Don't over pay for ammo and reloading supplies

I have 9k LRP, I could easily get rid of 3k as I know I will never use them.
Refuse to stick them up on an auction. I'd rather trade them here for SPP or SRP or if need be sell them off (at my cost) to someone here.
But that's just me. Surely don't begrudge someone that may need the cash.
Yes, the current climate is hysteria, ammo prices are through the roof but how come reloading supplies are too?
Calculated that if I didn't have a lot of LPP, powder, brass and bullets my cost to reload 45 Auto would be close to .40 a round!
That's just ridiculous.

These ammo panics arise every presidential election year. You can set your calendar by it.

The solution?

Simple.

Stock up well ahead of time. Get your stockpile in place the year before.

Mk-211 said:

I find it amazing that people aren't stocked up, knowing what was coming!

I remember telling guys on another board to just stop buying ammo and that all they were doing was feeding the trolls. If you don't buy the need for all of this will go away. Did anyone listen? No, why would they! One guy said "but, I got to have ammo"!

There's just not enough face palms in the world to answer that back. Some people were put on this earth to prove that stupid exists!

Just stop! Tell everyone that you know to stop! Tell everyone on every board to stop buying ammo at these stupid prices! Do you really need ammo right now? Can you take a break from shooting for a couple months, maybe 6? This is what's needed for this to end, the ammo on the shelves will come back and the scalpers will have no one to sell to.

Just stop, pass it along.

Click to expand...

There is a good side to this craziness. The manufacturers are running full steam ahead, and once the buying is over they'll have a warehouse full of ammo they can't sell. That's when people like us that have been stocked up fly in and get our $0.16/round 9mm and $.27/round 5.56 and all the reloading components we can afford to carry ourselves through the next panic.

bassjam said:

There is a good side to this craziness. The manufacturers are running full steam ahead, and once the buying is over they'll have a warehouse full of ammo they can't sell. That's when people like us that have been stocked up fly in and get our $0.16/round 9mm and $.27/round 5.56 and all the reloading components we can afford to carry ourselves through the next panic.

Click to expand...

Fingers crossed. I am waiting it out myself.

WB

ford8nr said:

Depends on your intent.
Buy for $40 and put on auction starting at .01 KNOWING you're gonna get $200 is gouging.

Click to expand...

I disagree. That is supply and demand. No one is forcing anyone to buy anything. If an auction starts at .01 it will sell for what someone is willing to pay.

A hypothetical question was asked and IMO, basically, the answer is yes, intentionally cleaning out a store's stock for the intended purpose of reselling at a profit during a time of shortage I would consider scalping and this activity is part of the cause of ammo scarcity. Selling ammo to buddies at the price it was bought for is different thing.

It is a choice we may have to make during these shortages and I just say no to (professional) scalpers and scalping. I am not going to respond to further "if" questions regarding this. Do what you want but I will not support professional resellers and I would implore others not to as well.

I've started trading what I have excess of for items I need at pre-panic prices. Works out good for both parties and takes the scalpers out of the equation. I understand the free market thinking, buy low sell high but I think of other members as a Band Of Brothers. We have so many trying to tear us apart it doesn't make sense to do it to each other.

lionking said:

We all know political winds change but to be fair hardly anyone saw COVID coming and the perfect storm of protests/riots on top of it.

Click to expand...

But are any of us really ever deep enough in ammo supplies as we'd like??? I'm in good shape, but I'd always like more.....

First it's toilet paper and now it's guns, ammo, and reloading supplies. Can anyone here predict what the next shortage is gonna' be??? Over the counter medical supplies maybe??
If so let me know so I can get a reasonable stock of bandaids beforehand.

Shades of Cabbage Patch Babies!

H&R Glock said:

First it's toilet paper and now it's guns, ammo, and reloading supplies. Can anyone here predict what the next shortage is gonna' be??? Over the counter medical supplies maybe??
If so let me know so I can get a reasonable stock of bandaids beforehand.

Shades of Cabbage Patch Babies!

Click to expand...

The way things seem to be going, gas masks, NV optics and suppressors would be my guess.

And 5 and 10 round mags too.

Think about this info I got from a reputable reloading supplier and consider it before broadly painting too many vendors with the price gouging brush.

Retailers amortize their incoming freight cost by buying in bulk, just like we try to do when buying from them. In times of shortage like this they can't order in the quantities they normally do so the freight costs get spread over a smaller volume increasing the unit cost.

For instance, the normal retail price for primers of ~$40/1,000 might be ~$60/1,000 now.

