I honestly kept seeing that and was one the fence. It seemed like for a few weeks things were going back to normal and I was going to wait it out and let the price come back down to $199. Boy I kinda regret that now
yep, we're in a second shortage, which overlapped the first one.
I was able to get some 9mm at the early part of the Covid-related shortage (the first one), at under $200 a case. About the time the toilet paper and lysol craze was occurring, there was still some ammo that hadn't gone up, and I went ahead and grabbed it. Herters brass (Cabela's store label), $179 before tax. Same price for Federal aluminum, also Cabela's/Bass Pro. Since those stores aren't what I considered to be the cheapest prices on the market, I figured that was probably their going rate pre-Covid, and got some in. 2k of Herters, 1k of the Fed.
Like others, I then sat back and watched prices move around. They went up near $300 a case, sometimes a bit over, and were coming down again. Right before the Minnesota event, I saw that Targetsportsusa had several brands of FMJ back in stock, and had lowered to $229 a case. This was about the same time I received one of my cases from Bass Pro, which had been ordered and delayed awhile. I took the dropping prices and the shipment of "delayed" stuff, as a sign that the first (Covid) shortage was over, and the market would level off again. Prices would probably have dropped back to $200 or below in another month, if nothing else happened.
Then we had the craziness occur (lawlessness etc); and everything in the firearms business went bonkers. Ammo vanished, huge run on handguns and rifles (the "cheap" AR's), just about anything you could get your hands on, disappeared.
I was able to find/order a Radical Arms AR 15 in 223/556 for $475, but it took a LOT of searching to find it at that price. None of the search-engines found it, except Gunwatcher... and that only because I searched a specific SKU (product number). I found that because I had checked into "cheap ARs" and it was one of the options listed, from a review around December. S&W and Ruger- gone over $800. Palmetto State Armory- nothing below $700.
I watched Gun.deals, and things went nuts. AR "deals" for $800, ammo "deals" for 50%, 100% markups. Long guns at/under the $500 point- ugly "AR style" shotguns, some beater SKS's, good luck finding anything else semiauto.
The first shortage was gun owners making sure they had enough to weather the pandemic. The second is a big, national "I am afraid and need more gun" run, fueled by people who either didn't have one before, or by people who had something, but wanted something "bigger".
We haven't really seen the 22lr run yet, but I suspect that is coming. That will happen when people "have enough centerfire", but are uncertain of future supplies, and want/need to shoot something else.
