After the great ammo scare of 2013/14...

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Impureclient

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This doesn't fall directly into the .22lr mega thread as it involves 38 special and .380 but it is related. Watching gunbot, ammoseek and wikiarms all this weekend, I realized something about who is selling hard to get ammo right now.

There are two camps that have formed.

One camp contains the likes of Midway, Cabelas, Walmart, Natchez, etc that are selling what they have at pretty much pre-panic prices. The other camp such as Goose Island Sales, CTD(surprise!), Rareammo, Surplusammo, etc
are reselling at 2-4X what the decent sellers are. Seeing Federal 550 boxes, by the whole freakin case, being sold for three times what they were originally sold for at Walmart is sickening. I hope everyone is paying attention to this
so when this all ends, we thank them with our dollars when it's time to restock. It seems that time is nearing and I have made sure to keep track of the naughty list.
 
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I haven't spent a dime with Cheaper then Dirt after the .380 shortage several years ago.
And never ever will again.

They were selling $6.98 a box Seller & Bellot at Cabalas when they had it for $35.00-$40.00.

A 500%+ markup is something a PayDay Loan shark would do.
And I won't do business with them either.

rc
 
i lived in dallas for a while and, although they were close, i never shopped there due to their craptastic reputation. I hope they go out of business personally
 
I would like add Sportmans Warehouse to the good list. I've bought lots off primers, powders, loaded ammo and other case prep stuff from them all at the pre-panic prices.
 
What do you mean after? I still can't find most of the ammo I like to keep in supply. Not an exact barometer but the only thing the local Walmart had two nights ago was .410 shells.

In any case, if its one thing you can say about gun nuts is its we know customer loyalty. We are loyal to ammo X and will never forget store Y for selling it much higher than store Z. CTD and the like stores made their bed with their customers. Some will forgive them, but I doubt it will be many.
 
Companies that continued to sell at fair prices during the panic that I've dealt with include Mako Defense, Midway, Cabelas, Ruger, and Wal-mart.

Yep, Wal-mart. They almost never had anything, but when they did, they weren't overcharging for it.
 
And... welcome to capitalism.

The alternative is price-fixing.

If it was important to you before the panic, you should have bought it.

With the exception of medical supplies, fuel, and food, I have zero problem with merchants charging the going rate for goods. It's called economics.

Let's think of an example. Say YOU bought your house for $100,000. The going rate. Then, say something caused the price of your land/house to skyrocket; gold vein under your floors, oil bed in your back yard, mineral rights windfall, city wants to build a train through your yard, etc. Now your house is worth several times what it was worth. Nobody, including YOU, would expect you to sell your house for the pre-new-event price. In short, YOU would profit from NEW events.

I've found that people that are most upset are the ones that didn't buy when they should have.

The writing has been on the wall since 1993 people, when the last AWB was put in effect. And you've had repeated reminders. 2004, when the AWB expired, guns, ammo, and mags flooded the markets at stupid low prices. Then in 2008, Obama was elected, and we've had THREE ammo/mag/gun shock reminders since then. SEVERAL chances to sell high, and buy low after the prices came back down to normal.

When there's a frost that kills oranges, do you expect orange juice to stay the same price? When there are fuel/oil interruptions, you don't expect gas to stay the same price. The soaring prices of sugar has caused increases in many food products. The costs of steel, brass, and copper, and silver has caused many goods to increase in prices...

People who have not understood this have no-body to blame but themselves. These same people constantly want a merchant to sell his goods tomorrow at yesterday's prices.

Many people here need a lesson on Economics 101.
 
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"Well it is just capitalism and the market will get back to normal". "It is just a bubble, a hiccup in the supply and in a few months everything will be back to normal". I remember those hearing those comments early on.

Well, this "bubble" or "hiccup" is going on for 16 months already. This is an unprecedented shortage. I figured it would be six months to a year for companies to start adding new lines in order to keep up with the shortage. Or for new companies to form and step up to the plate.

It doesn't seem to have happened.

.
 
Income, knowledge, major ammo makers.....

I don't follow all the major ammunition sales websites closely but I too have noticed that even in spring/2014 not all supply/logistics levels are back to "normal" yet.
On a recent trip(11/2013), I went by a Gander Mountain location in Pittsburgh PA that had no carry-defense .45acp rounds. None. 0. :eek:
The sales clerks told me they were low on most common handgun calibers(9mm, .38spl, .357magnum, .44spl, .40, .45acp) and the main delivery sources couldn't tell them when more handgun rounds could be sent.

The problems with the scarce resources are that the US shooting sports industry has customers who; have expendable income($$$), know or can find out what they want/need(reloading supplies, .22LR, etc), are brand loyal or supportive, and they are willing to store-stockpile ammunition if required(by in bulk).
This is why you see the "gun shop rangers" hanging out at the sporting goods counters or shops. Or the people in a Bass Pro/Dicks/Walmart parking lot at 600am waiting to snag the new shipments of .22LR or handgun calibers.

