If you want to know why ammo is still scarce...

Cee Zee said:

Read this:



That makes for a whole bunch more guns in the hands of shooters and many of them actually want ammo so they can use the guns they bought. Imagine that!

What we need is a constitutional amendment saying the 2nd really is about owning guns and that the courts can't change that. Maybe then people will stop buying out of fear they will never be able to buy again. And then maybe I can buy .22 ammo as much as I want again.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/8/obama-gun-control-push-backfires-as-us-firearms-in/

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Friend of mine bought a Glock 22 but the gun store...the largest local gun dedicated chain in the area had no ammunition to sell him for it. This was about 2008/09 if I remember. I no longer owned my .40 and gave him all I had. Hillary will start another frenzy but she's not supposed to be that fired up about gun control.

I generally agree with your reasoning, i.e the more guns sold, the more ammunition sold.

What continues to mystify me is where are all the guns being shot? Unless the vast majority of buyers in my area own land they shoot on, the general consensus among clubs and ranges I frequent is the guns get bought then used very little.

I recall getting into a conversation at one LGS with a potential pistol buyer, a woman in her mid 50s. In the conversation I asked where she was planning to shoot (I was going to plug our club) and she said, "Oh I don't plan on shooting it". After a little further chat she allowed she meant not shoot it on a regular basis.

One occurrence does not indicate a trend, but the local ranges and clubs should have been swamped based on retailer's sales comments to me. At best, increased numbers of shooters has been slight. Certainly not what you'd expect based on sales around here.

We're still plagued with scalpers in SC. People who know when deliveries of .22LR are being received at WalMart, several guys show up and buy it all. Then it shows up on Armslist for double the price, or more.
It offers a nice little income subsidy for fixed income "rats".

My range has been busy like crazy lately. Period.

It points out that it's the gun owners who already have one or more who are buying them. Not that many new shooters arrive each generation to make a 2.5X change in purchasing power.

At least, I'm not aware of any interactive attachments for guns to work with Halo.

Mostly, it's us. And the interesting thing is that a large part of it is AR sales. Try to ban something that is perceived as having power, which is held in fear, and the typical male wants one to show he is The Man and can handle it.

Same as owning a pit bull or building a Cobra kit car.

It's social ladder climbing for a significant number. "I have an evil black rifle."

Note that a lot of that buying was not during a good economic situation. Nonetheless if people could afford another firearm they bought it. Some overpaid, same as those who overpay for ammo and will do so tomorrow.

They have money, they don't have time to ferret out the deals, they want it now, and so they pay. If there weren't people lining up to get scalped, there wouldn't be high prices and a shortage.

They are basing their decision to buy on their experience level and the immediacy of the moment in their lives. Which is to say, it's not the older shooters who've seen some years and the ups and downs of the market. Those who suffered thru the AWB have a different view. Most of them stockpiled early - as many have reported. High prices? Not at all, they were shooting ammo they bought years earlier. Just a bump in the road for them.

All the panics are doing is educating the newer shooter. We can't stockpile gasoline, but we can stockpile guns and ammo as a hedge.

For those who buy propane to heat their house, knowing the best time to buy per season and having it seems just part of life. Same for those who buy ammo in unit's of 1K. And it looks like now is getting to be a good time to do it.

It's the guy buying a box at a time who gets whipsawed by price, we all suffer that buying gasoline.

I believe many of these new guns are being used not just horded and that GC 2.0 competition and recreation uses a lot more ammo than GC 1.0's box - a year for sighting in and deer season.

While I see gun sales peaking and even pulling back some, I see sustained strong ammo sales for years to come.

Mike

Maybe ask the Government agencies that are buying millions of rounds of ammo each year. Hmmm….

Obama might be a jack wagon, but he's been the best damn gun salesman in US history!

Oldschool shooter said:

Obama might be a jack wagon, but he's been the best damn gun salesman in US history!

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And people here have said he isn't pushing gun control. Different universe.

I worked at a mom and pop gunstore from '08 through '12. In '08 I'd swing through Walmart on my way in and pick up my allowed 4 boxes of .22s, a box of 9s and a box of 45s so we'd have something to sell to customers who bought guns. We could get 40s and most shotshells but the rest was out of stock everywhere at our suppliers.
Before the election in '12 I got a couple thousand of each size primer, and 8# keg of Red Dot, and a couple thousand 22s as they came in and am glad I did.
With my thirty die sets, my two five gallon buckets of wheelweights and 50 molds, I can shoot the rest of my life, I hope.
I've been blessed with friends who don't reload and they keep me in 9, 45 and 223 brass.

