Contrived Ammunition Shortage

[SSG]

http://www.rense.com/general85/cntrived.htm

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[Trlsmn]

I wouldn't disagree that the shortage could have been contrived but take a look at the home page of the source of the article.

Wacko to the extreme.

http://www.rense.com/

 

[torpedoman]

Just because you and everyone you know bought a few thousand rounds should not have put any strain on the system.

 

[haythrower]

I don't know guys. No sources, more speculation than anything. Can't believe everything you read. I'd say since Dec, things have improved - maybe not perfect, but better. Just wish you could find more .45ACP around.

 

[45_70Sharps]

I wouldn't disagree that the shortage could have been contrived but take a look at the home page of the source of the article.

Wacko to the extreme.

http://www.rense.com/

Wow!! I don't know where to start on the page that story came from. Proof of ruins of cities on Mars, the holocaust didn't happen..... So many wack job things to pick from on that page.

The way the ammo shortage was explained to me was this. Everyone was scared that Obama was going to take our guns so sales are up (we know that sales have been way up). Everyone who buys a new gun buys ammo. That with the people who are sure that they are not going to be able to get ammo soon adds up to a very high demand, so less on the shelf.
I don't think Remington would cut production and profit like that and I sure don't think that if they did all the other ammo producers would be cutting production when they have a product that they can be selling at a time when the economy is this bad and they have a product that they can move.

 

[JumpWing]

The whole thing kicks off with a socialist President taking office during a dem-controlled Congress. There's a mad rush to buy ammo and, for the newbies, guns and ammo.

As the shelves empty, we are left with one of the most basic scenarios of business: Low supply / High demand. This leads to the obvious result: Price increase. Now all those folks who didn't scurry out to buy ammo are thinking "well, I should get some before the price goes up again." This goes back and forth as the shelves stay empty, the price continues to rise, and more consumer "holdouts" begin capitulating and joining the already blood-clouded frenzy.

It's a long curve on the downside as well, because there will not be any defining point at which the ammo-buying public has been satisfied. Supply will eventually catch up, but because ammo is such a highly consumable product (some of us might use the word "addiction" here) this will be a slow process.

 

[tionico]

Back even before the election that seated the Kenyan, there were two factors that had already strained ammunition production: first, remember how metal prices were spiralling upward through the roof. In the space of less than a year, prices on copper, lead, aluminium, brass, nickel, had more than doubled. Ammunition manufacturers were working down their existing backup stocks of metals, hesitant to commit to the HUGE quantities they were being forced to buy at super high prices. They were waiting for prices to drop, and quantity requirements (minimum purchase lots) to drop as well. SO.... late in the sumer, long about August or so, the Defense Department inks contracts to buy something like four billion rounds of small arms ammunition for military use. Slam, low stock levels of metals, and a huge contract to fulfill, meant tight production margins.... the major manufacturers were running three shifts, and paying outrageous prices for the raw materials. then, the elections hit, went the wrong way, and the public went nuts buying arms, and the fodder to feed them. The system was badly overloaded, not ready for the increased demands. Stockpiles didn't take long to become nonexistent. Pressing through producing those four billion rounds for Defense meant there was no excess production capacity available for the sporting market. Stocks depleted even further... then, the panic buying, stockpiling, hoarding, kicked in.

In these past two months or so, what with metal prices back down to close to normal prices, the four billion rounds delivered, and things more or less normalising after the elections, supply has finally begun to catch up, Last several times in BiMarts, there was plenty of most everyhing... I even found .357 rounds.... the only things I have not yet been able to find locally at "decent" prices have been .380 and, at times, .22 WMR and .357 Mag. Cabelas have it all on the shelf, but at significantly higher prices. Fred Meyers in Scapoose had decent stocks, and a number of decent guns. I've even managed to find bricks of .22 at not much more than they were before the elections. A ten percent increase is just about all.

 

[madcratebuilder]

There was really never a shortage IF you were welling to pay the asking price.

 

[Dan-Dee Sales Inc]

LOL. Pretty funny story.

 

[Member 5605]

Gun ownership went up.. bigtime! Add those people to the mass of hoarders and there's your issue.

 

[tionico]

There was really never a shortage IF you were welling to pay the asking price.

well, not quite. I remember being shocked as I walked into Cabelas, Sportsman's Warehouse, BiMart (at least six stores), WalMart (at least four), Fisherman's, and even Surplus Ammo and Arms, looking to buy 9mm, .40 S&W, .45ACP, .357 Mag, and .22 Rimfire...... NONE TO BE HAD anywhere. Shelves were empty, no amount of money could produce a box or three in my shopping cart. My FFL Dealer was out, he'd had cases on order for months, no one was shipping those things. Handgun ammunition was nearly non-existent. I learned that the chaps working Cabela's gun counter had a stash of the most common ones in back, metered out at one box per actual buyer of a handgun for that caliber. THEY had no way of getting more. That's how bad it was last spring. I bought a .380 in August or September, found one box of Mag Tec MC at the same gunshow, paid $25 for it... not realising yet what MC was. Next box I found anywhere was in early December, at Fisherman's, again MC, but "only" $20. I bought one..... and the last Speer Gold Dot they had. I managed to find seven boxes FMJ and two more Gold Dot at a gun store in Millersburg Ohio when I spent a week there in December. $14 the box for FMJ, the Gold Dot was $18. I cleaned them out. He had most other common handgun calibers.... and the best price I've ever seen on the Ruger LCP (as I recall, it was $279. He had five of then=m, new in box. but my Uncle Stupid has some fetish about people buying arms interstate. I almost had my friend buy it for me and let me take it home to "borrow" ino, the ammo shortage was real.

 

[Silver Fox]

Ammo shortage? Why would there be an ammo shortage when ammo vendors at gun shows where selling there on hand mil calibers before noon on Saturdays. The knob creek gun show had pallets sold by the eaches.... Why would there be an ammo shortage?

Y'all crazy... Sit back, relax the gooberment has it handled.

SF-

 

[cbzdel]

Honestly I dont think its as bad as most make it out to be, if I want ammo I go to the store and buy it.. Really the only shortages are at the major retailers Walmarts and such because we are all cheap bastards. Every week I go to Walmart for something and their ammo is always next to none, if in the rare chance they have something in stock I buy as much as I can just because its 1/3 the prices as anywhere else. If I got to a gun shop they have every caliber in stock that I have looked for, I just dont like paying their outrageous prices.

 

[Oohrah]

Some normal returns. Shortage is 22s, but some to be had via mail and primers are somewhat available by the same. However, prices remain inflated. Military calibers are becoming available and prices have dropped somewhat. We were able to buy 5000 CCI Blazers .40 cal to run police tactics at $135 per 500 from a vendor in the midwest. One thing that I have noticed is non reloadable stuff seems to be more available, along with the very expensive personal protection stuff. Good news is very shortly Milsurp 30-06 ammo will again be available from the CMP. I can't see where the other ammo offered is any great buy. Be nice if they could find some Milsurp 30 Cal Carbine and reasonal priced mags (GI) to go with all the rifles that were sold.:huh: