Will all of these new AR owners be able to afford the ammo?

[T Bran]

It really doesnt take much to start loading your own. Actually less than most folks spend on ammo for practice.
I am considering getting back into casting bullets for a couple of my guns to avoid depleting the stockpile.

 

[evolve23]

For you guys that are cranking out hundreds of rounds per hour, consider this: How long did it take you to get to the skill level required to be able to do that safely, consistently and with a quality product?

That was the point - that it will take a significant investment in time and money for a new AR owner to learn to reload. H

 

[788Ham]

Guys, I have absolutely no use for an AR platform of any kind, just my personal preference. I have had bolt guns all my life, used to using what I had. This vendetta to raise prices sky high, in my opinion, is to just take advantage of what everyone wants, "I've got it, you want it? Then pay what I can sell it for and get away with." Thats okay, seems this has gone on since Christ's time. What I truly don't understand, is the thinking of buying everything thats related to reloading/shooting/personal defense items, "Just because I can", whether they need/use them or not, just to help feed the frenzy and say "I was there." C'mon guys, we all want to have some extra bullets, powder and primers, but just to buy it so you have 35K primers more than your shooting buddies? A few extra primers and bullets won't cause world collapse, but there are those that think "so-and-so ain't gonna get ahead of me on this deal", I refuse to think this way, think how heavy your casket will be for the pall bearers! YMMV
Merry Christmas

 

[LNK]

For you guys that are cranking out hundreds of rounds per hour, consider this: How long did it take you to get to the skill level required to be able to do that safely, consistently and with a quality product?

That was the point - that it will take a significant investment in time and money for a new AR owner to learn to reload. H

It wouldn't take a mechanically inclined person vey long at all. Even if your not, it can be done. The most important thing is reading comprehension. There are so many resources available for free. This site is just one of many. I don't reload rifle rounds fast, just handgun ammo. Some say they reload as a cost saving measure. I thought so too. But reality says I just shoot more for the same amount of money.

Do a search for reloading or cast boolits. Will get you on the right path.

LNK

 

[Revoliver]

Only if you consider making a profit legally, unethical.

Absolutely false. I have no problem with an individual that siezes an opportunity to profit from selling something he already owns (didn't go out and buy specifically for the occasion) that he can part with.
I do have a problem with companies that were already readily providing that same something at a set price and making a profit from that to begin with having doubled/tripled/skyrocketed prices as it shows their true nature. That of profiteering.

 

[Warp]

Price gouging.

It is supply and demand. Plain and simple.

 

[LNK]

Guys, I have absolutely no use for an AR platform of any kind, just my personal preference. I have had bolt guns all my life, used to using what I had. This vendetta to raise prices sky high, in my opinion, is to just take advantage of what everyone wants, "I've got it, you want it? Then pay what I can sell it for and get away with." Thats okay, seems this has gone on since Christ's time. What I truly don't understand, is the thinking of buying everything thats related to reloading/shooting/personal defense items, "Just because I can", whether they need/use them or not, just to help feed the frenzy and say "I was there." C'mon guys, we all want to have some extra bullets, powder and primers, but just to buy it so you have 35K primers more than your shooting buddies? A few extra primers and bullets won't cause world collapse, but there are those that think "so-and-so ain't gonna get ahead of me on this deal", I refuse to think this way, think how heavy your casket will be for the pall bearers! YMMV
Merry Christmas

I really don't think much hoarding is going on. Most just buy in bulk to have on hand what they are going to use in hte next X amount of time. I got caught out on reloading supplies in '08. Couldn't find primers to save my life. It passed, and so will this. I have about a years worth of what I need. Some want more on hand, some do the JIT system. Buy as they go. Everyone does what they want to. I bet the people complaining this time wont be caught out next time....

LNK

 

[LNK]

Absolutely false. I have no problem with an individual that siezes an opportunity to profit from selling something he already owns (didn't go out and buy specifically for the occasion) that he can part with.
I do have a problem with companies that were already readily providing that same something at a set price and making a profit from that to begin with having doubled/tripled/skyrocketed prices as it shows their true nature. That of profiteering.

