I recently received a newsletter from Home On The Range, a local gun shop, explaining the reduction in inventory:
Inventory has been extremely hard to replace this year because of Covid, an election year, the riots and finally the failure of some our manufacturers. Most factories are operating at 60-70% capacity because of Covid, and we have product demand somewhere around 300%. We have over 6 million first-time gun buyers this year and the system has really been strained just with their purchases. Then Remington declared bankruptcy. They had stopped making primers for the public and were using them in their own ammo. Then they sold all their ammo to raise cash, but in the end, it wasn't enough and a great old company failed. Taking Remington's ammo sales out of the mix this year was a huge blow from which we have not yet recovered. Federal Ammo bought the ammunition part of Remington and they are trying to get the Remington factory in Lonoke, Arkansas back up and running. They have rehired 400 of the 700 people Remington was employing before they went broke, but now Federal has ammo backorders totaling over 1 Billion dollars. Billion with a "B"! Most people think it will be a year to a year and a half before "normal" becomes normal again.
That said, we still are getting in guns, although we cannot just order what we need. We have to rely on our suppliers to parcel out firearms as they become available, so our inventory is lower than any time other than our first two years, both in ammunition and firearms. On the other hand reloading is exploding, and while primers are almost non-existent, we have reloading machines, powder and projectiles and their sales are going strong. We have more first time reloaders than I have seen in my lifetime. Optics are available, but not consistently, and ammunition is in very, very short supply. If you need a particular cartridge and we don't have it, please buy it when you find it elsewhere. We appreciate your support, but take care of your needs when you can.