I had this sudden urge to buy "gun stuff" and I went on-line looking for any bargains on .38spl and 5.56 ammo. Yeah, I know- silly me! The price went sky-high and it appears availability is low.
So, I figured I'd buy a few more AR-15 magazines. Most of the normal manfacturers I buy from are out-of-stock.
I've chatted with various dealers and other "gunnies". Common themes and/or reasons seem to be the current thoughts on the subject:
-The government is ordering large amounts of ammo and the factories can't keep up. That sounds reasonable since there are only x-amount of ammo manafacturers.
-The price of the components has risen. Seems reasonable and better than the reason given by more than one person which is that the ammo dealers are gouging us like people think the gas companies do all of the time....
-The manufacturers aren't making as many "hi-cap" magazines because they're afraid of a ban and don't want to be stuck with a large inventory. That's just scary.
-There is a majority increase in purchases of ammo and magazines due to the thoughts on the current environment and the manafacturers can't keep up. That's kind of interesting and it does appear there has been a big increase in purchases.
-There's a few others that, IMO, border on the level of conspiracy theories.
I expect there is a bit of truth to all of those.... maybe even the last one
.