The "Where is everything?" thread -- guns, ammo, primers, powder, etc.

[JohnKSa]

Foreign manufacturers are not taking up the demand of domestic suppliers of rimfire ammo.

The foreign manufacturers are part of the NORMAL supply in the U.S. They have factored the U.S. market into their production capacity and are limited just like the U.S. manufacturers--they can only increase their production capacity within certain limits.

The fact that they're foreign doesn't make them any different in terms of their limited ability to adjust to demand spikes.

By the way, importing ammunition into the U.S. is not as simple nor as quick as it might seem. Even if the foreign manufacturers were able to magically increase capacity to fully meet demand, there can be a surprising delay before that ammunition makes it to a U.S. shelf.

And importers are in the same boat as manufacturers. If they up their import quantities significantly and the spike goes away, now they are in a situation where it make take them years to recoup their investment by selling at normal demand levels. That's a good way to go bankrupt and they know it.

It has been years with a shortage of rimfire...

It doesn't matter how long it lasts. Until it is perceived by the ammo manufacturers to be a permanent increase in demand they are not going to spend millions of money to increase production. They can't afford to make huge investments to create manufacturing capacity that will then be idled because the demand spike went away.

There is no doubt that I'm speculating what is going on, just like you are...

That's just it. You may be speculating, I am not. I have been following the investigations by congressmen into ammunition purchases by the government. I have done research into ammunition buys by the government, how they are administrated, the general quantities, and what the ammunition is used for. I have been listening to interviews with ammunition company executives, I have been reading articles by experts in the industry. I have personally spoken to persons working in the industry. The story, once you get away from all the speculation and panic-generating theories and rumors is always the same and it all makes perfect sense.

How much of a panic is there really?

It depends. I've seen .22LR prices well over 10 cents a round and have seen reports of people paying $100 a brick. The people willing to pay that much are keeping the shelves empty by encouraging others to stand in line to clean the shelves and sell what they buy at crazy profit margins. At my local Wal-Mart, the clerks tell me that the same relatively small number of folks stand in line for up to 4 hours any time an ammunition shipment is expected.

But just wait a little bit longer--the shelves are starting to refill and the prices are coming back down. There are two gun shops within a mile of my house and I can go into either one and buy .22LR ammo any time I want. At one, they have bricks for $30 apiece--6 cents a round.

It just takes time for people to calm down and for things to get back all the way to normal. I've seen this happen before and I'm sure we'll all see it happen again.

[guruatbol]

I had used up some of my small pistol primers and have been on the look out for some to replace what I have used. Well today I went to Cal-Ranch a sort of tractor supply store, and they has 7 boxes of CCI. I bought them. I still had some time to kill so I went down the street to Sportsman's Warehouse and they have a limit of 1 box (1000) for about $3 more than I paid for the last 700 that CR had.

I guess I will go get a box tomorrow. Maybe some large pistol primers too. Now if they had pistol powder?

Mel

[gyvel]

One thing's for sure; When this "shortage" is over, and folks are used to paying more for .22, you're not going to see a reduction in price to pre-crisis levels, much like gas prices didn't come down after the "shortage" of 73.

[JohnKSa]

It's very likely that you are correct, but there is a small chance of a rebound effect if the demand cuts off abruptly enough. If that happens and it leaves a glut created by the stepped up production the prices will drop rapidly and may get low enough to more or less cancel the effect of the shortage.

[Mike Irwin]

"There is no doubt that I'm speculating what is going on, just like you are..."

Actually, you're speculating.

My information comes from contacts I still maintain inside the industry, from interviews/information given by industry representatives to news organizations, and from industry representative groups like SAAMI and the National Rifle Association.

Then there's also information put out by the Federal government on firearms and ammunition sales and the taxes collected towards the Pittman-Robertson Act.

I'm not running around slinging veiled accusations about industry collusion and nefarious intent based on I'M NOT RECEIVING INSTANT GRATIFICATION RIGHT NOW AND I'M MAD AS HELL ABOUT IT SO I'M GOING TO GO ON THE INTERNET AND COMPLAIN AND GIVE MY OPINION (RIGHT OR WRONG) ABOUT IT!!!!!!!"

