Official price increase

[packetloss]

Looks like Vista is officially raising it's prices. To be honest, they pretty much had to. Right now the distributors are the ones gouging the prices and making out like bandits. Not much point in Vista being back ordered for a few years and still selling to the distributors at the same prices as when 9mm was less than $10 a box.

Dear Customer:

Thank you for your business and for your continued support of American manufacturing. We have hired hundreds of people over the last 12 months and invested millions of dollars to produce more ammunition to meet our customer and consumer needs. During this year we have seen significant increases in raw material prices such as copper, zinc, and lead. Additionally, increases in labor and health care have exceeded our projections as the COVID-19 pandemic has affected us all.

Effective 4/1/2021 Federal, Remington, CCI, and SPEER ammunition will take a price increase of 3-15% across all products from our last price list. Unless you notify us to cancel an order, we will reprice all existing and future orders shipped on or after 4/1/2021 to the new 4/1 prices.

You will receive your finalized price list no later than February 19th.

Thank you for your continued support of our brands and our American workforce.

Jason R. Vanderbrink
President Ammunition

 

[Otto]

The price of lead today is the same as it was 4 years ago.
The price of copper today is a little more than it was in the summer of '18....when ammo prices were the lowest in years.

 

[packetloss]

The price of lead today is the same as it was 4 years ago.
The price of copper today is a little more than it was in the summer of '18....when ammo prices were the lowest in years.

I do agree with that. I had posted some charts in the RMR raising their prices thread. I think these companies have to raise their prices as folks are back ordering them to kingdom come and reselling their product for a huge profit. They probably should be more up front about why they are raising their prices and not try to blame it on commodities prices which were actually LOWER most of the year and only now spiked a bit in December and are coming back down.

I think the real problem is the huge volume of orders they have and the fact that since folks are reselling way above retail, they keep getting flooded with orders and the resellers are making the killing. This might actually end up being a good thing if the manufacturers make more money, reduce the backlog and then ammo, primers and other reloading supplies become more available at an elevated from normal prices, but below the price gouging prices.

 

[Otto]

Hodgdon just jacked the prices up on their website. Two days ago, Autocomp was $29.99 now it's $34.99. That's more than a 15% increase in one month.
It's like that across the board.

 

[WiTom]

Get use to it, as it's not over yet.

 

[sequins]

Why wouldn't they. Order now folks, except you can't

 

[Walkalong]

Get use to it, as it's not over yet.

I'm afraid that is correct, may be quite sometime before things get better. It will test our patience for sure.

 

[George P]

Things will never get better going forward; since politics is verboten, we will just leave it that. As to the gouging comment, no one is gouging anyone; you either agree to the seller's asking price, or you do not.

 

[longdayjake]

The price of lead today is the same as it was 4 years ago.
The price of copper today is a little more than it was in the summer of '18....when ammo prices were the lowest in years.

Spoken by someone who doesn't have to buy it every day. The highest it was in '18 is still .30 less per lb than it is now. '18 was the same year that almost everyone in the ammo industry filed for bankruptcy or was put on the road to bankruptcy. What drove the low prices back in '17 and '18 was companies that were going under kept selling stuff at cost just to play the shell game of paying one creditor with the money from another creditor hoping that eventually you will last long enough to make it to the election. Vista filed for bankruptcy, Xtreme went bankrupt, Remington almost made it but went under last year, and many more businesses that we worked with went under. We barely survived '18. '18 was the worst year of my life. Had to deal with someone hurting my children all while I ended up having to let go an old friend and three other employees. The only reason we survived '18 was because we went from a workforce of 10 to a workforce of 6 and we scavanged off the corpses of the other bullet companies that were dying all around us. Please don't pretend that you know what prices a company can make money on. If I could keep prices where they were and still make enough money to maintain all my employees I would. Bullet margins are not the same as the margins in AR parts and guns. We don't take a $5-$10 piece of aluminum and turn it into a $150 lower. If we take 5 cents to make a bullet we can maybe make 2 cents on that bullet and we call that a great margin. For a while there we were only making about $10-$15 per 1,000 on our bullets. Do you know how much it destroys your business if you take a $6-$7 increase in material cost? We were finally successful in 2019 because copper and lead came down enough to make enough margin to actually have more money at the end of the year than when we started. In the back of our minds we know that we are only one unconstitutional executive order away from losing it all. I don't feel bad for trying to offset the additional costs and maybe make a little more money while I still can. Our goal this year is to get 100% out of debt so that if something political does happen it won't destroy us.

 

[George P]

Good luck Jake, <edited out politics>

 

[9mmepiphany]

I don't feel bad for trying to offset the additional costs and maybe make a little more money while I still can. Our goal this year is to get 100% out of debt so that if something political does happen it won't destroy us.

