Price increases on ammo

[No4Mk1*]

They are a little late to be raising prices as online prices have fallen to $7-8/20 already. $6/20 was common a couple of years ago and i predict that's about where it will settle during the next recession which is bound to occur soon as all asset classes are overpriced currently.

 

[justice06rr]

Well I've noticed price increases on 23/556 at both walmart and Academy recently. Anyone else seeing this. Its federal,AE abd independence brands.

223/5.56 has increased to about $10/box of 20rds with most factory brass ammo at Walmart.

Pre-panic it was $7/20rds of AE.

 

[Ignition Override]

With some Tula .223 ammo at .27/round ("Gunbot"), is this only a symptom of anxiety about using steel-cased ammo in their ARs, or do vast numbers of people want to reload brass .223 ammo?

 

[larryh1108]

If you have heartburn about the ammo supply you need to hold the manufacturers and the distributors responsible because that is where the problem is.

Totally disagree about the manufacturers. You keep beating this drum. You continually insinuate that they are not producing at 100% for some mysterious reason. Why would they not produce at 100% of capacity in these times? There is no conspiracy at the manufacturing level.

Someone decides where this ammo is going. Like at the retail end, every retail outlet has probably increased their orders by 100x, hoping they get 10% of it. If every LGS in America orders 10 cases of .22s a week and only gets 1 case then there must be a conspiracy? Maybe there are thousands of LGS in America and every one of them can sell every round they get in due to the ongoing panic. Is there funky games being played or is everybody scrambling for a finite number of rounds produced daily?

If you can choose to sell 1 case of .22LR ammo to a LGS for $.06 a round to 3000 different retail shops or you can sell the same cases to Big Box store for $.05 a round, who do you think they'd sell to? Yes, they need to sell some to Big Box but they get the same rations the others get once their future order number has been met.

There is nothing funky going on other than an unprecedented demand for .22 ammo. Producers are at 100% production and won't expand for a bubble. Distributors are selling 100% and trying to keep everybody happy. Buyers wish to buy every round they see to hedge against future shortages. Everybody has their hand in it.

Look at your own needs. You've acquired a decent supply thru hard work but you still "need" .22 ammo. I believe want and need are two totally different reasons but both drive this shortage. It is reaching the retail level but everybody wants some and there is only so much to go around.

 

[Queen_of_Thunder]

Totally disagree about the manufacturers. You keep beating this drum. You continually insinuate that they are not producing at 100% for some mysterious reason. Why would they not produce at 100% of capacity in these times? There is no conspiracy at the manufacturing level.

Someone decides where this ammo is going. Like at the retail end, every retail outlet has probably increased their orders by 100x, hoping they get 10% of it. If every LGS in America orders 10 cases of .22s a week and only gets 1 case then there must be a conspiracy? Maybe there are thousands of LGS in America and every one of them can sell every round they get in due to the ongoing panic. Is there funky games being played or is everybody scrambling for a finite number of rounds produced daily?

If you can choose to sell 1 case of .22LR ammo to a LGS for $.06 a round to 3000 different retail shops or you can sell the same cases to Big Box store for $.05 a round, who do you think they'd sell to? Yes, they need to sell some to Big Box but they get the same rations the others get once their future order number has been met.

There is nothing funky going on other than an unprecedented demand for .22 ammo. Producers are at 100% production and won't expand for a bubble. Distributors are selling 100% and trying to keep everybody happy. Buyers wish to buy every round they see to hedge against future shortages. Everybody has their hand in it.

Look at your own needs. You've acquired a decent supply thru hard work but you still "need" .22 ammo. I believe want and need are two totally different reasons but both drive this shortage. It is reaching the retail level but everybody wants some and there is only so much to go around.

If you think I'm wrong please explain how such big customers such as Walmart,Dicks, Academy or any of the other large sporting goods store can't get ammo. My local Academy did get 10 boxes of Remington 525 count 22lr in this past Friday. That was it. Just enough for 10 customers. Now it may be another month or more before we see 22lr available again. Of course 22lr is even harder to find at walmart.