Having said that, listing primers at 5X-10X retail prices is exactly what it looks like.

Good to hear, OP.

Todd.

BCR#1 said:

So, if I post an ad on GB for a brick of SPP and start the auction @ a penny and the final bid raises it to $250, do you consider that gouging?

Bill

Click to expand...

Honestly, I don’t think Gun Broker will exist a year from now. Online gun sales will be a thing of the past.

I was able to get 500 Extreme .308 150 flat point bullets for $65.00 last week, after watching a bidding war take the same item to $174 on G.B.
Just have to be patient!!

Otto said:

Honestly, I don’t think Gun Broker will exist a year from now. Online gun sales will be a thing of the past.

Click to expand...

I agree. I think the situation is an order of magnitude more serious than it’s ever been. Large corporations are all in on the overreach in squashing the 1st Amendment, so they will have zero reservations about moving on to the 2nd next. My prediction is that banks and credit card companies will stop servicing gun and ammo sellers, shippers might stop carrying them. And worse.

I’d like to be wrong, I’d love to come back here in a year and joyfully admit that I was way overly concerned (if there is a “here” in a year) but I think the sky may actually be falling this time. Who in government or the courts is going to stop them? The elected “republicans” certainly have no spine, and many probably even support it, which is how we got here in the first place.

AMraider said:

Klaatu.....That is a great user name!

Click to expand...

Yeah, only the old farts and fans of Sci Fi know what it means.

It's weird, I see all kinds of good ammo deals in Canada, sometimes in a random search I see "in stock" and click on it to find its a Canadian retailer. I guess they don't have the same volitility in their politics to cause panic and frenzied buying.....

Feel that a lot of people got caught offguard. With Covid, the burning, looting and pillaging, er I mean peaceful protests etc...
Many people lost their jobs and their homes, to convince your spouse that what little flexible cash you have should go to ammo is a pretty hard sell.

armedwalleye said:

But are any of us really ever deep enough in ammo supplies as we'd like??? I'm in good shape, but I'd always like more.....

Click to expand...

Well no, I did start early this time before COVID hit for the calibers known to go but didn't expect odd calibers like 8mm Mauser and 6.5 Swede to be affected but they have been, the prices are way high and availabilty low.

Either way for the amounts I do have good supply they will be used sparingly for now. More .22 shooting for a while because I didn't get caught off guard on that this time.

skoro said:

These ammo panics arise every presidential election year. You can set your calendar by it.

.

Click to expand...

It's different this time, the state of the union is not strong, depending what happens on the 20th could be a catalyst Add COVID where manufactures are backlogged and it is a perfect storm. I disagree sites like gunbroker will be gone though after any court challenge, it will be sites like armslist that perpetuate people to privately meet up and sell.

Klaatu Barada Nikto said:

Think I saw elsewhere on this site that Cheaper Than Dirt got in some trouble for price gouging? Not sure what kind of trouble that might be.
Years ago Surplus Ammo and Arms gouged us pretty hard, haven't been back since.

Click to expand...

In TX, in time of a declared emergency, "essentials" are protected by price gauging laws. As it should be, in TX, ammo is considered an essential and when COVID hit, the Governor declared a state of emergency in TX. A few hundred people complained that Cheaper Than Dirt was price gauging with ammo sales, and they are located in TX. The State AG eventually got involved and slapped Cheaper Than Dirt with a fine and demanded that they repay over $400K back to consumers since they broke the law. One of the things that Cheaper Than Dirt was also doing was putting one price on their site, but when you then put your ammo order in your cart, when you went to check out, the price had suddenly been inflated up to four times higher. This made it difficult to parse out the change in price when checking out. That's what happened as far as I read.

NuShootr said:

In TX, in time of a declared emergency, "essentials" are protected by price gauging laws. As it should be, in TX, ammo is considered an essential and when COVID hit, the Governor declared a state of emergency in TX. A few hundred people complained that Cheaper Than Dirt was price gauging with ammo sales, and they are located in TX. The State AG eventually got involved and slapped Cheaper Than Dirt with a fine and demanded that they repay over $400K back to consumers since they broke the law. One of the things that Cheaper Than Dirt was also doing was putting one price on their site, but when you then put your ammo order in your cart, when you went to check out, the price had suddenly been inflated up to four times higher. This made it difficult to parse out the change in price when checking out. That's what happened as far as I read.

Click to expand...

Score one for the good guys. Lately it seems our victories are few and far in between.