Anyone who has done much business with Jake knows that he is someone who believes in transparency in his business and his processes. If you've spent any time on the phone with him...I have...you would know that he is a honest and generous man trying to make an honest living and paying his employees a fair wage.

If you ever read his missives explaining why he has to raise prices, you'd understand that he doesn't make that decision lightly...any other company wouldn't have tried to hold the line as long as he has

 

[Dudedog]

Edited:
Yes the same thing RMR is going through....

 

[BreechFace]

Looks like Vista Outdoors has the same issue, cost of materials going up........

Duh, it’s almost like what RMR is going through...

 

[CQB45ACP]

Charging what the traffic will bear is fine with me. When the price gets too high the market will let ‘em know.

 

[Walkalong]

Yea, I’m done buying anything where the price is increased until this is over.

 

[Bfh_auto]

Things will never get better going forward; since politics is verboten, we will just leave it that. As to the gouging comment, no one is gouging anyone; you either agree to the seller's asking price, or you do not.

My thoughts are the same. I don't buy if I don't like the price. I probably won't like the price for several years.

 

[JDeere]

My thoughts are the same. I don't buy if I don't like the price. I probably won't like the price for several years.

I agree and if everyone else had this attitude things probably would change pretty fast. Panic buying causes problems for all. COVID is a prime example as well. 5 months ago face mask and hand sanitizer were over priced and nowhere to be found. Yesterday I saw the same box of mask that was selling for 30 bucks selling for 3.97 and stacked high...

 

[CQB45ACP]

This is what’s great about a free market economy and why a command economy can never provide enough of what people want or need. A decade ago or so, a friend paid a $25K premium to get one of the first of a new model car. I waited a year and bought the same car without the premium. We were both just as satisfied with our purchases. (But for a year he reminded me how awesome the car was.)

 

[BCR#1]

As long as RMR has prices a good bit lower than Berry's wants for their PLATED bullets, I'm a customer for life. Some of you guys will complain about anything. Judging by their back log of orders tells me they're doing things the right way.

Bill

 

[CQB45ACP]

As long as RMR has prices a good bit lower than Berry's wants for their PLATED bullets, I'm a customer for life. Some of you guy will complain about anything. Judging by their back log of orders tells me they're doing things the right way.

Bill

I’d happily buy his bullets at his price but 1) I shoot 45acp and I’ve never seen that he has them even to back order and 2) I never have firearms stuff shipped to the house so I only buy from folks who’ll ship to official hold locations. The latter point is why I do so much business with Cabela’s with their ship to store feature.

 

[packetloss]

As to the gouging comment, no one is gouging anyone; you either agree to the seller's asking price, or you do not.

It's not that cut and dry. The ammo manufacturers were (and at this point) still are selling to their distributers at previously negotiated prices (i.e. 2019 prices). The distributers and those after them in the supply chain are selling above MSRP. Even if you agree to those prices, they are gouging prices, due to their access to the supply. Likewise, there are millions of new gun owners and they don't know what "normal" prices are and if they see a box of ammo for $x in their LGS they just buy it thinking it's normal pricing.

Then there are some sites that are blatantly trying to trick people. I saw a post where someone ordered primers where the price was exactly what 5K were selling at, but it turned out to be only 1K. It was even above gunbroker prices.

If the ammo/component manufacturers aren't making more money per box than they were a year ago, why should the distributers be the only ones raking in the extra money? That is certainly not going to benefit us, the shooting community, in the long run. I guess this is why a bunch of them, including the powder companies, have started selling on their own sites.

 

[CQB45ACP]

Yea, I’m done buying anything where the price is increased until this is over.

Price increases will be the least of your concerns should this be over.

 

[buck460XVR]

Cost of doing business is not just cost of raw materials. Employee benefits(health insurance, etc), overheard and the price of new technology continues to climb too. Every middleman needs to up their cut to cover things too. For some of us, a 15% increase in cost to shoot will mean we shoot 15% less. So be it.....at least we can still shoot.

 

[Archie]

The price of lead today is the same as it was 4 years ago.
The price of copper today is a little more than it was in the summer of '18....when ammo prices were the lowest in years.

Adjusted for the money inflation index, the price of most things like lead and copper is the same as it was fifty years ago. Recognizing temporary and regional variations as just that. Labor costs have risen much faster than anything else and suggests to be the largest factor in inflation - devaluation - of money with the possible exception of 'just printing more money'.

 

[rg1]

Unofficial: Was at Cabelas yesterday. Salesman said they received some primers the day before and put them on the shelf at 3:00. Said they were all gone in less than an hour. Said the price was raised from the $40 range to in the $60's? Assume this was a brick and the salesman was aware?