Ammo prices up already?

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everyone can look at it this way. You have an object made of several types of exacting metal, made to the 1/1000 of an inch in every dimension, with at least 7 different complex to manufacturer parts, with a multi decade shelf life, shipped hundreds if not thousands of miles, at a cost of less than $1.00 per unit in most cases. Yea capitalism. Always look on the bright side. At worst someone is making more money off of the buying public, and that someone is wants to keep the money coming,
 
Look at the bright side if you live in the middle of nowhere you can still order ammo from SGammo, Hinterland Outfitters,......Sadly sooner or later it will end like it ended for Californians.
 
The future, potential long-term problem?
A high tariff, or outright ban on imported ammo, especially Russian or its "contract ammo" from various countries.

People claim that enough countries produce low-cost 9mm, 7.62x39 and .223 to compensate, were that to happen, but consumer reactions are seldom logical and rational.
If one believes that they are rational, look at the huge number of unwanted ARs bought after Obama was elected---and his only Real priority was passing the "Affordable Care Act". Different subject, but most people are too dense or emotional to understand what "political capital"/ limited political support means.
 
The future, potential long-term problem?
A high tariff, or outright ban on imported ammo, especially Russian or its "contract ammo" from various countries.

People claim that enough countries produce low-cost 9mm, 7.62x39 and .223 to compensate, were that to happen, but consumer reactions are seldom logical and rational.
If one believes that they are rational, look at the huge number of unwanted ARs bought after Obama was elected---and his only Real priority was passing the "Affordable Care Act". Different subject, but most people are too dense or emotional to understand what "political capital"/ limited political support means.

There will be no high tariff or ban on ammo from Russia. The citizens of USA and Russia have too much to loose by not getting along. Trump gave Poles order to get along with Russia. With the blessing of US Government Ukrainians were able to elect new president who used to play that role on TV. His mission is to convince Ukrainians that it is in their best interest to have positive relationship with Moscow. Poniemajecie?
 
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As far as "selling cheaper than I can buy", thats a real thing. If you hang around a convinience store long enough, you will see them unloading beer/cigarettes they buy from Costco. They can buy it there cheaper than from distributor...
That is exactly the original business model of Costco and SamsClub. They are supposed to be small business buyers clubs because distributors don't generally cater to smaller customers like convenience stores. It just happened that many of these small business owners also bought stuff for their personal use and the clubs decided to expand their offerings and customer base. You may notice these stores still have most of their stuff in bulk packs labelled for resale.

Anyway, there is a very real likelihood of much lower online prices for bulk ammo over the next couple years as manufacturers look to sell the huge amount of ammo Walmart has opted to stop buying. Local gun shops are probably not going to pass the savings along. If anything, they will likely raise prices since the competition just got less.

Walmart clarified today they are discontinuing all centerfire handgun ammunition plus 223/556, 300 BO, 762x39, and 224 Valkerie. Supposedly the company had around 20% of US ammo market share and the change will drop them to 6-to-8% market share. They don't break down those percentages into numbers by chambering (I suspect most of it is handgun rather than rifle), but regardless that is a HUGE volume of sales for ammunition makers that just went away. Those companies will need to find alternate vendors to buy their supply. Walmart might have squeezed them in the past for pricing concessions, but who else has that kind of capital budget laying around to fill the void? I tend to think there will need to be lower dealer prices across those loads to keep the doors open.
 
Has anyone been seeing rising prices or availability shrinking yet? I am hoping I am wrong.
Having lived through several ammunition/reloading component shortage cycles during my lifetime, IMHO we have seen the recent bottom and I anticipate prices will continue up.

If there are things you want, I recommend you buy them now than later.

Of course, time will tell.

Walmart clarified today they are discontinuing all centerfire handgun ammunition plus 223/556, 300 BO, 762x39, and 224 Valkerie. Supposedly the company had around 20% of US ammo market share and the change will drop them to 6-to-8% market share.
BUT in recent years/months, Walmart has not offered the lowest prices on ammunition.

In fact, this "22LR for less than $15-$20/500 shipped" thread demonstrates various online vendors selling ammunition cheaper than Walmart for some time now - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...15-20-500-shipped.853059/page-2#post-11226086

As to ammunition price fluctuations, it's simple "supply and demand".
 
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Berry is offering 10% off across the board this weekend. I know it's components and not ammo.
 
our LGS was a little pricey until Academy came in, then they lowered their price to be competitive, I saw 410 ammo drop 4$ a box and they started matching their price on guns, so I think Academy had more to do with prices than Walmart in my area.
 
Palolosj:
That makes sense and seems very plausible, especially if you are an 'insider". If so, then some of my large 'reserve' of 7.62x39 is only needed to weather some panics.

Your final word might be just the Roman lettered version of Ukr. Cyrillic (or Polish, maybe Belarus)?
 
palolosje: Interesting, and I've read about only some of those foreign policies in articles by the Wall Street Journal. With Russia supplying so much fuel to Ukraine and Europe, even the US doesn't want to offend Putin very much. Obama supposedly blocked further imports of Saiga rifles because of majority ownership by banned Russian businessmen.

Poniemajecie = "See more" (?), in Polish, might mean that the steady importation of Russian ammo should continue.
 
Russian leadership includes many veterans of GRU and KGB (FSB) meaning investigation of election tampering and Trump collusion had no chance of establishing anything. While there is always going to be some disagreements and tension I'm convinced both governments could come to agreement and quickly improve relationship when needed. Scaring small Eastern and Central European countries with Russia is good for selling them our weapons, energy and keeping our presence there. I am not involved in manufacture of ammunition, therefore, I have nothing against their ammo being sold here.
 
Ammo prices up? Certainly not for me. And all shipped totally Free. Lowest prices I have paid since the end of the ammo shortage. These boxes below and a more in the Storage room. And they just keep on coming in.
When I drive, I do not drive to Walmart looking for a deal.I have better Places to go.

(and by the way, those boxes are Bulk, But not Bulk of just on Manufacturer. When I buy Bulk, I want a mix and match of many different brands and loads, but I want them all at Bulk Rate!) Only the best for a Devil like me. (Target Sports)

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When the ammo panic was in full gear, and there were box limits, there is a country store near me that has a small selection of ammo, 5-10 ridiculously overpriced handguns, 7-15 ridiculously overpriced rifles and a store filled with mostly ridiculously overpriced clothing, smoked meats and deli food.

Anyway, this store is in vermont and when I would jump across the border into NH to get a few boxes of ammo, the owner of that store would be there with his entire family, 8-10 of his people standing in line to buy as much ammo as they could for reasonably cheap and no tax.

They would then go back to the store with their haul and stock the shelves at a 4-5× markup and it used to really frost my you know what's. This happened to me literally 10 times. I would go to try to get a few boxes in NH but he and his whole family would be there standing in line to wipe out the inventory so they could make a killing off it.
 
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All of this talk about ammo prices still being as low as they will ever be and the fact that all they will do is go up the closer to the election we get convinced me to order another 5K of 22 LR. Less than 0.05/rd is dirt cheap so why not. It will take me years to use that but at least I won't be waiting for Walmart to open so I can buy a few boxes.

I reload everything else so I guess I better buy some powder and primers while the prices are good also.

Thanks for the reminder. ;)
 
I doubt Putin will allow Trump to put a tariff or any other limitation on Russian ammo. But it seems like ammoseek has fewer entries for some basic 9mm brands, such as Geco. Could it possibly be that manufacturers are slowing down production a bit since the market is flush? I do not know.
 
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