At one time I was associate editor of American Rifleman and got a pretty good education in how the ammunition industry works, both physically and financially.

That's what's so damned frustrating about all of this...

The number of people who are making **** up based on the voices in their own heads.

[Mike Irwin]

"One thing's for sure; When this "shortage" is over, and folks are used to paying more for .22, you're not going to see a reduction in price to pre-crisis levels, much like gas prices didn't come down after the "shortage" of 73."

We keep hearing that. (Oh, and gasoline prices are not analagous in any way, shape, or form).

Yet recent history proves that it CAN happen.

Back in the early 1990s primers started disappearing. It was a similar combination of government sabre rattling combined with Panicky Squirrel Rodeo gun owners with, IIRC, a production problem at one of Winchester's plant.

All of a sudden, the rumors started flying.

GUBMINT IS BUYING ALL OF THE PRIMERS!!!!!! (I actually had one asshat call me at my office at NRA screeching that into my ear. )

GUBMINT IS MAKING MANUFACTURERS PUT TIMERS IN PRIMERS!!!! THEY'LL ONLY LAST 10 YEARS 5 YEARS 5 HOURS 5 MILISECONDS!!!!!!!!!!

Every slack jawed banjo toter claimed to have the GOD'S HONEST TRUTH ABOUT THE GUBMINT'S NEFARIOUS PLANS THAT THEY GOT FROM A TURNCOAT GUBMINT AGENT!!!!!!

In other words, back then was just like now.

Slowly, though, people started to calm down. The effects of the 1994 omnibus crime bill started to be known (not just feared and talked about), legislators started backing off of talk about ammunition bans, and manufacturers started to right themselves.

By 1996 primers, which had topped out at close to $35 per K where I was shopping, had started to drop.

By 2001 primers were back close to where they were price wise in 1992.

And, by 2005, primers were, when adjusted for inflation CHEAPER than they had been in 1992, and in some cases, they were physically cheaper, as well.

You know what caused that?

The miracle of companies competing against each other.

So don't for a second believe anyone when they say that "it's been proven that we'll pay any price they want, so they'll never drop the price again!!!"

That's stupid talk, it doesn't have any bearing or relationship to how companies actually work, and it assumes that the Panicky Squirrel Rodeo syndrome that got so many people so stupid in the first place is going to continue forever.

Yeah.

Get real, folks.

[Doyle]

As long as we are on the subject of continued demand vs production of .22LR ammo, I'll bring up something that I saw on a Youtube video. Yes, I know Youtube isn't the most reliable source of info but in this particular instance what the guy said makes some sense. This guy is a dealer so at least he isn't some yahoo off the streets.

Anyway, he said he first started noticing a reduction in availability and an increase in demand for .22LR a few years ago at about the same time that there was a rise in sales of .22LR chambered AR type semi-auto rifles. Now this actually makes sense. If you are shooting a bolt-action .22, there is only so many rounds you can go through in a day's shooting. However, if you are shooting a high-capacity assault style (I hate to use that "A" word) you have the ability to consume SIGNIFICANTLY more ammo in one range session.

Bottom line from this point is that since there are more people shooting these "high-volume" rimfires, the ammo manufactures need to consider this to be a permanent shift in demand and plan long-term production accordingly.

[StukaJU87]

I'd rather see 20 cent a round 22 lr then none at all

It's people with this attitude that has created the situation we are in now. People that are dumb enough to pay $.10 or $.20 a round when they could be paying $.03 a round if they would just stop being stupid.

I love how people try to justify overpaying. Who are you trying to convince?

Do your homework, shop around before you buy. If you see something you want and you know it's overpriced, walk away. Don't buy it. If enough people refused to overpay, there wouldn't be a shortage.

[Colorado Redneck]

See post #867

Recob's does charge hazmat fees for shipping power/primers. Still, I got the stuff and am set for this summer.

Can't wait for this goofy circus to come to an end.

[2ndsojourn]

Yesterday while on the road I stopped at a gun shop in Hamilton NJ and they had plenty of ammo in various calibers. 22, 9mm, 38, 357, 223, .....
So I asked for 3 boxes of 9mm. Sorry....1 box limit. So I took the one box, $19, Blazer Brass.

Returning to the office, I stopped at Dick's and they had somewhat of an ample supply compared to what I usually see there, which is usually nothing. Several 100 ct boxes of Rem Thunderduds for $10, CCI 50 ct boxes $6. I didn't get any of that. But they had several 100 ct WWB 9mm $32, 3 box limit, so I got that.

Still waiting for my handgun purchase permits from our glorious state. Applied Feb 8 and they're still jerking me around.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I agree with the sentiment that buying high priced 22 is stupid, especially if you don't shoot the stuff. If you are just sitting on it like Smaug waiting for zombie smurf apocalpyse - well, BAH!

[Travelin' Man]

I don't know about the rest of you but if I come across .22LR at a decent price I will buy it simply to SLOWLY build up my own supply, primarily because I have a slidefire stock on a S&W M&P 15-22 which is a hoot to shoot but chews up ammo at crazy rates like 900 rounds a minute or such.

BTW, GAT Guns in East Dundee, Illinois was selling the 500 round boxes of Remington Thunderbolt high velocity .22LR for $35 a box, limit of 1 box per person per day unless you buy more than $75 in other firearms merchandise in which cases they let you buy a second box also at the $35 price. They literally had pallets of the stuff sitting right in the middle of the store.

[gyvel]

It's very likely that you are correct, but there is a small chance of a rebound effect if the demand cuts off abruptly enough. If that happens and it leaves a glut created by the stepped up production the prices will drop rapidly and may get low enough to more or less cancel the effect of the shortage.

I hope that happens.

[Unclenick]

Gyvel,

It should happen. People think greed only works in one direction, but it's actually a double-edged sword. When supply exceeds demand, everyone will try to keep their prices high at first, to get the large profit margins, but it isn't too long before someone realizes he might be able to poach a little of his competition's market share if he just dropped his prices a few pennies. Then the competition spots that drop and thinks they can poach right back, and lowers prices to match, plus drop them another penny, and so on and so forth until all prices are down. Plus they don't want to be the last guy left holding the bag of rounds that can only be sold at below cost. That's how greed lowers pricing during a glut, in which time it works in the consumer's favor. It's also how a gas war works, as mentioned before. It's straight out of Adam Smith: competition causes prices to tend toward the cost of production.

As to capacity, it always astonishes me that persons who would never dream of assuming payments on an extra car they never use, somehow think ammunition makers not only are less prudent than themselves, but that they must be less prudent. That the extra capacity just has to exist, and that ammo makers just have to be happy to be making loan payments on custom machinery built to their specs and that therefore can't be resold for anything like what it cost and that thereafter sits unused in a corner with a tarp over top of it until a shortage comes along.

Nobody in their right mind would run a business that way.

Today, what all the ammo manufacturers are stressing over is how to figure out how much of the additional demand is actually permanent demand caused by new active shooters entering the market. They want to invest in covering that permanent additional demand, but don't want to order new equipment that winds up under a tarp in the corner later. That means production will continue to remain behind demand until the portion they think is temporary panic buying stops.

Complicating things is the Internet. I tried to buy a 27" computer monitor from Staples the other day because it was put on closeout for $199. At the store, none were left. The manager said they have a guy who knows the closeouts go on sale Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he's always there first thing in the morning on both days. He cleaned them out of every last unit they had in order to resell them on eBay. Sound like anything you've seen at a big box store? The large numbers of small auction-site resellers are a relatively new market phenomenon, and they may well act to keep prices up longer than happened after the last shortage.

[Levant]

One thing's for sure; When this "shortage" is over, and folks are used to paying more for .22, you're not going to see a reduction in price to pre-crisis levels, much like gas prices didn't come down after the "shortage" of 73.

