Ammunition Bubble timeline and prediction. (Specifically .22lr)

Considering the fact that metals--of all kinds--are going up in price, it's a pipe dream to image that the prices are going to go down. That's assuming that ammo wasn't in high demand right now, which it most certainly is.

It's interesting to see how many people are acting like Kevin Bacon in "Animal House". Desperately crying out "All is well! All is wellllll!!!!!", like the mere fact of denial will help to bring about a "return to normal" sooner. If you think you are convincing people that a shortage doesn't exist, and that you are somehow going to get demand to drop faster by making claims you have found tons of ammo somewhere but others aren't finding it, then more likely than not you are creating even MORE desperate behavior from people who got their hopes up, then saw them shattered. They're more likely to rush out and buy something at over inflated prices. It's just tough to convince people that things are fine when everyone who goes to Walmart to buy ammo looks at the shelves and they are empty. Week, after week, after week.

My advice, and it's lousy hypocritical advice because I have some ammo stocked up, is to just wait. If you need ammo because someone threatened your wife, or you have to go to a dangerous city or neighborhood--then pay the overly high price for it. In that situation, you're justified to spend whatever it takes to defend yourself. If you are buying ammo just because you want to go target shoot, or to "keep your skills sharp"--then just sit on your hands and wait. That'll get prices down faster than false statements that don't comport with what everyone in the country is experiencing when they hunt for ammo.

Killian, I understand where you are coming from with your math and ratios, but how do you explain all the 22 ammo that was on the shelves 6 months ago? According to your figures we have not been producing enough ammo to supply the shooters for a very long time

feedthehogs: That's correct about the free market.

Fortunately my ammo heap (3,000+ 'Brit' .303, 2,000 8mm etc) was planned, starting in early '08. It's unfortunate that so many others did not prepare a bit more.
My comments were in sympathy for the novices and those who were broke before the so-called bubble happened.

Wow, I'm so glad I never got a 22

One of my local Walmarts told me that they get ammo in just about every week day morning. But darn if I have ever seen any of these deliveries. The associate told me it sells before it even gets to the display case. Not sure what that means... flippers, ammo hungry shoppers, people camping out at Walmart or showing up at 6:00AM in hopes of finding a bulk pack of 22 ammo?? I don't know.

22 rimfire. IM good friend with a sporting goods manager, well all the managers at our local walmart. I use to be employed there for quite a while. Heres what happened before the 3 box limit.
-pawn store owners bought the hunting ammo a couple boxes at a time in every caliber as well as hollow point pistol ammo.
-The one gun shop owner (great guy and local pd) could'nt get ammo shipments so he bought the ball pistol and 5.56/7.62 and 12 gauge bulk packs by the shopping cart as well as every .22 bulk pack but left the smaller boxes.

In the gun owner leo's defense he charged the exact same amount it cost him at walmart only added 6% for his taxes. I would gladly pay him before I did walmart.

I disagree we have already hit the paradigm. When bushmater carbon 15s sold for $2700 on gunbroker. Watched it happen. We are heading back to normal. However I agree with the earliest being August.

I agree tyler just watched two get sold yesterday for 800 NIB. Most of our shops never got over 1500 for your lower end models but theyre definitely in a downward spiral.

David E said:

The very vocal anti-gun legislators, to include Obama and Biden, spouting off their goals and intent have nothing to do with any of this, right?

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Agreed, and I'll do you one better:

Two Fridays ago, myself and a coworker are in line outside Hazelwood, Mo Cabelas.

We are ninth and tenth in line respectively, at 7:15am with the store due to open at an early 7:30 am in lieu of an ammo shipment. Four black-out Tahoes with Gov plates pull into lot.

Several gentlemen, in plain suits, walk in as we are told to move away from doors. At 7:40am, store is still closed, and everyone outside is ticked off. I'm was confused.

