How long before the ammo shortage dies down

[Special Ed]

It's not just ammo, guns as well. I don't understand why everyone is out of everything.

The wife and I were at Cabela's in Ft. Worth yesterday (and Monday) and guns were quite plentiful. I'd say that their shelves were fully stocked. This was everything from concealed carry handguns up to AR-10s and AR-15s. They had lots of powder and primers, shotgun shells and magazines too. They had zero .22LR, were woefully short of any pistol ammo and .223 and .308 were out of stock too (though they did have a bunch of .223 on Monday morning, it was gone when we went back Tuesday morning.....price was around the .41/round figure for 55 gr. FMJ quoted earlier in this thread).

Now...15 miles away at Bass Pro Shops in Grapevine (just north of DFW Airport), their gun shelves were better than our Bass Pro in Denver but nowhere near the Cabela's stock level (they had maybe 20 handguns total and half of those were SAA clones and other revolvers).

[RCCrawler]

The only other way, then, to increase capacity is to add new production lines, or upgrade existing machinery to do more or go faster. That takes money, lots of money, and time. Why on earth would an ammo factory add, say, $100M in new equipment in order to keep your price down, and when supply catches up to demand, they're sitting with expensive new machines to make more product than they need?

From the article davsel posted:

First, ammunition manufacturers have been running at or near capacity for at least 10 years. Some of their production is still earmarked for military contracts, even though the U.S. military’s presence overseas is being reduced. But the fact of the matter is most ammo makers have barely recovered from the last ammo-buying panic. Nobody who makes ammo has had it sitting around getting dusty on their shelves. They were barely able to keep up with commercial demand before the country went into panic-buying mode.

So running at capacity for 10 years before all of this happened isn't reason enough to ramp up and invest in more equipment?

[Sawin]

I could get overly analytical about my theory with this, but in short, I think IF the political discourse attacking 2A rights is at a peak right now (God I hope this is the worst of it), we should start to see improved availability within the year... I'll elaborate in a second. However, if further and new legislation or laws are pushed through restricting our rights more and more, it will just keep getting worse as far as the eye can see.

*Now cross your fingers* If nothing changes, or if the political environment lightens up on their anti-2A attacks, fewer "new" ammo hoarders will be joining the equation, more existing ammo hoarders will slow down their ammo purchases, and some of the folks who jumped on the bandwagon out of fear, peer pressure, and persuasion, will begin to liquidate at least some of their stashes....The truth is, it's a big "IF" and one can only hope.

[Cylinder Head]

Not to mention as we wind down things in the sandbox won't there be some decent surplus available?

[Rabid]

Not to mention as we wind down things in the sandbox won't there be some decent surplus available?

I doubt it. We can not buy US surplus and i do not think i have ever seen British surplus for sale. The rest of the country's may have some but they never really played a big roll in the war. The good news is there is more ammo made that will be available to the public now that the government has less demand.

They are making a lot of ammo but you have to realize every store in America needs to be restocked and that spreads out the supply pretty thin and on top of that people are still hoarding ammo. Even if you are not making a stockpile you are still going to be prone to buy more ammo then you did pre-panic because you are not sure it will be on the shelf next time you want it. It is a big negative feedback loop that is going to take some time to slow down and run its course.
I personally think, if nothing else happens, it will be over a year till you can reliably find ammo if you visit a few stores but i am sure there will be a gun run on the next election and it starts all over again.

[jgang]

Much will depend on the vote in the Senate this week.....if the assclowns vote "yea," then the trickle-down effect/message is "more gun control." The fact that it wouldn't pass the house (hopefully) is irrelevant as Americans are a fickle bunch who latch on the the right now and react vice applying reasoned thought. If the Senate votes "nay," I think that may be the beginning of an easing of the pressures in the industry and people will begin to feel a sense that things are calming and that they don't need to hoard as much. Of course, if His Highness invokes some kind of twisted take on executive powers, then the craziness will continue indefinitely. I'm hoping Sawin is right about folks liquidating stashes if things calm down, but, unfortunately, they'll be asking panic prices (as that's what they probably paid) until the retail market prices come down and they discover they're overpriced.....

[DavieD55]

It isn't going to die down anytime soon. More and more people are realizing they need ammunition. The shooting sports hasn't been this popular since 1776.

[Great-Kazoo]

12-18 months before seeing a 'reasonable" supply of ammo. price point?? who knows. As mentioned above, IF the .gov gets any stupider, don't expect to see ammo availability any time soon.
Component mfg's say 6 months to catch up. catch up to previous orders or get in sight the never ending demand for components?

[Firehaus]

I noticed cabelas in Kansas had more ammo on the shelves then Denver metro stores did. 223 was still scarce, but lots of 308 match and plinking on the shelves. Overall the shelves weren't empty at all like the stores here.

[roberth]

This is different than 2008-2009, so a year or more.

The last Tanner show people were selling Federal 550 round bulk pack at $110, now I'm seeing it on Armslist for $70 so that is a good sign. I don't know if it is selling at $70 though, people don't post how much they sold it for, just what they want.