CNN: Guns and ammo sales spark jobs boom

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A fairly straight-forward story about how the spike/bubble/panic/call-it-what-you-will in gun and ammo buying has created demand for skilled and semi-skilled jobs.

Full story here:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Guns and ammo are selling briskly these days, and that means weapons makers are hiring. Some manufacturers are scrambling to find enough workers.

Mike Weddle, head of maintenance at Dynamic Research Technologies, an ammunition manufacturer in Albany, Mo., says he is adding 10 new hires to his staff of 35. DRT's machine operators make between $10 and $17 an hour -- a healthy paycheck in a region where it's tough to find a job and the cost of living is relatively low.

DRT currently cranks out 80,000 bullets per shift and operates two shifts per day. But that's not enough to meet demand. So Weddle is adding a third manufacturing shift and building an additional facility.

"Demand picked up a year ago -- it quadrupled," he said. "It just went crazy." He says .223 caliber ammo, which is for semiautomatic rifles, is particularly difficult to keep in stock.

DRT is a tiny part of an industry that employs about 240,000 nationwide, according to an estimate from Brian Rafn, who follows the gun industry for Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. And like DRT, many of the giants in the business of making guns and ammo are also expanding.

"Sturm, Ruger and Smith & Wesson have both added manufacturing capacity, which includes labor and shifts, in the past year," said Wedbush Securities analyst Rommel Dionisio.

Caleb Ogilvie, a concealed-carry instructor who works at Cabot Gun & Ammo in Cabot, Ark., said that employees at a nearby Remington plant in Lonoke are telling him that "they're running full swing up there, running 24-7."

 

[Certaindeaf]

Yep, if we can send and land a Mars rover, we can make some .224 slugs/.223 ammo.
DRT.. heh, dead right there.. pretty cool.

 

[RustHunter87]

They better be hiring on more help, If you ask me the damand is not going anywhere, if any thing is going to Increase as our ammo caches get shot.
I havent bought ammo for months and if the supply line and price EVER stabilize again I will most likey buy a bunch and in sure i wont be the only one!
and it will all begin again....

 

[huntsman]

yep just think where this economy would be without G&A sales, how about sales taxes, P&R also. Citizens voting with their money has to be very unsettling to progressives.

 

[jamesbeat]

Nah, they'll just assume that the increased sales are from a small number of paranoid survival nuts.

I din't think that it would even so much as cross their mind that normal folks buy or 'have a need for' ammo.

 

[c4v3man]

80,000 bullets sounds low... especially since they sell both cartridges and bullets. I guess it takes a lot more time to make frangible ammo, or the machinery needed to make it is cost prohibitive.

Needless to say, I doubt them doubling production of oddball lead-free frangible ammunition is going to do much for people looking for cheap FMJ ball ammunition...

 

[soonerfan85]

Maybe Oboma is on to something here. Just think it through.

If he were to push for a ban on manufacturing, maybe it'd lead to the building of new manufacturing plants and create new jobs. How about a ban on American built autos. Bingo, increased auto sales. Instead of taxing the wealthy to fund their stimulas programs, why not just scare them into spending money to stimulate the economy. POTUS may be a LOT smarter than he looks. Maybe not.

 

[VVelox]

That is nice the dude is expanding, but I am not really seeing any thing here that screams job boom.

 

[bannockburn]

The real question here would be will the jobs still be there when supply (hopefully), catches up with demand. Are these permanent positions or are they just temporary jobs to fill until things get back to normal in the industry? Time will tell.

 

[huntsman]

^ just vote Democrat