The ammo is not making it to the big retail chains so where is it going if not to them. Only the producers and first level distributors can divert the ammo elsewhere. There is no other explanation that explains why walmart with its thousands of stores and the other big retailers are not getting ammo to sell.

Demand takes ammo off the shelves but there is very little if any ammo coming in to go on the shelf in the first place. So where is the ammo? Where did it go?

 

[larryh1108]

If you think I'm wrong please explain how such big customers such as Walmart,Dicks, Academy or any of the other large sporting goods store can't get ammo.

As I explained (below), the big box stores are in line with everybody else. If they can send out 1 case to 3000 different smaller stores for $.01 a round more than their contracted price to the big box stores, (like 1 case to each of 3000 Walmart stores) they make a lot more money and make 3000 different vendors a little happier than no ammo. After the big box stores get their pro-ordered ammo, they are not guaranteed anything more. Walmart and other big stores are used to pushing around suppliers by threatening to take their business elsewhere but in the ammo business, there is no elsewhere. They get what they get or they can tell the suppliers they don't want any which works better for the supplier in these times.

I'd bet every gun shop in America is ordering 10 cases of .22 ammo a week, hoping to get 1. Pre O'Banic, I'd bet these same guys ordered 1 or 2 cases a month, if that, to keep the shelves stocked. This is unprecended demand and the Walmarts of the country are no more entitled to this ammo than Jimmy Ray's Gun Store in Boondoggle, MT. If I was in charge of distribution, I'd gladly make 3000 little shops happy than 1 (large) client who rapes you whenever they get a chance.

How else can you explain that the local Walmart in Rural, OK gets in 1 case and a Mom & Pop LGS in the same town also gets in 1 case. You'd think Walmart would get 100 cases to 1 due to volume. Doesn't work that way in a spike of high demand. Also, keep in mind that the little guy pays more due to his small volume. Why give money away to Walmart when you don't have to?

If you can choose to sell 1 case of .22LR ammo to a LGS for $.06 a round to 3000 different retail shops or you can sell the same cases to Big Box store for $.05 a round, who do you think they'd sell to? Yes, they need to sell some to Big Box but they get the same rations the others get once their future order number has been met.

 

[gspn]

If they can send out 1 case to 3000 different smaller stores for $.01 a round more than their contracted price to the big box stores, (like 1 case to each of 3000 Walmart stores) they make a lot more money and make 3000 different vendors a little happier than no ammo.

That makes sense. I sell stuff for a living and I can tell you that I've seen that a lot. I have one customer that calls in and wants to buy $20 million of an investment that I own, but he wants it really cheap. If I tell him no and I work it all day I'll move the whole $20 million in smaller blocks and I'll make 5 times the money. If it's a slow month and I really need the trade then I might work thin, but otherwise I need to make money and I'll trade accordingly.

In time like these selling all of your product to the buyer who tries to force to your lowest profit margin makes no sense at all.

 

[Ignition Override]

larry1108: One of the comments was about WalMart's suppliers. WalMart seems to "twist businesses' arms" as much as old LBJ in the 60s.

A hotel clerk about eight miles from XNA Airport in Fayetteville AR told me several years ago that after 9/11 happened, WalMart required each of its suppliers to open an office in that area of n.w. AR. That could help explain why a variety of restaurants with foreign food opened there.

 

[BSA1]

Oueen of Thunder posted "If you have heartburn about the ammo supply you need to hold the manufacturers and the distributors responsible because that is where the problem is."


"Totally disagree about the manufacturers. You keep beating this drum. You continually insinuate that they are not producing at 100% for some mysterious reason. Why would they not produce at 100% of capacity in these times? There is no conspiracy at the manufacturing level."

I agree with you larryh1108,

Oueen of Thunder not only keeps beating this drum but he can’t even keep his stories straight. Here he posted;

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthrea...een+of+Thunder

In post #116 he posted “For December I've managed to pick up 675 rounds. My gunsmith got 375 rounds of it and my son got the other 300 rounds plus another 4700 rounds for Christmas. Now I'm short again.”

