[Manufacturers are running at 100%. It takes an investment of millions of dollars to expand. They will not make the investment unless future demand is guaranteed. Panic buying in past decades has lead to reduced demand in years after the panic. People will tap into their hoards instead of buying it. Resellers will eventually be left holding the bag. This may last a year or more from now and then just crash with a flooded market. /QUOTE]
I have to disagree. There have been more gun sales than ever, which will keep an increased demand on the ammo, with 22LR being one of the most sought after. What business wouldn't try to cash in on even short term gains if they could? Machine shops and heat treating facilities do this all the time just to get a piece of the action. Look at the ship building industry. they'll expand and ramp up for a 5 year 10 ship contract, knowing it is a done deal when the last ship takes to the water.
Base your numbers on that 1,000,000 per day figure. Say they can increase an additional 500,000 per day and make .02 per round. Based on that 180 day figure for 6 months, they would gross $1.8 million in that period. Even of the machining cost an additional $1 million, and I would not think it would, that would still leave $800,000.00. I think they'd depreciate that machining out at least 10 years, so deducting the full amount in the first 6 months would be overkill. Now say you paid 6 workers $20.00 including benefits, (2 per shift), your talking about $125,000.00. That still leaves a cool $675,000.00 for that period. I'm sure there would be material expenses, but even if it sucked up half the profit to this point, there'd still be $337,000.00 left.
There's money to be made here and for some reason no one is trying to suck it up except gougers. It just doesn't make sense to me and I'll continue to believe something is amiss.