Ammo and Guns

[oldballs]

I just did my monthly shopping at Walmart. As I passed the guns and ammo dept, the shelves were empty. That's probably not news to many of you, but it sure puzzled me . I did not need any ammo etc. and am glad of that. Are things really that crazy now?

Cheers,
Mike

 

[k0ua]

Yes...

 

[MossRoad]

I was in a Walmart in Stillwater, OK last Saturday and they had about half a dozen shotguns and a few what looked like .22 rifles. There were 4 boxes of 100 .22 ammo and that was it. So that's 4 boxes more of .22 than I'd seen anywhere for the past 6 months. I didn't need them, but was tempted to buy them like toilet paper last year. Anytime we'd see that stuff we'd grab a pack. It was like gold.

 

[Jchonline]

Yes nuts. With the pandemic and rioting we ended up with about 7 million new gun owners in the US (ppl that never previously owned a firearm). Ammo is 3-5 x normal prices.

 

[zzvyb6]

Dollar Store owners trying to save them from peaceful protests.

 

[fatjay]

In case you've been living under a rock, ammo shortage going on right now. 20 million new gun owners, combined with primer and powder shortages have prices out of this world. I was paying $30 for a box of 5.7x28, now it's $200. 9mm was 15 cents a round, now it's closer to 50 cents a round.

I was shopping for 30-06, but this was the only thing I could find:

 

[the old grind]

Supply and demand. Do we think nobody in the ammo industry ever had a day off due to the pandemic or lack of supplies on their end? Cars/trucks aren't being built because of chips shortages and we think such can't be a problem elsewhere? Primer, powder, and brass are as vital to ammo makers as they are to we reloaders. If they can't get their stuff how can we expect to get our ammo or components?

btw, while companies are running full out to fill high capacity magazines and fulfill military orders .32-20 or .375 Win might not get a 'changeover' in the plant(s) any time soon. There isn't a machine or line for every caliber.

 

[dodge man]

Yes, huge shortage. I’ve been looking for some 380 ammo lately, can’t find it. If you can find it I have seen most high performance ammo, rifle or pistol knocking on $2 a round. Part of its like the toilet paper thing, people buying way more than they need.

 

[sea2summit]

Yes, huge shortage. I’ve been looking for some 380 ammo lately, can’t find it. If you can find it I have seen most high performance ammo, rifle or pistol knocking on $2 a round. Part of its like the toilet paper thing, people buying way more than they need.

How do you judge how much toilet paper I need? Just curious.

But, for the OP. Yeah, it's been a crazy ~16 months for ammo. Normal pre election jitters, Covid a lot of people went shooting with free time, Covid created supply shortages, Covid created some preppers who decided they needed to put some away for later, riots drove a lot of new gun ownership sales (6.5-9 million new gun owners who never owned a gun before even if they only get 100 rounds a piece that's about 100 million rounds of ammo needed on top of normal demand), election went against guns, new leadership against guns. Not a political post, just saying all those facts happened and it created a literal perfect storm on ammo demand with no end in sight.

On the bright side, Remington is coming back online and some other manufacturers added shifts which is pumping out a ton of ammo and if you shop for it (and are willing to pay the asking price) ammo is mostly available. C

 

[dodge man]

A “normal” amount of TP. I don’t know how much you need, but I saw people at our grocery store with a cart full of nothing but paper products before they started limitations. The same thing is happening with ammo. Out local farm store has a limitation of one box of ammo now.