The people buying all these new guns, I think, fall into two categories:

1. Previous gun owners who are adding to the number of guns they own. These are shooters, but the number of guns owned doesn't correlate with more shooting. You can only shoot one gun at a time.

2. Non-shooters who are buying guns for the first time, as a hedge against future restrictions. The fact that they now own guns doesn't magically convert them from non-shooters into shooters.

Some of the people buying are new and don't know what guns/ammo should or did cost a year ago. The price they see is the new "norm". Until they wise up or production catches up we are in for higher prices. Thank GOD prices have come down considerably from the hight of the "craze". I thought by now there would be good deals to be had on some guns that were bought during the "panic" but not so here, maybe they just are not ready to take that big a loss yet. Never know it is tax time!!!

Pretty much all common cartridges are readily available around here except for 22. Less commonly used ammo is still not everywhere.

Maybe ask the Government agencies that are buying millions of rounds of ammo each year. Hmmm….

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They aren't buying excessive amounts of ammo, nor any more than in the past. There was a lot of hand wringing a few months ago because the TSA signed a contract for what some thought was a huge amount of ammo. After the details came out the contract was for a 5 year period, not one year. And it worked out to 100 rounds of ammo for each agent per month. When you consider they may need to take shots inside crowded airplanes I'd personally like them to have more than 100 rounds per month for practice, training, qualifying and duty.

Normandy said:

We're still plagued with scalpers in SC. People who know when deliveries of .22LR are being received at WalMart, several guys show up and buy it all.

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I live in Columbia,SC and regularly buy ammo, including .22 from Walmart in Columbia, Lexington, Sumter, Lake City and Rock Hill. Every WM I've been in is still enforcing a three box per customer limit so one or two guys cannot clear the shelves. It's out there, be proactive and find it.

The only thing scarce in my area is .22

papag said:

With my thirty die sets, my two five gallon buckets of wheelweights and 50 molds, I can shoot the rest of my life, I hope.
I've been blessed with friends who don't reload and they keep me in 9, 45 and 223 brass.

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Two buckets of wheel weights will give you about 250 pounds of lead if you're lucky.

1000 230 grain .45's weigh about 35 pounds, so you're good for about 7,000 230 grain .45 bullets.

Either you don't intend to shoot much or you don't intend to live very long!

jmr40 said:

Pretty much all common cartridges are readily available around here except for 22. Less commonly used ammo is still not everywhere.

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Same thing for me. I recently went to Cabelas and Sportsmans Warehouse. Both had full shelves of ammo. I had about 10 options for 30-30 and 4 for 32 H&R Magnum. The only thing out of stock was 22LR.

Still no pistol powder though.

Cee Zee wrote:

Then what accounts for the huge jump in CCW's? The ammo is all going somewhere. Hoarders can't be that obsessed. Once you have a few hundred thousand rounds hoarding sorta loses it's appeal. You start to understand you could never shoot all the ammo you have in your life time. I have some ammo that's like that. And it didn't take 100,000 rounds.

Unless you have some proof that all the new gun sales are going to people who already own guns I don't think I can agree with your conclusion.

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Your original statement was that the surge in gun sales explains the ammunition shortages, assuming that all the new guns are actually being shot (a lot).

I was trying to say that the linkage may not exist. The new guns are probably not being shot a lot. I think the guns are being hoarded, and to the extent an ammo shortage exists, the ammo is being hoarded too. Hunters, and, indeed, concealed carriers, actually use very little ammo. If there was a lot of extra ammo being used, we'd see a huge increase in activity at firing ranges. I haven't noticed that -- maybe others have.

What continues to mystify me is where are all the guns being shot?

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My club has grown from 1400 members to 2500 member in a little over 2 years with club events seeing record attendance.

...but the local ranges and clubs should have been swamped...

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Our local ranges are swamped. According to my conversation with distributors of reloading components, the manufacturers are so busy making ammo, we can't get reloading supplies. When was the last time places like Powder Valley had Winchester centerfire rifle brass?

I think there is a direct correlation between BO/Harry Reid and all the gun sale records and ammo shortages. I'm pretty sure that if Romney had been elected in this last presidential election cycle that ammo would be more available and that gun sales would be down.

I do think that IF we get a true conservative in the WH, all this mania will start to drop off. However, if Billary gets in the WH, forgetaboutit...