Okay, the consensus answer seems to be something like "people are buying it as fast as it comes in." I can see that in some instances, but not all. Obviously, something like that is apparent at the brick and mortar sellers. But I daily check certain online suppliers, and I'm not seeing much indication of supply come in and going out so fast that the normal state remains "out of stock." But, I admit, I haven't done everything I could do to verify this. Many online vendors have a "notify me" for when stock comes in. I guess I need to sign up for that to see if this is really happening.
Thanks for the answers.
There's an ammo thread on another forum. They report ammo in at various places. What I've seem mentioned several times is that X company shows their ammo stock at say, 6:00 AM, and when its sold that day, it shows out of stock. Those that sit and wait for it say that sometimes before they can complete the order form online, its gone, like in minutes.
Theres ammo out there, its just being bought up so fast that most people arent ever aware of it. At some point there will have to either be a saturation point where anyone that can afford to buy so much has, or people simply reaizing that they dont have to buy 3 lifetimes of ammo.
The best time to stock up isn't when its hard to get, its when its easy to get. It's been easy to get for years, with a few blips on the timeline. I can't blame anyone that wants to be sure they can keep shooting for a while, but if they are buying tons of ammo right now, they are part of why it's hard to get. The ammo companies are literally running 7 days a week. At some point they will have to catch up or the demand balance out.
If you want to stock up, the simplest way is to buy 2 boxes when you go in to buy one to shoot, or buy a box or two a month extra when you have spare money. Do that for a couple years, and when this sort of thing happens, you can shrug your shoulders and watch. You can keep shooting, and not be paying psycho prices to do it. Those that reload generally buy components in quantities that allow them to keep shooting a while before they feel the crunch, so long as they dont wait til the last minute to restock basic supplies. The feeding frenzy is exactly that. Once some people started buying more in fear, things started to get thin on the shelves, then EVERYONE thought they had to get all they could, and it ends up feeding/causing the problem. It snowballs quickly. How much ammo can people afford to buy and sit on? (Obviously some are buying it to resell and make money, profitting on the problem. The prices in the wholesale pipeline have gone up some, but not that much)
