Ammo industry: We won't see return to normal until 2023.

[Jack B.]

What I don't understand is why do some ammo sellers sell unlimited amounts of ammo . All they have to do is limit how much each customer can buy and we won't have a shortage. I understand not wanting to get hung out by not moving everything you have ,but I could see this shortage coming a mile away. Greed is the only thing I can think of. Make hay while the sun shines seems to be the mentality.

 

[Ignition Override]

“Normal” conditions.....or normal profits?

Let’s not forget the prime objective.

And don’t use cheap steel ammo!
My wife’s cousin’s nephew’s piano tuner read in the Internet that it can damage your guns made of high quality steel! And the powder is corrosive!

 

[alsaqr]

Yep, folks failed to stock up on ammunition and re-loading supplies while prices were down.

 

[DeepSouth]

Lots of people are guessing, a very few are semi-educated guesses. No one really knows what’s going to happen or when. You’ll have better luck predicting where and when Dogecoin will go.

We’re just along for the ride.

 

[mcb]

“Normal” conditions.....or normal profits?

Let’s not forget the prime objective.

And don’t use cheap steel ammo!
My wife’s cousin’s nephew’s piano tuner read in the Internet that it can damage your guns made of high quality steel! And the powder is corrosive!

Phooey!!! I love me some old steel cased, bimetal jacketed bullets with steel cores. If you're lucky they use those good old mercury based primers that makes everything rust if left more than 24 hours. Less than $.10 per fireball!!!

I wonder what your wife's cousin's nephew's piano tuner would think of this picture.

 

[brewer12345]

So get a percussion muzzleloader, buy a cap making die and some primer mixture, and scrounge up some powder. They go bang just like the suppository rifles and are plenty fun to shoot. Good way to scratch the itch and stretch your supplies, if nothing else.

 

[MosinT53Hunter]

Went into my local Ace Hardware today. They had some ammo, like Remington 9mm, Federal 9mm, Federal 45 in 100 packs, some 40, and little lots of Hornady Critical Defense 380, 40, etc.

After talking to the manager for a while, their ammo contacts are going to be canceling all of their back ordered ammo, and raise the prices. So...its going to be a roller coaster ride for a while longer.
But ammo is slowly coming back. Better then this time last year, that's for sure.

 

[somethingbenign]

I am seeing some ammo on the shelf every time I go take a look now. I also am not seeing a hoard of people hanging around texting and calling everyone they know every time 9mm or 223 is on the shelf. I've seen some 22lr shipments sit on the shelf for two weeks before it was all bought. All these things need to start happening before prices come down in any significant way. Instead of focusing on the terminus of the situation I'm just happy to see progress in a positive direction. Also showing the empty shelves to my wife got her to give the okay to start keeping thousands of rounds on hand down the road so silver lining I guess.

 

[CapnMac]

so where is the ammo going?

The typical route is:
Factory -> Wholesaler -> Distributor -> Retailer -> Customer.

Most of the online "direct" sales are Distributor (with the occasional Wholesaler).
This has to do with how the ammo is packaged.

ABC Factory runs off a batch of Cal..123 FMJ, that's by the pallet load--hundreds of cases, or crates of cases.

Wholesaler takes delivery and stacks it next to the JHP and SP and whatever other kind of ammo ABC makes in 0.123 caliber. They then break those (sometimes) into more saleable lots, say, ten cases of each, on a pallet.

Distributor Takes delivery of that ABC packaging, and sets it up in Retailer lots.

Retailer puts in orders by the box or by the case to fill their shelves.

At every step of this are standing orders for various sizes of "buy." So, you have to hold the delivery until the "buy" is filled; then it ships. (Picture the variety of ammo at the GS or big box store--every box on those shelves was once part of a case which was part of a pallet from somewhere.)

The other aspect is less obvious. The other days of the week when one is not in the LHS, one of the (estimated) 7 million new owners pops in and buys just one box, even at $2/round. That's one less box on the shelf.

Those new shooters bought somewhere between 14 and 21 million boxes of ammo last year. That's a bit over a million cases of ammo. Let's suppose 100 cases to the pallet, that's 1000 pallets.
That's just the new shooters.
There's at least 4-6 times that many 'established' shooters.

Then, we had Remington ammo shut down while they sorted through bankruptcy. All while the couf either shuttered or reduced production capacity for a significant portion of the year.
I saw an assessment that the ammo factories weer running at around 10% of capacity for the first four months of 2020. Right as demand increased by 25-50% (no one agrees on that number).

 

[John_R]

I get the feeling that those waiting for prices to approach what they were in early 2020 are in for a very long wait. Actually I don't think prices will ever again be that low. I hope I'm wrong.

That's what happened after the last ammo drought. Prices fell, but not as low as they were before.

 

[BRatigan]

My feeling is this, I believe that what's happening now is every manufacturer is trying to establish a new floor on pricing. It is not about them trying to stay in business and profit making. Those are not problems. Establishing a new price based on market demand now and in the near term is the challenge. The days of cheap ammo and components are in my estimation over. At the minimum there will a 25 percent increase in everything we use related to ammo and components. I fear it will be much worse than that.

