Might as well laugh about it...I guess.

I have sufficient ammo, the only thing keeping me from shooting is I'm reluctant to go to an indoor range at the moment.

Got my first vaccine shot last week, hopefully the big scare will disappear soon.

Speedo66 said:

I have sufficient ammo, the only thing keeping me from shooting is I'm reluctant to go to an indoor range at the moment.

Got my first vaccine shot last week, hopefully the big scare will disappear soon.

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I agree with you about the indoor range. I would not be shooting either with COVID. I'm fortunate enough to live in a climate where I can shoot outside. The range has closed every other station for social distancing.

Too cold to shoot outside where I am. Let’s take advantage of this and slack off on buying and see if the ammo supply improves. It’s really about all the shooting community can do to allow the manufacture catch up.

Yup, it's all about perception. Panic starts, shortages follow.

crestoncowboy said:

... The one thing I should have bought more of is skeet shells 19 bucks for 100 at walmart last year. They were never sold out that I seen in any past shortage. Now they are. Or are inflated online. I won't run out. But I won't shoot 2-300 on a weekend either.

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True stuff.
I've got a handful of flats here, but dang, don't know that I've ever seen birdshot rounds this dry.

Mark1964 said:

I've got a handful of flats here, but dang, don't know that I've ever seen birdshot rounds this dry.

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I haven't. In 25 years of shortage I've been able to walk in walmart (Roses before that) and but a brick of some 7 8 or 9 shot cheap shells. Maybe not AA or Sls but there was always something. The powder, primers, bullets and 22, 9mm, 5.56, 45 etc etc shouldn't surprise anyone though.

WisBorn said:

I'm fortunate enough to live in a climate where I can shoot outside.

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I shot outside in 30ish degrees the other day. Almost a full box. Had replaced an extractor in a .40. Found every single piece of brass because of the snow. My hands were numb by the time I dug it all out. I cant recall ever digging brass out of snow like that.

mmb617 said:

When my wife passed away at the age of 61 it really made me think about my own mortality. I'm 69 years old and if I put off doing things I enjoy maybe I'll never get to do them. I have enough ammo for a couple years and I'm going to the range as much as ever. I am more conscious of round counts, but I'm not going to stop shooting.

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I am also 69. I am an avid reloader and have more components than I will ever use. When this crap started about 20 years ago I purchased enough stuff to last me the rest of my life and then some. The idea of not being able to go hunting or shooting when I felt like it was abhorrent to me. All of the ups and downs in the market have been stress-free for me. I was referencing folks paying a dollar a round, just to punch paper, seems kind of silly if you are on a budget.

crestoncowboy said:

I shot outside in 30ish degrees the other day. Almost a full box. Had replaced an extractor in a .40. Found every single piece of brass because of the snow. My hands were numb by the time I dug it all out. I cant recall ever digging brass out of snow like that.

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It's been the "teens" and below here for a week and getting colder so no shooting outside for me.
Have been doing some case prep in the basement tho.

Well January and Feb are my "process brass" months. The typically coldest and stormiest months we have. So the weather is not having a big affect on my shooting. Other than the deep (below 0*F) cold I expected so I could test some loads for function failed to happen yet. Getting a good amount of brass preped though at least.

I am not a conspiracy person. Just do not pay attention to that c---p. I think that this shortage has many facets to it. One of them is that the ammunition manufactures seem unable to respond to empty shelves as if they do not appreciate that the shelves are filled with toilet paper instead of ammunition. It is not like there has been plentiful ammunition now for 12 years. Yes, during the three or so years just past there was decent supply and price but I would not say ammo and components were plentiful or cheap. There is some sort of market and manufacturer schizophrenic break. I just do not understand how when just about everything made in the last 12 years sold as fast as it hit the shelves why significant capacity and strengthening of supply lines and added capacity there as well did not occur. People walking around trying to give the ammunition supply line money and there is no product, not just the last few months but in reality for over a decade now. Just saying, someone should be fired for leaving millions if not billions of dollars on the table. Perplexing at the least.

Can't find it now but my son sent a photo of empty ammo shelves except for one lone box of pasta .......


........... " SHELLS" !!!!

There's a consumer block on ammo.