The major ammunition makers like Winchester, Corbon, Black Hills, Remington, etc know this too. They aren't going to saturate the markets or stores with product as long as these weekend Rambos & gunners are in the lots/lined up at 600am.
They've used excuses like the US combat operations in OIF/OEF and lack of materials(lead, brass, copper, etc) but even those reasons fell flat by 2014.

Id suggest gun owners or armed professionals(who don't get contracted ammuntion or access to training rounds) buy a few 100rd boxes to have around. It may not be cheap but at least you'll be able to have what you need.
 
Thank you leadcounsel. That's pretty much it in a nutshell, so to speak.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled Ammo shortage thread.
 
Leadcounsel nailed it.

You buy a house for 75k 10 years ago. Now you want to sell and upgrade. You get an offer for 150k and double your money. You are happy!

Your buddy is selling his bigger house in the next town. He's been there 15 years. He wants 3x what he paid. You know what he paid when he bought it. You get honked off because he is ripping you off. How dare he rape you, his buddy! You decide to cross him off your buddy list. He's being greedy!

It's ok when it benefits you but is so wrong when you are the one buying.

Sound like double standards to me.
 
larryh1108 said:
Leadcounsel nailed it.

You buy a house for 75k 10 years ago. Now you want to sell and upgrade. You get an offer for 150k and double your money. You are happy!

Your buddy is selling his bigger house in the next town. He's been there 15 years. He wants 3x what he paid. You know what he paid when he bought it. You get honked off because he is ripping you off. How dare he rape you, his buddy! You decide to cross him off your buddy list. He's being greedy!

It's ok when it benefits you but is so wrong when you are the one buying.

Sound like double standards to me.
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No one has claimed to be selling at a high price here, you are speaking hypothetically... But if you go to the classifieds section here, you will see most of our members sell at a below market price on firearms, ammo, and accessories. There is even a pay it forward thread where stuff is freely given.

Don't assume ol' buh.
 
Yes, I am speaking in a generality. We, here, represent a small, small, small, small percentage of the general population. Also, we don't list houses for sale here.

This community is very fair-minded and generous. There are a lot of great folks here. If this was all about people on this forum helping people on this forum there would be no threads about the ammo market. However, the complaints are about those outside this forum. CTD and the like are not members here. They don't go by the same 'take care of your buddies" that this forum seems to share. I also doubt you'd turn down a 2x or 3x profit on your home if offered. Why would you?
 
Companies that continued to sell at fair prices during the panic...almost never had anything, but when they did, they weren't overcharging for it.
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There is a cause-and-effect here.

Companies have a choice when demand vastly outstrips supply:

  1. They keep their prices at pre-demand levels, selling out instantly, and can then display empty dusty shelves marked at the pre-surge price until demand comes back down; or
  2. They can sell actual inventory at a price that balances supply and demand, ensuring that there is always some product on their shelves for those willing to pay the going price for it.

Option (1) encourages flippers to scarf it all up and then resell it at the current market rate, thereby making things worse for everyone except the flippers, and discourages bringing new manufacturing capacity online (if the demand is temporary, a manufacturer who invests heavily in new production capacity will lose their shirt if prices stay low, because the increased profits are going to the flippers rather than the manufacturers and distributors).

Option (2) discourages flipping, and also encourages manufacturers to hike their wholesale prices and invest in more production capacity to offset the surge in demand. If the demand is temporary, that's OK because the new production will be quickly amortized at the higher prices. Once supply catches up with demand, prices fall back to an equilibrium point, which may be higher or lower than the original price depending on demand.

Most retailers understand that Americans would much rather browse empty shelf space marked with pre-demand prices (the Soviet model) rather than browse well-stocked shelves with higher prices. So they act accordingly, perpetuating the shortage. The companies that forget, and allow prices to float according to market conditions, get excoriated for it but they make a pile of money while doing so, since selling actual product at a market price is vastly more profitable than advertising empty shelf space.
 
Also, yeah it sucks, but the high prices can keep companies in business.

If you sell for pre-panic prices, you make that profit but then can't get stock in anyway. So you end up with empty shelf space and an inability to make sales on materials you can't get it. If you sell for three times the panic price, that's three times as long before it actually starts hurting.
There's a couple local places that are already hurting, but the ones that stocked mostly ammo, sold it all at original price, and now can't get any are dying out.
 
I just love the "It's just capitalism" remarks.
Unbridled "Capitalism" combined with "Taxation without representation" is the reason we pay near $4 a gallon for gasoline...

Once any market bears the selling price, that price is there to stay unless government regulation forces it back down and that isn't likely to happen any time soon.

Unregulated selling of hard metal scrap is another big reason you are seeing shortages too.
Hard to make ammunition when the people you sold all your scrap metals to are stingy in selling it back.

Your government and the commodity brokers sold us down the line to China.
Wake up and feel the love...
 
If you and I have a relationship, you selling and me buying for what I consider a fair price, and you for whatever reason decide you have to sell at 3x the price suddenly, I can refuse and go elsewhere. You have broken that relationship with me, so don't expect it later. I understand markets, the question is - do you?
 
Since people are turning this into a .22lr thread in spite of the OP specifically trying to stay out of that mess we'll let this fall off the page.
 
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