I agree. Prices are not going down just like paying for checked luggage is not going away.

And demand won't go down, I don't think. After the 2008/2009 shortage, things went to normal and I procrastinated. Should this shortage end, I won't make that mistake again. I think gun bans and ammunition bans will come before this shortage ends.

I don't stand in lines to buy ammo and I don't pay top prices, and I don't have a problem with those who want to do either doing so, but when I find it on the shelves at a price I am willing to pay, I'll buy it until I have enough to shoot all I want without regard to supply - in other words, I will have to be my own supply chain and not be dependent upon the larger market. Since I want to start shooting cowboy shooting, that means I will need a huge amount to be independent of the market.

[coldbeer]

Eventually Supply will meet demand and prices will fall, Until then I just won't buy or shoot 22lr. The hoarders, preppers and collectors will wake up one day and realize they paid way too much money for way too much ammo they don't need and can't sell for what they paid.

[Marty8613]

Just went to BassPro in Grapevine TX to get ammo for my new .40. They were filled up with 9x19mm AND 22LR. I have neither caliber, but almost bought both just because everyone complains there never is any.

[mr bolo]

anybody find any 9X18 MAK ammo? I havenet seen any in local gun stores in several years?

[Mike Irwin]

"I agree. Prices are not going down just like paying for checked luggage is not going away."

Not even remotely analagous.

Not even close.

Have you ever taken an econoics course?

Did you read my previous post about how in the 1990s people swore up and down that we would never, ever, no way no how can't ever be done again see prices drop on primers.

I really, really would love to know where so many people get such a fatalistic, and unrealistic, view of commerce.

It makes no sense.

[Marty8613]

anybody find any 9X18 MAK ammo? I havenet seen any in local gun stores in several years?

BassPro has a bit of that as well. Murl's in Grandbury, TX has a pretty large supply.

[carguychris]

Originally Posted by Levant

And demand won't go down, I don't think. After the 2008/2009 shortage, things went to normal and I procrastinated. Should this shortage end, I won't make that mistake again. I think gun bans and ammunition bans will come before this shortage ends.

To reiterate what I said in another recent thread re: .22LR ammo...

One of the hallmarks of a classic speculative market bubble is analysis saying that the nature of the market for [name of commodity] has fundamentally changed.

IMHO at this point, the shortage has nothing at all to do with the POTUS, Diane Feinstein, Vladimir Putin, Ted Nugent, bulk gubmint purchases, nefarious gubmint agents with invisible helicopters, people fearful of zombie squirrels, etc., nor with people simply shooting twice as much as they used to.

It's the speculators and hoarders.

Our own worst enemies indeed.

[Levant]

I really, really would love to know where so many people get such a fatalistic, and unrealistic, view of commerce.

If it were strictly commerce, I would agree with all you and carguychris are saying. But the ammunition market is tightly coupled to politics in the US.

It is tied to the same politics that has taken control of the entire medical industry in the US; the same politics where a chief justice of the US Supreme Court calls Obamacare fines a tax and, therefore, allowed by the Constitution.

Left on its own, the free market usually works these things out on its own. But this is not a free market.

As long as people believe that the government is trying to take away the right to buy ammunition they will prepare for the eventuality. Those who don't have the same fear will call those who do hoarders just as those who are confident they will always be able to go to the corner grocery to buy food calls those who stock up a few extra cans of food hoarders.

But whatever you call them, as long as that fear exists then the market will be like it is now. So the question is not whether ammunition companies, retailers, or anyone else is in a conspiracy to cause shortages. We've already discussed here and/or elsewhere how very small demand changes can cause a shortage like we're experiencing so I think most understand that.

As for speculators, I fully endorse their right to put in the time and effort to get the best bargains and sell at a profit. That's free commerce. If you want lower prices, get up at 7:00 in the morning and spend the day at Walmart.

The market question about ammunition is not whether prices and supply will return to normal if demand drops - of course they will. The question is whether demand will drop before the government bans ammunition.

