Ammo

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Dave

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Yesterday I was in town and needed to kill a little time. I went to a store that along with other things has the biggest ammo selection in town. Their rifle ammo display is over 6 feet tall and 20 feet long. They normally have a real good selection of the common calibers and half a dozen boxes for the less common to rare stuff. Yesterday there was a total of 10 boxes. There was 6 boxes of 300WSM, 2 boxes of 300 mag, one box of 28 Nosler, and one of 450 (?) Bushmaster. That was it.
A lot of empty shelf space. Over in the pistol ammo there was about 30 boxes of 9mm and nothing else. I bet that 9mm is gone in a day or two.
 
Same way around here. I went to the flea market a few times late fall and there were tables full of about anything you want at a high price. IMO as soon as it comes available hoarders grab it all up. Look for the next four years to get worse.
 
Unless you can get ammo or components for reload this might be a good time to move an unconventional caliber.
 
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.
 
Good video, thanks for sharing. Didn't say anything about Remington going bankrupt but the message was clear: People are buying guns like never before and they simply cannot keep up with the demand, even though they are working as hard - and safely - as possible.
Thanks, I stumbled on to that the other day. Remington bankruptcy is a sad thing at my house. I'm a huge Remington fan. From what I've heard, every part of Remington arms has been picked up by someone else with the exception of Remington Rifles.
 
I toured the Federal factory a while back. An interesting place, with some WWII fixtures still being used, and explosive stories around the ammo testing. Also some issues around workplace violence and suicides...
 
One of the interesting points about this store is that the odd stuff is all gone. This is not country where there would be many 35 Remington, 300 Savage, 303 British, or 30-40 Krag. Back in the fall there was 6-8 boxes of each of them. Now all gone. I know back before deer season there was only one box of 7x57 (my favorite deer rifle) left on the shelf, so I grabbed it. I didn't really need it but.......
 
One of our freezer beef customers is a retired State Trooper. He said he would keep an eye out for ammo supply. He called yesterday and got me 5 boxes of my 243 shells and 270 for my nephew. Have not found them available all year.
 
I shoot hunting calibers, not urban cowboy stuff. I bought a Lee press and dies for all my center fires two years ago. Have a supply of components. Haven't used it much, but it's there if I need to.
 
One of the interesting points about this store is that the odd stuff is all gone. This is not country where there would be many 35 Remington, 300 Savage, 303 British, or 30-40 Krag. Back in the fall there was 6-8 boxes of each of them. Now all gone. I know back before deer season there was only one box of 7x57 (my favorite deer rifle) left on the shelf, so I grabbed it. I didn't really need it but.......
No 35 Remington? Say it ain't so. I got 9 of them.
 
At the end of October there were 17 million guns sold year to date with expected 20+ million by years end. On top of that the rest of the active shooters and hoarders. That's just an insane amount of ammo to produce. personally shoot about a 1000-1500 rounds a year easily. If I can get ammo no one will sell more than 1 box per caliber so I've cut back to the minimum. Especially 9mm. I'm seriously thinking about reloading now.
 
At the end of October there were 17 million guns sold year to date with expected 20+ million by years end. On top of that the rest of the active shooters and hoarders. That's just an insane amount of ammo to produce. personally shoot about a 1000-1500 rounds a year easily. If I can get ammo no one will sell more than 1 box per caliber so I've cut back to the minimum. Especially 9mm. I'm seriously thinking about reloading now.
Everyone tells me that reloading supplies are hard to find also. Especially primers
 

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