At nearly 8:00am, the gents walk out with Cabelas employees in tow carrying several brown boxes. Upon finally being allowed into the store, there was none of the following:
9
40
45
380
357 sig
223/556
762x39
545
308
243
260 Rem

I do believe, after having just seen it, the stories of "men in black" buying all the ammo before we do is true, true, true.

Luckily I was there for 6.5 Swedish!

^^ you forreal? i doubt they bought 260,243, or 380 if they were the gubberment

David E said:

A couple questions:

1) what are you calling "plenty?"

2) where are you finding this ammo?

3) Has the ammo been in stock regularly? IE; do they have it this second?

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In the month of of March I have purchased roughly 1k in 22lr, 500 223, 300 9mm, 300 45acp, 250 38. Didn't want any 7.62x39 but could if I had.

Mostly Wally Worl, some LGS. May not alway be on the self but I make regular early morning trips to a few different ones. I refuse to pay scalper prices.

I shoot IDPA with friend that works for ATK and asked him if they were catching up.He said they were running 3 shifts and falling farther behind every day,and that 22's are the least of there concerns right now.9.40 and 223 are the hot Items and they can not produce them fast enough to meet
there demands or contracts.

If everyone stopped buying ammo today, it will take 2 yrs for things to return to normal. IE, buy a box or two of any caliber ammo whenever you wanted to.

But folks won't stop buying today, so it's going to be longer than that.

I wonder if part of the demand issues with .22LR is due to perception

A new shooter sees a brick of .22LR and says "WOW,! 500 rounds (or 525 or other bulk box amount) I better get as many as I can!

A gouger sees a brick or bulk box and thinks "I can flip that for big bucks, better buy as many as I can

A shooter with a decent stockpile sees a brick/bulk pack and says "meh, it's only 5xx rounds, I'll wait until the price goes back to normal"

Yes, I believe you a partially correct on the perception of .22lr. I also know of three freeloaders...errr...hustlers that would rather drive around and scalp ammo than work.

feedthehogs said:

No such thing as greed, hoarders or scalpers in a free market.

Only those late to the dance or can't afford a ticket use those words.

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This is the definition of scalping. Buy at face/retail value, resale in secondary market at gross mark-up to some sucker who will pay it.

We never felt short of supply and have continued to buy, just not at these insane inflated prices. We were not caught behind or failed to see it coming. But I will still call a scalper a scalper.

I can see that most of this jibes with my thoughts. I am computer challenged so can't make a graph like that though. Cool stuff!
Ammo is available and it is available at pre-panic prices from the larger retailers. We are just accustomed to walking in Walmart or an LGS and buying what we want when we want. Some of us were around in the 70s when the price of gasoline skyrocketed and it was common to have to wait in line to get gas in your car. When was the last time the average person had to wait more than two minutes to get gas? Gas is something most of us absolutely must have. It is much more of a "need" than ammo is for my .22 paper plate shooting.
Manufacturers have not jacked their prices up by 75%. Distributors and small retailers have jacked the prices up because there is increased demand and they can blame the price increase on someone else. The uninformed will understand and pay the price. In a relatively short period of time the demand will fall off and supply will catch up. If I need ammo for SD or HD I will pay whatever I have to pay but I will buy a very limited amount. People buying bricks of .22 at $75 are beyond my comprehension as they can just buy a 50 round box so they "have some on hand" rather than buying 500 rounds.

I shoot a lot of .22 but I was fortunate/lucky/stupid/whatever to purchase a large quantity online in December when I realized that .22 was in trouble. I was caught completely by surprise in regard to .22 availability. I added this to my already considerable stock so I am okay. My group can easily shoot 2500 rounds of .22 in a weekend and last weekend was our first really nice weather where lots of people showed up to shoot. We also shoot a lot of other calibers, pistol and rifle, during our weekends but I have been able to replace everything we shoot at reasonable prices except .22 and .223. 9mm, .45, .380, .38 have all popped up either online or in the stores at pre-panic prices.