I have full faith in unfettered markets. I have no faith in the government - or should I say I have faith that they are trying to, and will succeed, in banning guns and ammunition in the US, at least in ways or numbers that will destroy the market and the industry.

[Levant]

"I agree. Prices are not going down just like paying for checked luggage is not going away."

Not even remotely analagous.

Sure, it's analogous. When new ways to make money are discovered and profits are high, successful businesses do more of it, not less of it. As much as we don't like it, if it works they will keep doing it.

Big box sporting goods stores have discovered just how much people are willing to pay for ammunition and they will charge it as long as they can. They're not turning back - assuming the political environment doesn't get turned around.

Airlines started charging for checked baggage in response to a short term condition in oil prices and found charging for checked baggage was a huge profit stream for them. They're not turning back for a lot of years. Eventually someone like Southwest will offer free checked baggage and the market will shift back.

[Mike Irwin]

"Left on its own, the free market usually works these things out on its own. But this is not a free market."

Wow. You're right. This is the first time ever in the history of the United States that the prices of consumer commodities have been affected by a combination of political wrangling, sound bites, and current events!

How could we all have missed that?

Free markets have NEVER been totally isolated. Anywhere, at any time. Free markets have ALWAYS been subject to varying amounts of political control and influence and the influences of societal actions as a whole.

We ARE NOT, I'll repeat that, ARE NOT in the middle of some brave new world.

In fact, the United States is far closer to a free market society now than we were in 1900 as one of the major tenets of a free market is that they are not unduly influenced or controlled by monopolies and trusts.


"As long as people believe that the government is trying to take away the right to buy ammunition they will prepare for the eventuality."

No one is saying that that is NOT the case.

What I am rejecting, however, is the idea that this event somehow is the omega point for low prices.

History, even short-term over hte last 30 years, simply doesn't bear that out.

When asked to explain WHY this event is different than, say, 1994, when actual legislation WAS passed, the only response is along the lines of "THE GUBMINT! IT'S THE GUBMINT, MAN!!!"

That is not a valid response. It's mindless, factless hysteria.

I've seen at least four such cycles of mindless hysteria in my lifetime -- with 1994 being the worst, and 1994 actually resulting in legislation.

So, after 1994, using your "logic," how do you explain the precipitious drop in both sales and prices of rifles affected by the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill?

Your logic dictates that the panic that took hold then should have continued, unabated, for 20 years. Rifles that were selling at hyperinflated prices in 1994 should have kept selling at hyperinflated prices right thought to now.

But you know as well as I do that that didn't happen.

Within 3 years people who purchased a $3,000 AR-15 with a bayonet lug were hard pressed to get a look at $1,500.

Your logic says it should have risen to at least $3,500.

The same is true of primers around the same time.

The same is true of prices in 2009. They had started to recover from panicky squirrel rodeo 1, when primers were as high as $75 per K at gunshows.

By early 2011 prices were closing in on what they had been before PSR1 at roughly $15 to $17 per K.

Your 'logic' dictates that that never should have happened. That $75 per K should have been the new omega point in 2009, and we should only be going up from there.

I could go on and on pointing out relevant examples of how the doom and gloom that was predicted back then -- the SAME doom and gloom that is being predicted now -- NEVER HAPPENED.

And, depsite the continued chicken little cries about the sky falling, this time isn't going to be any different, either.

I wish everyone who spouted off crap like this would do two things:

Take a couple of economics classes

Take a couple of 20th Century American history classes, especially business history.

[Mike Irwin]

"Sure, it's analogous."

No, it's not.

Airlines are far closer to monopolies than ammunition manufacturers.

Airlines don't have nearly the same level of competitive force inside their industry that ammunition manufacturers do.

Also, bag fees are convenience fees. They are not built into the structure of the fare. You can avoid a checked bag fee by not checking a bag.

In order for your example to be analagous, ammunition companies would have to charge a separate fee for, say, the box in addition to the ammunition.

Don't want the box, don't want to pay the box fee? You can count out 50, or 100, rounds from a loose bin in your local gunshop.