Wonder how much difference in price the wholesale is, between small stores (local or online), vs the big chains?
In the past couple weeks, I've heard increasingly frequent tales of Academy, Bass Pro and Cabela's having ammo in stock. There's been the tips re: the truck came in, people go, and most recently it seems like there's a little left after the flurry of buying. So then if the next truck comes (which it has been), that's pushing their in-stock totals up higher. A couple more weeks at that pattern, and we could see somewhat normal availability.
The prices I'm hearing is $14.99 a box for Federal 9mm brass. Pre-panic at those stores, that brand was probably at least $12, maybe a bit more... Federal has never been the cheapest thing on the shelf.
I compare that to the online prices running at least double that, if not more; and wonder what the deal is? Are the smaller buyers getting charged a lot more, or are they trying to milk this run as much as they can? One thought I'm having is that places like sgammo get 'a fair amount', but nowhere near what Bass Pro gets as a company... then they have stock and are sitting on it, and have to mark down to move it. And that is why it's USUALLY cheaper than the big boxes. But right now, nothing is really sitting in stock, and our online-shopping habits have made it a complete warzone to order anything. It might SEEM similar to Amazon shopping, but sgammo etc doesn't buy the bulk quantities Amazon has.