As soon as people see that there is actually still ammo available and that there is not going to be any weapons bans then MAYBE we will start seeing some ammo on the shelves a little longer. As of right now the ONLY two calibers I have not been able to buy at near normal prices are .22 and .223. Everything else is very spotty but if you can check Gunbot every 30 minutes you will find what you need. Another "event" and all bets are off.

I don't believe you can have a bubble with a legitimate consumer-able, stocks and beanie babies yeah.

Desperately crying out "All is well! All is wellllll!!!!!", like the mere fact of denial will help to bring about a "return to normal" sooner.

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Actually, it would if people would just listen. Most of the current ammo shortage is driven by panic buying, not real need. If people would stop panicing and buying everything in sight at any price they can find it, then prices would soon "return to normal".

I bought in the stealth phase and the awareness phase. Haven't bought much since then. I haven't seen 22LR for about 3 months now. Just this morning though, my local Academy had a good amount of 9/40/45/556/308 and was selling an AR15 when I checked out the gun section. Hope it's close to over. Not sure if people are running out of money, reaching saturation or not scared by legislation anymore.

Friend of mine in Texas that I talked to recently who is retired and spends a fair bit of time in local gun stores is hearing that the store owners are starting to hear of slightly shorter lead times for ammo orders than in the past few months. My fingers are crossed.

I know scalpers that are starting to get upset because of the prices they can't move their ammo at. They've asked me what I was willing to pay for some 9mm Blazer Brass and I told them eleven bucks, they got upset saying they paid nearly that at Walmart. One of them has over a thousand dollars tied up in ammo he can't sell at the prices he wants to. I've told him add one dollar to what he paid for it and move on since he bought it all from Walmart but he doesn't want to because of the ridiculous sums people were paying him before.

We all just have to sit tight and refuse to pay panic prices. Let scalpers and hustlers get cooked till they give up, sure they'll still make some kind of profit but not the kind that will motivate them to keep gobbling up ammo.

cpy911 said:

I am not trying to compare to the stock market, rather bubbles. We have had bubbles throughout history and we are having one now. Once people realize the bubble is deflating, watch the bottom fall out. The .22lr bricks will be back to $20 in no time. I still predict we have another month of greed phase to the "New Paradigm" until everyone realizes that .22lr ammo is just that, .22lr that you go plinking with your son on a Saturday afternoon for fun and economy. The people with fear, uncertainty and doubt are that ones who are driving the bubble where the flippers are very willing to help feed the FUD.

I still stand by my time frame of July/August 2013, you will walk into Walmart and buy a $20 brick with no problems.

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I disagree that its a bubble. Bubbles are nothing more than price increases on a product thats not experiencing a shortage. What we have is an extraordinary situation where the normal supply/demand process cannot reach equilibrium due to external forces. I'm witnessing changing behaviors in those standing in line just to get their 1 box of ammo per caliber, a max of 3 calibers per perspn per day.
What had started as a couple of people showing up 5-10 minutes before the local Academy opens to people showing up 2hours and 15 minutes prior to opening. Today several people brought family members with them in an effort to acquire more ammo.

Its very possible we have reached a point where we cannot recover to post crises levels in regards to ammo. The entire supply chain is empty. The end user not withstanding the new shooters who continue to enter on the demand side are short and need restocking too. Its been 3 months and any ammo delivery is quickly bought up and as a result the ability to build up stock is impossible.

Ammo and guns aren't going for what they were 6 weeks ago.

Im not saying we will revert to the before times, but absent any new external forces we will reach a new normal where ammo is available although at slightly higher prices.

Problem is how the government can manipulate markets and mess up the whole thing, see ethanol, public employee pensions, bond and financial markets due to "quantitative easing" and about anything else they touch.

Anything "could" happen. Its not likely that the current conditions will last for years.

DON'T FEED THE FLIPPERS!