No other commodity is in short supply except ammo.

armoredman said:

Ackshully...

Click to expand...

What was that about spell check bub?

Balrog said:

I have read the explanation of the current ammo shortage, and not sure I still believe it. No doubt COVID, shipping delays, political turmoil, etc, led to panic buying and temporary shortages, just like there were toilet paper shortages. But now everything except ammo seems to be available.

I am not sure what is going on, but I am not sure I am still buying the narrative provided.

Click to expand...

Upon some consideration, I think the answer is- ammo being plentiful was always an illusion.

I learned this on a small scale with .32 acp. It wasn't a popular round, not a lot of demand for it. You could buy it online pretty easily. I had a couple old pistols, little Mausers and a Savage, an old WW2 era CZ, etc. So I looked around, picked up a case of some Geco or something from LAX ammo, for basically 9mm prices. About $200 shipped. Local stores had stuff for $20 a box, this was a much better deal. It was the best price, but only by a little, if/when I looked around. There seemed plenty of good options, but you had to consider shipping etc.
And then, the surplus Beretta 81 wave happened.
Buddy of mine texted me the first day, I bought one for $199 from Classic before I even responded to him. And then I decided that day, I wanted to get more .32, to feed my new toy.

And apparently so did a lot of other people. I did an ammoseek search for the best price... went to the first place, starting trying to put stuff in my cart... insufficient quantity. Out of stock. 2nd place, things in cart, could not check out. Out of stock. And so on. On the 6th site, I went somewhere that showed how much in stock... they had Blazer aluminum. 80+ boxes. Add to cart, but now there's only 30+ ...I put a case in but that didn't work. I was able to put 11 safely into the cart and check out, at $11.50 apiece.
By the end of that day the cheapest available .32 acp online was $19 a box.
That's .32 acp, a caliber nobody was looking for, getting wiped out by a single batch of guns. "Oh, there's not a lot of .32 being made, that's different"; sure, but that's still national stock, multiple big vendors, and the precipitating factor was what, a couple thousand Berettas being bought. I realized right then, what we THINK is plenty, is only enough to cover what the market NORMALLY wants.

Point being, we all thought there were tons of 9mm available, and there was... but MILLIONS of people suddenly want it. And those of us who shoot a lot, we suddenly want more than we usually get, and more often. I admit once the toilet paper shortage hit, I started getting 9, 45, 223, 308 whenever I could, as much as my paycheck would allow, if I could find anything. And I wasn't picky on brand, just price. When SGAmmo and Targetsports were sold out, I placed orders through Cabela's and Bass Pro, and got back-ordered. When people were raging about those backorders, I was looking at remanufacturers, some still had listed ammo, and I scooped them up. When folks moaned about no more brass, I took in Tula and Silver Bear 223 (and added some more 7.62x39, which was still $210 a case). While everyone got angry about the rising cost of 9mm and 45, I added barrels to shoot 7.62 Tokarev and 9mm Largo, and got a couple cases of that. Cheap steel Hot Shot 45 for 26 cents a round, you're doggone right I bought what they let me. I have cheap 1911's, they can eat cheap ammo. I did that because I could feel the anxiety, the big push to "get something", and I could tell it was going to be real bad. And I like to shoot, and wanted to ride this storm out.

And the thing is, I wasn't alone, or the exception. I got ahead of a couple things, got left in the cold on others. I'm basically set for now, others are still looking, and still paying the increasing prices. Sooner or later, we'll all have enough, product will still come pumping in, eventually it will level off and come back down.

Ignition Override said:

George P: Exactly.
. A civilization which must have electric power and functional microchips etc. Let’s avoid the more "detailed" type of “Mel Gibson/Bartertown” chat which frightens the Moderators.

—My car tank was always kept at 3/4 minimum during the first month of the Covid panic last spring. Stopped pretty often.

I was concerned that social media rumors about possible gasoline truck supply interruptions ....easily could have begun and caused very long lines. Made more sense than toilet paper anxiety.
The speculative 'conclusion' began last February while at a gas station near Citronelle AL (Hwy 45) northwest of Mobile : the clerk told me they were Out Of Gas due to a problem with a delivery truck.
If social media had noticed a few of these glitches in one area....

Click to expand...

The TP run was a knee jerk reaction of the Sheep as was the current run on guns but the ammo run I believe is more about profiteers and scalping.

good thing the Sheep have a myopic view of things less society would really be challenged.

huntsman: your view of reality is a Laser Beam .

About three months ago I was simply curious as I was going to the nearby Home Depot, and first stopped by Academy about 0900 for a first (then recent) look at the new reality.

The Manager in the gun dept., weeks before that, had told me that the same 20-25 guys line up for opening every M-W-Friday.

The best part ? Months ago they started putting a Cart of Ammo near the Front Door, and letting One guy 'visit' the ammo cart at a time. Why do so...?
>>>>>Two guys at the regular ammo shelves (in rear of store) had previously gotten into some sort of Fight while grabbing something !! ****ing insane. <<<<<<<

Such Class and character, simply to make a few bucks per ammo box-- which clearly would allow imminent retirement to a Caribbean island flooded with European bikinis?

George P said:

Academy here has completely empty ammo shelves; sure do not know what I am going to do with the gift cards I got for Christmas now.

Click to expand...

I believe that companies like Academy refusing to raise their prices to meet demand are a large part of the problem. Having empty ammo shelves and controlling supply by unit restrictions is silly. Raise your prices to meet demand! That is the fastest way to stop panic buying and ultimately bring the prices down.


The other issues are certainly logistics and production, but I am not sure to what extent.

The clerks said they have pretty much the same group of folks who line up 3-4 hours before opening on the days that ammo deliveries are expected and I will bet you will find it shortly afterwards on gunbroker or similar.

brewer12345 said:

Gotta feed that single action combat revolver.

Click to expand...

More like single shot combat pistol at that price.

Agsalaska said:

I believe that companies like Academy refusing to raise their prices to meet demand are a large part of the problem. Having empty ammo shelves and controlling supply by unit restrictions is silly. Raise your prices to meet demand! That is the fastest way to stop panic buying and ultimately bring the prices down.

Click to expand...

I'm not a flipper, but I work a weird schedule (3 12's) and could be there in line if I wanted/needed some ammo. I'd rather wait early and kill a morning, than pay insane prices.

I think we need SOMEONE to keep a baseline price, or else the market might adjust upwards and settle in at, say, twice what it was before.

George P said:

The clerks said they have pretty much the same group of folks who line up 3-4 hours before opening on the days that ammo deliveries are expected and I will bet you will find it shortly afterwards on gunbroker or similar.

Click to expand...

Not everyone that lines up early is a flipper. I'm off Mondays so I will usually make the trip and wait in line to see what Academy gets in.

I got one box of Blaser Brass 9mm ( which will replace what I plan to shoot this week) and 2 20 rd boxes of Frontier 556 ( which gives me a total of 240 rounds of 556 to my name).

lsudave said:

I'm not a flipper, but I work a weird schedule (3 12's) and could be there in line if I wanted/needed some ammo. I'd rather wait early and kill a morning, than pay insane prices.

I think we need SOMEONE to keep a baseline price, or else the market might adjust upwards and settle in at, say, twice what it was before.

Click to expand...

I agree. If it wasn't for Academy and Bass Pro maintaining lower prices I would probably not be doing any shooting at all