3Crows said:

I am not a conspiracy person. Just do not pay attention to that c---p. I think that this shortage has many facets to it. One of them is that the ammunition manufactures seem unable to respond to empty shelves as if they do not appreciate that the shelves are filled with toilet paper instead of ammunition. It is not like there has been plentiful ammunition now for 12 years. Yes, during the three or so years just past there was decent supply and price but I would not say ammo and components were plentiful or cheap. There is some sort of market and manufacturer schizophrenic break. I just do not understand how when just about everything made in the last 12 years sold as fast as it hit the shelves why significant capacity and strengthening of supply lines and added capacity there as well did not occur. People walking around trying to give the ammunition supply line money and there is no product, not just the last few months but in reality for over a decade now. Just saying, someone should be fired for leaving millions if not billions of dollars on the table. Perplexing at the least.

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I really don't think people understand how complex and challenging manufacturing can be. Expanding capacity costs serious money in terms of capital expenditures for machinery and building space. Even if components were easy to purchase (ever looked into how many sources of gunpowder there are?), the manufacturer has to make sure that the machinery and building space are fully utilized over the course of their useful lives. Given the extreme swings in demand that ammunition experiences, no one wants to commit to enormous fixed costs only to see demand plummet while the company still has to pay the loans for the machinery and the building space. And that says nothing about hiring more qualified people or scaling production. All of those challenges are magnified and increased if you're new to the market.

Bottom line: no ammunition manufacturer wants to spend enormous amounts of money given the enormous swings in demand.

not a sense of humor...just sad...real sad...maybe on the edge of disgusting

I used to be a member of a close by club, and worked w some shooters.
We shot a fair b it back in the day.
Marriage and kids slowed that a fair bit.
Kids shot some but grew up.
Now I wear bifocals and my chosen club is an hr away.
Read: I just shoot to check zero of hunting rigs and then go hunting.
A box of factory loads to check zero at a couple yardages and then another box for hunting, where I only burn a couple.
Just don't need much these days.

Honestly, I get back in the groove with just a couple shots (remember rifle trigger differences).
After 5 shots I'm getting bored.

Bought a .22rf pistol a couple yrs ago, slapped a 2X Leupold on it and after 2 days decided it was about as bulky as a rifle, I shot it well, so sold it.
Hell I don't even shoot my 22 rf rifle much, gonna swap it to .22 mag (got a bbl from a cool member here).
To shoot one red and one grey fox.

LOL

CopperFouling said:

I really don't think people understand how complex and challenging manufacturing can be. Expanding capacity costs serious money in terms of capital expenditures for machinery and building space. Even if components were easy to purchase (ever looked into how many sources of gunpowder there are?), the manufacturer has to make sure that the machinery and building space are fully utilized over the course of their useful lives. Given the extreme swings in demand that ammunition experiences, no one wants to commit to enormous fixed costs only to see demand plummet while the company still has to pay the loans for the machinery and the building space. And that says nothing about hiring more qualified people or scaling production. All of those challenges are magnified and increased if you're new to the market.

Bottom line: no ammunition manufacturer wants to spend enormous amounts of money given the enormous swings in demand.

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I guess we are disagreeing on the "swings" as the demand has been pretty steady for the last 12 years IMO and observation. I have not seen piles of ammo or primers or supplies on the shelves anywhere. Yes, the last three years leading up to the panDEMik there was a decent ammo selection if one was persistent in their looking for it. If this were to have been only the first time for a shortage or only for the last year or so then understandable. And, I was involved in manufacturing of complex products and I know the company would have moved hell and earth to capture the customer's money and over a 12 year period, we would have added capacity and capability.

Board of Directors to CEO, "so, let's understand that for twelve years of steady (and sometimes bare shelves for our products) demand we have let $1B or more remain in our customer's hands!" "Sir you are fired!" CEO to BOD, "But, but, I introduced two new lines of ammunition?" Crickets chirping, dumfounded looks on the BOD faces.

To borrow a picture from this thread representative of the last 12 years, it looks post apocalypse right from a zombie movie, except the zombies stumbling around the stores were not trying to eat my brains, they were just milling aimlessly about with pockets full of money and credit cards flush with stimulus checks:

I think the ammo makers understand the situation quite well and are pushing it out the door as quickly as they can. We (the public) are simply buying it at a voracious rate. When the buying slows, the ready availability will go up and the price will start to tick downward.
IMO, it ain't the G, the makers, the distributors, even the flippers and gougers causing "the problem" ... it's simply the public's behavior.
Occam's razor, ya know?

