, given Ruag is the parent company of Norma that’s their call and as you say likely an element of marketing. I don’t know that I care whether that ammunition is made in the original Norma factory, though others might. My goal is simply lower cost, brass-cased, new production ammunition.

While all of this is interesting information, to me it’s tangential to the original point of this thread (even if the OP’s origin claims don’t apply to all the ammunition sold by normashooting and ammoshoponline). Yes, there is more affordable ammunition available than that available through this subscription. Some of it is made in the US, some in Germany, some in other countries. The OP didn’t mention that more than that there are also online retailers selling Vista Outdoor products for cheaper than this subscription, notably so.

My opinion is this subscription isn’t for the people who are already using ammoseek or other sources to find cheap ammunition. I think this is for people who want a guaranteed source of ammunition and don’t care about the cost, and I believe those people exist. I’ve personally benefited from ammoshoponline and normashooting selling ammunition for lower prices. However, many of those batches/products that I bought are currently out of stock on ammoshoponline. That I could buy them for $0.30 a round last month doesn’t help another person today or tomorrow. The products that are available currently at those sites are available for roughly a cent or less a round (pre-shipping) than retailers selling other Vista products.

If Federal today started selling subscriptions of 9mm for $0.30 a round, I do not believe they would be able to guarantee those subscriptions as they would undercut the market and demand would outstrip supply. Then we would be where we were in the past. Doing this would also anger Federal’s chain of distributors and online retailers who are selling currently. As best as I can tell ammoshoponline and normashooting are the primary distributors for Ruag products in the states. I don’t see many of those products at other retailers. In short, those websites can afford to undercut the competition to a level that Federal can’t as long as Federal wants to keep that supply chain happy.

I have no special love for Federal (I own no Vista stock specifically) and I have no doubt they are making a very healthy profit. At the same time I don’t think some of the outrage here has been thought through entirely.

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[reddog81]

I can't imagine this will work out well for them. All the gun stores near me have brass 9mm for around $20 a box and I just looked online and you can get Blazer brass ammo for 35% less than this subscription.

If the price was around $100 per box of 250 they'd have decent demand. At $140 they're pricing themselves out of the market for just about everyone. I'm surprised they don't have some initial offer scheme for $75 for the first package and them jump to $140 after that. A lot of people love stuff like that and once you've got them to commit a lot of people will just keep paying the normal rate.

[wild cat mccane]

This is actually important to us buyers.

Forbes released an article in July that said Vista was going to do this. The point was stated as Vista wanted to get scarce ammo to people and at a fair price.

Well what a load of crap that turned out to be. In fact, Vista does none of that with this price being double what you can find for CCI (Vista owned) 115gr Blazer.

So while I'm beating the drum, remember this the next time the Speer or Federal CEO gets on YouTube and cries about material cost and the like. It's totally proven false. Swiss, Hungarian, Sweden, and US made Norma/Normal white box and cheaper version GECO has been 100% available the the low cost leader this whole time. With free shipping.

[TunnelRat]

You have admitted that you yourself are spending your dollars elsewhere. You’ve had multiple threads highlighting where more affordable ammunition can be found. By now I have to wonder, what is the point? Are you really so beset by the perceived inequities of the ammunition situation that you feel the need for a thread every so many months to rehash the same topic? Are are you just shouting into the wind and wanting an audience?


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[wild cat mccane]

I'm set on it because there is a very toxic culture in the gun community to admit one political side is always right. The fact is, the CEO of Federal and Speer are straight up lying on YouTube to their consumers. Vista is a US ammo monopoly. The worst gougers of the US gun community is the largest US gun group.

No one seems to say this but me. AND I'm actually right

If I am the only one that is mentioning this, it's kinda odd since it is so easy to validate what I'm saying.