Only if it is "essential". Don't see how that fits here.....

LNK

 

[megaton]

1) It does not cost $600 to get into handloading for just one or two cartridges. It can be done with Lee eqiupment for well under $200

2) You do not need to spend "hundreds of hours carefully crafting handloads" for plinking ammo. I just did 2,000 rounds from start to finish in 14 hours on a single stage press, including initial tumbling and delubing/drying cases. With current 5.56mm prices, I was "working" for close to $100/hour.



Seems like a completely arbitrary number......

You are a machine! Thats 142+ rounds per hour. I can load about 50 an hour on my single stage.

 

[wickedsprint]

Fine, Profiteering then?

More like prepared.

 

[Warp]

Entrepreneurship

Capitalism.

Free market.

 

[LNK]

Absolutely false. I have no problem with an individual that siezes an opportunity to profit from selling something he already owns (didn't go out and buy specifically for the occasion) that he can part with.
I do have a problem with companies that were already readily providing that same something at a set price and making a profit from that to begin with having doubled/tripled/skyrocketed prices as it shows their true nature. That of profiteering.

So buying stocks during an IPO, because you think it is going up is profiteering? Or do you solely object to a business doing it? Because you don't have a right to determine how much profit I make on anything. Now I wouldn't be trying to soak someone for, say, lumber after a tornado. But if I could corner the market on fuzzy dice, you bet I would sell them for the most I could. The question I have for you is, why wont you take less pay for the work you do? Believe it or not, it is the same thing......

LNK

 

[Bubba613]

There are shops in my area that are gouging, and there are shops that are not. I know where I will be shopping for the next 20 years. Hows that for free market?

I also know where you will be shopping for the next 20 years. The store that has the item you want at the right price at the right time. That's regardless of how they currently price their merchandise.

 

[Revoliver]

Only if it is "essential". Don't see how that fits here.....

Essential in the complete and total functional operation of the gun. It is rather hard to be able to completely functionally operate a gun without appropriate live ammunition is it not?

 

[aka108]

From the way I see these AR guys going through ammo I don't think the cost is bothering them.

 

[LNK]

Essential in the complete and total functional operation of the gun. It is rather hard to be able to completely functionally operate a gun without appropriate live ammunition is it not?

You miss my point, why is it essential that you have a gun. Why didn't you keep some ammo on hand in case there was a shortage. Like I said, I was caught out in '08. My fault, not someone elses. You feel like someone owes you cheap available ammunition. If you were my neighbor and needed some ammo, I would give you some.

LNK

 

[Revoliver]

You miss my point, why is it essential that you have a gun.

I think you are confused as to what the definition of essential is.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/essential?s=t

There's nothing in there about the word 'essential' being relegated to basic human survival solely or at all.

Why didn't you keep some ammo on hand in case there was a shortage.

Why would you ask me the very same question I already posted to others? And what exactly makes you think I did not stock up long before the election much less Sandy Hook? I stocked up back in September.

ike I said, I was caught out in '08. My fault, not someone elses. You feel like someone owes you cheap available ammunition. If you were my neighbor and needed some ammo, I would give you some.

No worries, not everyone was prepared for this, and I would happily help and defend my neighbor as well, at no cost.

 

[skeptical_in_Ohio]

99.99% of the time I would agree but this time we are a fairly small group of people some of who are taking of advantage of others based on the fear of losing our rights.

Sorry in advance for length and rambling, but I felt the need to get in on this one.

OK, so it seems we want just a little socialism, but not too much, yes?

Price is merely a signaling mechanism in a free market economy that tends to direct allocation of scarce goods & services.

When available units of product X are scarce, higher price means that somebody buys only four of the six remaining, leaving two for somebody else. The higher price also is a signal to somebody that making more of X would be a good idea, unless there's a distortion (e.g. legal change) in the market that prevents this. Actually one could assert that the fear of pending changes in law might be the distortion, but I digress.