3Crows said:

I guess we are disagreeing on the "swings" as the demand has been pretty steady for the last 12 years IMO and observation. I have not seen piles of ammo or primers or supplies on the shelves anywhere. Yes, the last three years leading up to the panDEMik there was a decent ammo selection if one was persistent in their looking for it. If this were to have been only the first time for a shortage or only for the last year or so then understandable. And, I was involved in manufacturing of complex products and I know the company would have moved hell and earth to capture the customer's money and over a 12 year period, we would have added capacity and capability.

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Perhaps your area is different than mine, but for about three years prior to the pandemic, ammunition was about as cheap as it gets considering inflation. I passed on a case of 1000 Federal HST 124-grain 9mm rounds for $400 back in October or November 2019. That's premium defensive ammunition. I bought 150-round packs of Winchester NATO 124-grain 9mm rounds for ~$28 for at least several years before that. SG Ammo had 5.56 around 32 cents a round. It was as cheap as it was, if not cheaper, prior to the initial banic during the Obama years. So, even if people made really good money for three or four years during the initial banic, they encountered some lean times right after that. I'm just saying, I'd hate to be the manufacturer who dropped $10 million in capital investments to expand ammunition capacity in late 2015...

Interesting that people whose only ties to the firearms and ammunition industry is to buy a box or two of ammo per year under normal circumstances somehow feel they have a better handle on, and know more about fixing the current situation, than CEO's of multi billion dollar corporations, chock full of market analysts, production engineers, and sales VP's.

Really?

It's also interesting many people point at the mfgrs when it's really the consumers that caused the problem in many ways over many yrs.

@Speedo66, @danez71, & @CopperFouling Thank you for your posts.
As a retired production engineer and plant superintendent I agree with your statements. When market fluctuations and demand decreases supply there is nothing more that producers would want to do than increase production. In many cases you increase shifts if available, reduce change over of products, optimize maintenance, ext...

There are raw material issues that reduce the opportunity to increase production also.

With millions of new gun owners and hording of ammo and reloading supplies this supply issue will take time to be resolved. It is not as easy as turning on a light switch.

If you want to help don't keep 10 years of 22 ammo on hand for yourself or 20 years of reloading supplies. Don't be part of the problem.

WisBorn said:

@Speedo66, @danez71, & @CopperFouling Thank you for your posts.
As a retired production engineer and plant superintendent I agree with your statements. When market fluctuations and demand decreases supply there is nothing more that producers would want to do than increase production. In many cases you increase shifts if available, reduce change over of products, optimize maintenance, ext...

There are raw material issues that reduce the opportunity to increase production also.

With millions of new gun owners and hording of ammo and reloading supplies this supply issue will take time to be resolved. It is not as easy as turning on a light switch.

If you want to help don't keep 10 years of 22 ammo on hand for yourself or 20 years of reloading supplies. Don't be part of the problem.

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I agree with all of this except for the last sentence.
Regardless of the amount, if one bought during low demand periods (like 2017, '18, '19), he or she is not really part of any problem. Supply exceeded demand and prices were depressed. If that's not the time to lay in whatever one would like and can afford, when is?
IMO, the "buy it cheap and stack it deep" crowd who actually practice the mantra are the exact opposite of panic-driven buyers.

Mark1964 said:

I agree with all of this except for the last sentence.
Regardless of the amount, if one bought during low demand periods (like 2017, '18, '19), he or she is not really part of any problem. Supply exceeded demand and prices were depressed. If that's not the time to lay in whatever one would like and can afford, when is?
IMO, the "buy it cheap and stack it deep" crowd who actually practice the mantra are the exact opposite of panic-driven buyers.

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You are right buying when demand is down actually helps the producer's manage production schedules.
Reducing personal inventory when demand is high by not replacing ammo that is consumed until supply is balanced is what we should be doing.
I have only purchased a couple of boxes of defense loads that I was low on. I am reducing target loads.

WisBorn said:

You are right buying when demand is down actually helps the producer's manage production schedules.
Reducing personal inventory when demand is high by not replacing ammo that is consumed until supply is balanced is what we should be doing.
I have only purchased a couple of boxes of defense loads that I was low on. I am reducing target loads.

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Yep, I bought it cheap expressly to run at times like these.
The only thing I've bought since March is some match-grade .22lr ... when it can be found at near-normal prices. It does come around now and then if you know which places to look.