Something else that is bothering me is this, who are the big buyers and is the government or an NGO funded by the government purchasing as much as they can using taxpayer dollars? Those in office and their beaurocratic breatheren that hate guns, gun culture, etc would jump at the chance to deny us ammo, guns etc. I think we have to look closer at all of this. Something stinks.

 

[rust collector]

I'll continue to shoot up my older ammo and use this opportunity to reduce the average age of my supply. I won't lose any sleep wondering about things I cannot control. We'll just see if the market forces do what they normally do in boom-and-bust fashion.

 

[Ignition Override]

mcb:
I was only joking about steel-cased ammo. It's 90% of what I use. The other ammo is simply to evaluate handguns' reliability.

My humor apparently is too subtle for THR, where emojis are "the Navy uniform of the day".

The main objective these days seems to be prolonging anxiety, in order to not only sell ammo at max. prices, but help the tens of thousands (or hundreds " " ? ) of guns sell before a future excess supply slump finally hits.

 

[shafter]

Now would be the time to start filling the old coffee can with cash to buy ammo when the prices reach the level you are willing to buy at. Start planning today for the next ammo crisis because rest assured another one will come. One of these years, perhaps next year, perhaps ten years from now, nobody knows when, ammo will fly off the shelves and it won't come back. Prepare now.

 

[TRX]

It never returned to "normal" after late September of 2001... the supply of finished ammunition has fluctuated, but there have been continuing shortages of reloading components, and prices apparently are never coming down.

 

[huntsman]

My buy in price for 9mm fmj was going to be $15.00 a box, I think I need to adjust up a bit.

 

[SunnySlopes]

Honestly I am really tired of reading articles predicting the end of or the longevity of this ammo shortage. Some reporter interviews one or two people and everyone reacts to it. IMO no one knows for sure. If history is any indication it will end at some point. Unless the socialists manage to put laws into place to ban or severely tax ammo. Until then I'm going to stop paying attention to these articles.

Yeah, but you responded to this one.

 

[CapnMac]

Something else that is bothering me is this, who are the big buyers and is the government or an NGO funded by the government purchasing

Lake City (Operated by Olin-Winchester) churns out 90+% of all government ammo. They go to "civilian" sources only when LC is at maximum capacity. LC is also only producing military calibers, which does not explain shortages in rimfire & revolver ammo.

Now, in fairness FedGov & NGO ammo spending was around $130 million in 2016 and has only increased by $20 million to $150 million. That $120 million is $135 million after inflation so the actual increase is only $5 million.

So, yes, a concern, but not as much as the 40-45% increase in buying during a 55-60% decrease in production.

 

[Old Dog]

I dunno. I find Hornady's comment (below) a rather grim foreboding...

"Copper was $2.45 a pound a year ago," Hornady said. "Today it’s trading at $4.50. And that is, in my career of 51 years, the all-time high. We go through several hundred pounds of copper a month. Zinc is the same way. Steel is the same way.”

Combined with the ruling party's continued assault against petroleum-based energy, the petroleum industries and products requiring petroleum to produce, if the prices of these metals doubles again, we'll be screwed for a lot longer than two more years (at least insofar as the price of ammunition, if not availability).

I am hardly heartened by the price of the two boxes of ammunition that I'm allowed to buy at a local retailer (if it hits the shelves) going down 2 cents per round in a year.
https://t.co/ikKW1DjRQI?amp=1

 

[George P]

I can't find primers to reload. Im only loading LPP because I bought 10,000 in better times. I'll be buying 100,000 spp when I can find then for 5 cents or less.

That's funny right there, I don't care who you are....................

 

[George P]

Lake City (Operated by Olin-Winchester) churns out 90+% of all government ammo. They go to "civilian" sources only when LC is at maximum capacity. LC is also only producing military calibers, which does not explain shortages in rimfire & revolver ammo.

Now, in fairness FedGov & NGO ammo spending was around $130 million in 2016 and has only increased by $20 million to $150 million. That $120 million is $135 million after inflation so the actual increase is only $5 million.

So, yes, a concern, but not as much as the 40-45% increase in buying during a 55-60% decrease in production.

Let's not forget that Remington was at 10% capacity for over a year and now has just recently come back to full strength

 

[Phydeaux642]

2023? I think they're dreaming.

 

[TTv2]

Honestly I am really tired of reading articles predicting the end of or the longevity of this ammo shortage. Some reporter interviews one or two people and everyone reacts to it. IMO no one knows for sure. If history is any indication it will end at some point. Unless the socialists manage to put laws into place to ban or severely tax ammo. Until then I'm going to stop paying attention to these articles.

Well, I agree to some extent, this is only one or two industry reps opinions in the US, but I doubt that if you go to any ammo maker in the US if they would say anything different. I would like to hear what foreign ammo makers are saying like Fiochhi, Aguila, PMC, PPU etc. If they're all saying the same thing the US producers are saying, then we're in for a long wait.

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

I can wait

Ditto...

 

[TTv2]

Yep, folks failed to stock up on ammunition and re-loading supplies while prices were down.

Well, I'd look at it an say while prices were normal, but when every 4 years the prices go from "low" to 3 or 4 times the price, I guess you can say that "normal" prices really are "low" prices.