I spent enough of my career in manufacturing to know that building excess capacity is a good way to shutter plants and layoff people in periods of low demand. As ammo consumers, we can either (1) act on our own, dealing with supply & demand cycles or (2) sit back and bitch.

I bought ammo and continued shooting throughout the Obummer years. There were periods where my ammo purchases decreased noticeably or I changed the calibers purchased & shot. My ammo inventory levels fluctuated up and down over time.

I shot rifles a lot over the past year. I purchased a lot of ammo in the past year -- mainly at prices that were equal to or only slightly higher than what they were two years ago. My inventory of 223 match-grade ammo is a good 2-3 times what it was a couple years ago. I added 6mm Creedmoor rifles to my shooting options this year. I now have enough 6CM ammo to shoot out one barrel, maybe two.

A few times each day I check an ammo search engine and a couple of distributor's sites for new product. When prices are good for the types I use, I immediately buy. Two weeks ago I got 400 rounds of Hornady 6CM ammo at a good price. One week ago I got 200 rounds of Federal GGM 223 at a great price. This week I got 400 rounds of Berger 6CM ammo at a great price. In all these instances the ammo sold out quickly -- sometimes in hours, sometimes in minutes. It seems more distributors are limiting the purchase volume for a given day. I took the entire supply of that Berger ammo this week.

It's our choice -- take action, or gripe from the couch.

Ok, so if you shoot specialty match grade stuff you can still find ammo every now and then if you're glued to the internet and don't have a job that requires 100% of your atention. Gotcha .

I don't have the luxury of working from home like 90% of the world seems to be doing these days, or even from a desk. I can't get through typing a complete report without getting called away to go deal with somebody's stupid behavior, and I can't exactly tell the victim to hold on a minute or stop doing CPR on grandma when my phone dings to tell me that the latest batch of ammo is back in stock.

I get it, I could have bought more. This is all my fault for not preparing. And now it's my fault for being lazy and not catching stuff when it's in stock. .

I reload. I had over 10,000 rounds of loaded ammo when this all started a year ago, and components for 10,000 or so more. It's not like I just had a couple of boxes set aside and thought I was good. I bought more ammo and components in 2018 and 2019 than ever before. But how much is enough? How long should we prepared to literally see nothing on the shelves? I have a wife and 4 kids to provide for, and I'm not made of money. I have private school bills to pay, and a mortgage. I bought what I could when I could...probably more than I should have, as there were times I felt guilty spending so much of our limited budget on components. And it still wasn't enough. I'm still buying powder and bullets when I see them at decent prices in preparation for maybe someday finding primers, but until I do, those are worthless.

I'm not out yet, but I've had to cut back on what I'm using because I don't know when I'll be able to replace it, and I don't like that at all. Yes, consumers knew this was coming. But so did the manufacturers...they've been through the same cycles. I get that they don't care about our problems...that has become blatantly obvious, especially for those of us out in the sticks that don't live next to large distributors. But you'd think that they would want to capitalize on the current demand by being able to fill it....or if they're not willing to make that investment, someone else would. The oil and gas industry deals with the same issues in the market...yet the gas stations stay open and supplied. And yeah, frequently they have to shutter manufacturing capacity and people get laid off until demand picks back up again. It's the cost of doing business.

But the ammo industry apparently doesn't share these responsibilities. Instead of looking at the repeated spikes in demand over the past decade and preparing to deal with future similar situations, their solution is to blame consumer panic, which is driven by their own inability to meet demand. I guess it's their perogative if they want to leave money on the table by not having enough product to sell when the demand is there, but it seems like a lousy way to run a business.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
The oil and gas industry deals with the same issues in the market...yet the gas stations stay open and supplied. And yeah, frequently they have to shutter manufacturing capacity and people get laid off until demand picks back up again. It's the cost of doing business.

But the ammo industry apparently doesn't share these responsibilities. Instead of looking at the repeated spikes in demand over the past decade and preparing to deal with future similar situations, their solution is to blame consumer panic, which is driven by their own inability to meet demand. I guess it's their perogative if they want to leave money on the table by not having enough product to sell when the demand is there, but it seems like a lousy way to run a business.

One thing very different with the oil and gas industry is that no matter how much the greenies try to vilify oil, for the time being, it is absolutely needed by everyone. There is no worry that tomorrow the government is going to limit gasoline purchases to 10 gallons per week. Sure some people might want that but there are nowhere near enough people for such legislation to be passed.

It’s not the same with guns and ammunition. The firearm and ammunition industry is constantly under attack and there is a much higher probability of severe legislative restrictions. While there might be no chance of a 10 gallon per week limit on gasoline purchases there is, at least on a state level, a very real possibility of ammunition purchase limitations being legislated. Anti gunners have literally floated bills that would limit ammunition purchases to 100 rounds per month. While the likelihood of such a draconian measure passing seems fairly low now, with every mass shooting we come closer to some type of restriction. Even a small restriction could make ammunition manufacturing very difficult for some companies. Also, unlike gun manufacturers that could always turn CNC machines that currently make guns into CNC machines that make golf clubs or car parts or something else, ammunition loading equipment has virtually no other purpose. So it really is very difficult for ammunition manufacturers to justify large investments in huge manufacturing capability increases. Investment in incremental production increases is obtainable and absolutely happening now, but just bringing whole new plants with huge production capacity increases online is just not likely to happen. Ammunition companies rightfully fear for making longer term investments because legislation changes could make such investments literally cause bankruptcy for those companies.