I swore I wouldn't buy any at these crazy prices, and for the most part I haven't. I was pretty well stocked before this all began a year ago. Then, a month ago, I was able to pick up what amounts to a grail gun, a Winchester 1886 in .45-70. However, not having any other .45-70 guns, I had zero ammo for it. It took a while and some patience for some to become available, but it did and I bought two boxes of it at $2.50 a round plus shipping. Finally got a chance to go out and shoot it today. Worth the price of admission, but this will definitely be a rifle I'll be reloading for. I'm good on powder and primers and found some brass last week, it's supposed to arrive here tomorrow. Bullets are the problem, I have some hard cast ones on order from a couple of places but no idea when they'll ship. Anybody have a source for some .458 300 or 400gr JSP's?

I haven't bought much ammo recently, as my inventory is pretty good. I now can survive a fairly extended run of high prices without issues.

Last week I sold some of my excess shotgun clays ammo to people at the office. Sold the boxes at my cost from a few years ago, so they were pleased. The cost was well below market prices.

Last week I found a couple of bricks of .22lr Wolf Match Extra at a reasonable price on the web. The supplier had 3 bricks. I could have been a pig and purchased all 3. By the time I printed my receipt, the other brick sold and inventory was 0.

I'm still shooting my rifles, as competition season is just getting rolling. Thus between practice and matches, my general inventory levels will likely fall for awhile. At least until prices decrease a bit.

IMO the good news is that retail inventory is showing up more and more. Weekends aren't the best time for options to buy. But ammoseek.com has some options. Moments ago, 211 offerings for 5.56 and 262 offerings for .223 ammo. That's a start. This reminds me of the off-and-on panics of 5-13 years ago, however this time I've seen a lot more offerings for quality varmint and match ammo from the internet retailers. IIRC, roughly 11-12 years ago I purchased 223 ammo of a bunch of types, one or two boxes at a time, whenever I could find some. Now I can sit back and say "yes" or "no", and generally purchase in quantities of 10 boxes at a time.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:

IMO the good news is that retail inventory is showing up more and more. Weekends aren't the best time for options to buy. But ammoseek.com has some options. Moments ago, 211 offerings for 5.56 and 262 offerings for .223 ammo. That's a start. This reminds me of the off-and-on panics of 5-13 years ago, however this time I've seen a lot more offerings for quality varmint and match ammo from the internet retailers. IIRC, roughly 11-12 years ago I purchased 223 ammo of a bunch of types, one or two boxes at a time, whenever I could find some. Now I can sit back and say "yes" or "no", and generally purchase in quantities of 10 boxes at a time.

I'm seeing more and more ammo in gun stores all the time. Prices are still high, but it's available if you want it.

Long term gun owners not replenishing at higher prices, many of us heeded the advise of buy low stack high when it made sense.

One thing we have to remember for ammo companies, they are not going to invest millions in new equipment to meet demand during these times, it would be foolhardy to put $10 million into a new plant for demand that most likely will ease in the future.

Conspiracy aside, it's most likely the millions of new gun owners, who, see current prices as normal prices, hoarders, and opportunists who buy up retail ammo to sell at markup...

Nothing new...

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Long term gun owners not replenishing at higher prices, many of us heeded the advise of buy low stack high when it made sense.

One thing we have to remember for ammo companies, they are not going to invest millions in new equipment to meet demand during these times, it would be foolhardy to put $10 million into a new plant for demand that most likely will ease in the future.

Conspiracy aside, it's most likely the millions of new gun owners, who, see current prices as normal prices, hoarders, and opportunists who buy up retail ammo to sell at markup...

Nothing new...

If the numbers of new shooters/gun owners from last year are correct at 7 million, the math is staggering. If each shooter bought just 2 boxes of ammo, the increase in consumption would amount to 700 million more rounds. Up until a few weeks ago my local indoor range was busting at the seams with shooters that appeared to have no issues buying and shooting 9mm at $40 per box.

I can find ammo online and locally for approximately $700 per case. While it is available, it is also still selling at that price. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday our local Academy stores have 100+ people lined up starting about 7am to buy ammo. This is going to be a long haul endeavor I am afraid given the current state of our country.

There is a bunch of Russian steel case online, that’s a good sign. People are comfortable enough to pass on that now. And it looks like it’s slowly working it’s way down in price. I’ve managed to get some brass case at $25 for 50 9mm. That’s higher than I want it, but it’s my trigger to buy so I can shoot a little. Definitely not buying 1000s at that price

Prices are coming down, and availability going up, a little.

I'm not purchasing any.

Especially not from those profiteering off the present market. Fuck them.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
Prices are coming down, and availability going up, a little.

I'm not purchasing any.

Especially not from those profiteering off the present market. Fuck them.

I agree 100%. I'll shoot what 22LR I have on a limited basis but I'm not buying anything at current market prices.

I'm paying the current prices to practice, attend matches and train. I probably have enough stacked for the next 4 months doing the above three things but will replenish when needed. Having said that, if factory new ammo went above $1/round I'd start to curtail. It's already at .80 delivered. I don't reload.

Some of the folks I shoot with and reload are feeling the hurt unable to replenish primers.

Speculative value only, but I posted this link in the ammunition subforum, which may be appropro here... https://ammopricesnow.com/

I swore I wouldn’t, but found a blue label G20 this weekend and couldn’t pass it up. This being my first foray into 10mm and no large pistol primers to be found I didn’t have much choice so I bought three boxes. It’s not that much higher than 9mm at the moment, considering.

quote:

Originally posted by Dakor:
Speculative value only, but I posted this link in the ammunition subforum, which may be appropriate here... https://ammopricesnow.com/

The daily average price chart is somewhat useful... the hourly prices, not so much.

I ordered a thousand rounds of 9mm this morning for a wealthy friend. He doesn't care about the price, he just wanted it. I paid $550 plus shipping. The last thousand I ordered a little over a year ago was $250 plus.

I am not ordering anything for myself. I did recently reload 1k rds of 9mm with components I have had for a long time.

So the night before last I was in the one and only big-box retailer in my town, who's name we shall not speak, and as luck would have it strolled through the sporting goods aisle. Much to my surprise, I look over to see they had a shelf full (looked like about 15-20 boxes) of Remington .22 500 rd. packs for $9 each, limit two per customer/day. That's 1000 rds. for ~$19.

Wound up back yesterday around lunch time...all gone. Clerk said he sold like 30 boxes. All in the span of about 18 hours with a 2 per customer limit. Wonder how much will wind up on-line for $60+ each.

The local general store *occasionally* has a case or two show up of common calibers show up. Maybe once ~6 weeks or so. 1 box/customer per day. It seems to sit slowly for a day or two, then apparently the word gets out, and the entire shelf is going in a day. They're not gouging (much). I've been able to snag a few boxes over the past ~ year.

Hopefully things will recover sooner than later...three LGS's/sporting good shops have shuttered in the past year...probably tough to stay open if you have no ammo to sell. If you couldn't buy gas, would you go buy a new car or any accessories?

$.02 worth,
Boss

I buy ammo on the internet. I had not placed an order in over a year. Had a lot on hand, so I have kept shooting, my neighbors give me some grief.

Placed two orders in the past week with these guys.

https://www.ammoshoponline.com/

Loverly blond Swedish ammo! Over twice what I used to pay, but ......