Are you saying you gave away (or sold maybe?) 375 rounds to your gunsmith and 5,000 rounds (300 rounds plus another 4700 rounds) to your son for a grand total of 5,375 rounds? That hardly sounds like a manufacturers and distributors problem to me.

 

[SFreed]

Yep....sounds like there's plenty of .22 in Queens neck of the woods.

 

[gdcpony]

I reload so this really doesn't apply to me except as components go. I have noticed though that my bullets have only gone up by a portion of the difference of the going rate for recycling the source metals. So I guess they are treating me fairly. Maybe it is the same for loaded ammo?

 

[jim243]

Ronald Regan was President once too, but that doesn't reflect the current situation by a long shot

Let's see, I use to pay $2.45 per 20 box of 5.56 FMJ surplus. (LOL) yea that was in 1968 when I first got my AR.

I reload so this really doesn't apply to me except as components go.

Same here so it costs me $5.00 per 20 now.

Jim

 

[mboylan]

Let's see, I use to pay $2.45 per 20 box of 5.56 FMJ surplus. (LOL) yea that was in 1968 when I first got my AR.



Same here so it costs me $5.00 per 20 now.

Jim

You were paying the equivalent of $16.50 in today's dollars for 20 surplus 5.56. It just shows how much higher ammo prices were until the early 90s or maybe very late 80s. We got spoiled with absurdly low ammo prices from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s.

 

[Queen_of_Thunder]

Oueen of Thunder posted "If you have heartburn about the ammo supply you need to hold the manufacturers and the distributors responsible because that is where the problem is."


"Totally disagree about the manufacturers. You keep beating this drum. You continually insinuate that they are not producing at 100% for some mysterious reason. Why would they not produce at 100% of capacity in these times? There is no conspiracy at the manufacturing level."

I agree with you larryh1108,

Oueen of Thunder not only keeps beating this drum but he can’t even keep his stories straight. Here he posted;

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthrea...een+of+Thunder

In post #116 he posted “For December I've managed to pick up 675 rounds. My gunsmith got 375 rounds of it and my son got the other 300 rounds plus another 4700 rounds for Christmas. Now I'm short again.”

Are you saying you gave away (or sold maybe?) 375 rounds to your gunsmith and 5,000 rounds (300 rounds plus another 4700 rounds) to your son for a grand total of 5,375 rounds? That hardly sounds like a manufacturers and distributors problem to me.

First off I'm female. The "Queen" should have tipped you off. Second if you read carefully you would understand I purchased 675 rounds in December. When I learned my son was buying a Sig522 I decided to send him a nice present for Christmas. So I pulled 5,000 rounds out of my stash and sent it out. It took a lot of time to put that much ammo together. A good 6 months at a minimum.

Now I never said the manufacturers were not producing at 100%. My point of contention arises from fact that their customers with hundreds of stores or in the case of Walmart thousands of stores are not getting any ammo. A prime example is this mornings delivery to my local Academy. They got 2 bricks of Blazer 22lr. Just 1,000 rounds. That's just twenty 50 count boxes. Now with a limit of 2 boxes per person per day only 10 customers can be taken care of if each buy their limit of 2 boxes (100 rounds total).

Now you tell me. If the likes of a Walmart with thousands of stores, a Dicks with over 400 stores and a Academy with nearly 200 stores cannot get 22lr ammo then who is getting it? Where is it going? Something is seriously wrong when stores like these can't get product to put on the shelf. The ammo is going somewhere and the only people who can divert the ammo from the likes of a Walmart, Dicks and Academy are the manufacturers and first line distributors. Are the manufacturers auctioning off their production to the highest bidder?

I've asked questions of the manufacturers but all I've gotten is SILENCE.

 

[bullseyebob47]

bought one of those crack barrel pellets guns cause i can't find .22lr to shoot. a box of 1250 pellets was $13 a few months ago. now same box is $17 at amazon.

 

[mboylan]

First off I'm female. The "Queen" should have tipped you off. Second if you read carefully you would understand I purchased 675 rounds in December. When I learned my son was buying a Sig522 I decided to send him a nice present for Christmas. So I pulled 5,000 rounds out of my stash and sent it out. It took a lot of time to put that much ammo together. A good 6 months at a minimum.