If somebody bought a stock (say, Microsoft) at a low price then sold it when it was high we'd cheer their business acumen, or at least their good fortune (although some would they should have a punative capital gains tax as well). I fail to see the distinction here between the stock and the AR mags (but maybe that's just me).

The same rule holds when the LGS wants $150 more for a given item than an online source. The rejection of the ask price (i.e. the non-purchase) is a signal that the seller should rethink the price he/she wants the item to be sold. Should one find utility in supporting the LGS at that level of personal cost (i.e. paying a higher price for items to support the store), this is his/her choice and that's cool (as an aside, my personal limit in such choices is a $50 difference, at least on larger items - or sometimes the extra $5 on a brick of 22lr, or in that case maybe I've evaluated the cost of driving around more as higher than $5 - but again I digress).

All of the above stated, it seems that tossing about pejorative terms like "gouging" or "profiteering" just because somebody has realized (and acted on) the market price for their property doesn't seem to advance the discussion.

Actually, such an argument is actually not dissimilar than arguing that somebody doesn't "need" a 30-round mag for their AR and therefore shouldn't have one. I don't want/have any; that's cool for me. I'm not going to say that because I don't want such a thing that others are wrong for wanting one (or more).

I've rambled enough. Everybody have a blessed and happy Christmas.

 

[chris in va]

$600 for reloading components?? Good grief. Mine aren't anywhere near that. Heck a bag of 200 tips is around $22, primers $35 and powder is $25.

I don't know why people think reloading has to be expensive.

 

[eastbank]

why are you buying a ar-15 now? were you living in a cave so you could not see this comming. when i got my ar-15 colt light weight target and another flattop upper with heavy barrel for 1000.00 total,my gun shop owner thanked me for buying it as things were tight for him with all the mart-mart stores close by. so i,m not going to cry in my beer now that he,s making money as a matter of fact i think i,ll go down and tell him go for it,if you are late to the party you have to take the fat girls home. eastbank.

 

[taliv]

let's try to keep on topic and skip the 'gouging' conversation.

You are a machine! Thats 142+ rounds per hour. I can load about 50 an hour on my single stage.

yeah, dang. i don't load anywhere near that fast

 

[WALKERs210]

Guess I got lucky or had one of those rare times when I actually thought ahead. I stocked up on ammo over 1 1/2 years and have continued since. Also I shoot a lot of Black Powder so I purchased the dies for all the popular size, got the bottom feed melting pot, and stopped at a local scrap yard where I bought around 20 pounds of lead from roofing vent covers. One thing that I hate is to admit that my wife was right, around the first of the year she wanted me to buy all the components to reload ammunition. I passed on it because I thought I had more than enough to cover my bases. Not to say its not to late and it is a good idea to do so. Even if you only reload 20 rounds a week that's 20 more than you had before you started.

 

[Art Eatman]

Ammo costs will drop back to near where they were when the manufacturers catch up with demand. Not all the way back, of course, as manufacturers' costs keep going up. Materials, labor, transport and taxes.

Tying back to Billy Shears' post: "The solution to high prices is high prices." This goes along with the equally true "The solution to low prices is low prices."

When prices are high, more people get into supplying and the competition brings down the prices as demand = supply. When prices are low, people drop out of supplying; the supply drops to where demand may well come to exceed it and the prices rise.

Reloading? The equipment lasts beyond one's lifetime. The cost per round is less. The ammo is tailored to your own particular rifle. And it keeps you out of the beer joints at night.

 

[powder]

Given this, I think we'll see a glut of ARs on the secondary market within several months to a year. Also, as others have said, many of these purchases have been on plastic, and buyers remorse will set in after months of the AR laying under the bed in the box unused.

I don't think so-we have several thousand new users coming online and that si good.

First, they have to be able to FIND ammo.

 

[Coal Dragger]

I reload, so...don't care as much.