Now I never said the manufacturers were not producing at 100%. My point of contention arises from fact that their customers with hundreds of stores or in the case of Walmart thousands of stores are not getting any ammo. A prime example is this mornings delivery to my local Academy. They got 2 bricks of Blazer 22lr. Just 1,000 rounds. That's just twenty 50 count boxes. Now with a limit of 2 boxes per person per day only 10 customers can be taken care of if each buy their limit of 2 boxes (100 rounds total).

Now you tell me. If the likes of a Walmart with thousands of stores, a Dicks with over 400 stores and a Academy with nearly 200 stores cannot get 22lr ammo then who is getting it? Where is it going? Something is seriously wrong when stores like these can't get product to put on the shelf. The ammo is going somewhere and the only people who can divert the ammo from the likes of a Walmart, Dicks and Academy are the manufacturers and first line distributors. Are the manufacturers auctioning off their production to the highest bidder?

I've asked questions of the manufacturers but all I've gotten is SILENCE.

It was explained in previous posts. The big box stores have a contract for a certain amount of product at a specified lower cost. Demand exceeds that contract by many times because of the panic. The big boxes get their allotment. Smaller stores are ordering several times more than usual at a higher price because of 10 times demand and more. It becomes much more difficult for thebig box stores to get more than their contracted amounts. Some big box store employees are also holding back ammo to buy for themselves.

Panic demand is at record levels. Manufacturers are running at 100% capacity. After the panic ends demand will fall off. Manufacturers may find that they do not have to run at 100% capacity, so they are reluctant to start investing huge amounts of money in adding extra capacity.

 

[BSA1]

Queen of Thunder,

Since Artillery in the US Army is called the "Queen of Battle" I thought you have/had military service in that branch. Maybe you do as females serve in almost all of the branches of the Army.

I apologize for offending you as in was unintentional.

None the less this does not diminish the fact that you are continually beating the issue of 22 ammo shortage despite the explanations of the ammunition manufacturers and members of THR.

Normally I would not comment on topics such as yours but your posts often contradict themselves or do not support your claims. For example in your reply to me you state it took you 6 months to acquire 5,000 rounds of 22's. A quick math shows that averages out to 833 rds. a month. In normal times not a large number but with today's shortages that's not doing to bad.

Just a heads up but there a lot of shooters like myself waiting to buy large quantities of 22 LR when the prices return to Pre-Banic levels so the shortage will continue at least all of 2014 (or longer depending on the results of November's elections).

p.s. Your son is lucky to have such a generous pro-gun Mother like yourself.

 

[Mike1234567]

I agree that it's in short supply to the retailers. My local WM doesn't get more than a very few "small" boxes (50-100 rds) every week or two. And they never get the 300+ rd boxes anymore. How do you explain that?

 

[jrdolall]

I have stated some of this in a previous thread.

I have sold a LOT of items to major retailers over the years with, of course, Walmart being the largest. None of this has been firearms related but it has been in several categories and I would guess that most departments work basically the same.

WM puts out an RFP(Request for Price) on an item and anyone can bid. Bids are awarded and you can accept all or part of the bid. USUALLY WM will award certain Distribution Centers to certain vendors for a variety of reasons, not all of which are strictly price related. In every bid situation I have ever seen there is a volume attached and the vendor is "required" to fulfill that quantity unless there is some "Act of God" that doesn't allow them to do so. Failure to fill the quantity of the contract means your company probably won't get any more business for a while and, believe me, the volumes can be astronomical. In the event that demand is higher than the contracted quantity then each vendor is only obligated to fill THEIR commitment. Anything else is purely at their discretion. There have been numerous instances where we would give them extra volumes but only at higher prices.

My guess is that this is the ammo situation in a nutshell. Winchester may have agreed to sell Walmart 10,000 boxes of WWB 9mm 100ct boxes based on 2011 numbers and those were gone in December. How many times before last November did you ever see a line of people at Walmart trying to get ammo? Most smaller LGS probably sold a couple of bricks of 22 a day and now they are being deluged with requests for the stuff. This phenomenon is being repeated at EVERY store, big and small, across the USA. It is physically impossible for manufacturers to keep up with this fantastic demand and I don't see them deciding to dump a million bucks into new lines to run product that they feel is in an extended "spike". No doubt there are a lot of discussions going on in Board rooms though.

 

[Mike1234567]

The only vendors around here who seem to have plenty of .22LR are selling it at 2-3x MSRP.

 

[AABEN]

We are getting some at are farm store. It is getting to where it is getting a little easier to get. Jest give it a little more time. All of the maker of ammo is running over time and have started new lines trying to catch up!!

 

[frankenstein406]

First off I'm female. The "Queen" should have tipped you off. Second if you read carefully you would understand I purchased 675 rounds in December. When I learned my son was buying a Sig522 I decided to send him a nice present for Christmas. So I pulled 5,000 rounds out of my stash and sent it out. It took a lot of time to put that much ammo together. A good 6 months at a minimum.

Now I never said the manufacturers were not producing at 100%. My point of contention arises from fact that their customers with hundreds of stores or in the case of Walmart thousands of stores are not getting any ammo. A prime example is this mornings delivery to my local Academy. They got 2 bricks of Blazer 22lr. Just 1,000 rounds. That's just twenty 50 count boxes. Now with a limit of 2 boxes per person per day only 10 customers can be taken care of if each buy their limit of 2 boxes (100 rounds total).

Now you tell me. If the likes of a Walmart with thousands of stores, a Dicks with over 400 stores and a Academy with nearly 200 stores cannot get 22lr ammo then who is getting it? Where is it going? Something is seriously wrong when stores like these can't get product to put on the shelf. The ammo is going somewhere and the only people who can divert the ammo from the likes of a Walmart, Dicks and Academy are the manufacturers and first line distributors. Are the manufacturers auctioning off their production to the highest bidder?

I've asked questions of the manufacturers but all I've gotten is SILENCE.

First off the stores are getting ammo but the employees are buying it.

Next the real problem is i think the benneke guy bought a warehouse where the new metal is stored. The law is it has to be moved or sold in 3 months or so and all they do is move it to a different building. This raises the price and increases wait times.

Unsure if they get metal from them but it would make sense.

 

[Ringer]

Deja vu.

 

[22-rimfire]

Queen is the queen bee of West Texas (El Paso). I suspect Acadamy knows her on sight waiting for ammunition. All I can say is more power to you if you are willing to do that. I'm not.

But of course if you have read previous comments in threads on the subject, you'd say that I don't need any and I just sit here with my high hat... Well, I really do have plenty of promotional 22 ammunition and I haven't seen ANY in Walmart since November 2012. I bought the stuff there all the time during normal times... essentially every visit or nearly every visit. But I won't wait more than 10 minutes for an associate to show up at the sporting goods area.

This shortage is really amazing when you think about it and when you compare it to normal times. Sure glad it is not a toilet paper shortage as I don't keep much of that on hand.

I think the big box stores have bought and sold their entire allotment and I suspect in the case of Walmart, they are unwilling to pay more on a unit basis. As was said, they have to get in line just like everyone else. But the amount they sell is tremendous if you think in terms of stores. That's why manufacturers are hesitant to not bowl to WM demands because they know what it means to their unit sales volumes.

 

[oneounceload]

Ammo makers run ammo in batches, according to predetermined production schedules that can be set for up to a year in advance; that helps keep costs to make lower but does not allow much leeway for what they perceived as a temporary situation. Ammo is made and even exported according to already established contracts. Trying to have custom manufacturing equipment ordered and built for expansion can take upwards of several years, so most are reluctant to do so and then be stuck with expensive equipment they may not be able to keep running. All it would take is some new or current administration to say, ban the use of lead in bullets, and then what would they do? Their equipment would have to be reengineered and redone - all massive costs at a time when things like Ocare are adding a huge burden to their HR costs. Most makers are running 24/7, but expansion is not in the cards for most (IIRC, Remington already had an expansion planned and is moving forward with it)