Why don’t factories ramp up production? Obama was elected in November. I suspect they are using this to ramp up the price or will do so.
Lee Precision has doubled the size of their factory and are running full steam.
I’ve read several articles that say the ammo manufacturers are running their factories 24/7, but still can’t keep up with demand. I even heard that on the radio news a couple of weeks back.
"Why don’t factories ramp up production? Obama was elected in November. I suspect they are using this to ramp up the price or will do so." They claim that they ARE at 100% capacity, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. If I'm running a factory, and we have a spur in demand, we will have overtime to meet demand.
The 'serious' part of the equation is "Does a factory invest gazillions to increase capacity to meet the current demand?". Given the minimal profit in ammo, is this demand going to last another 30 days, or 6 months, or the foreseeable future? I'd hate to expand my factory, and then see demand drop to levels seen last year.
The first thing my powder supplier said as I walked into the gun show Saturday, "I didn't bring anything you ordered." He went on to say that Hodgdon can't even get containers to package and ship their products. It looks like the entire supply chain has been stressed beyond capacity.
Have you spoken to any of them? Because factories like Winchester, Remington and Federal are running 24/7.
Reloaders like Precision and Georgia Arms are at a dead stop... Why?
Because they can’t get components to fill existing orders.
Normal market for ammo is 2 - 3 Billlion rounds per year. We bought 1.5 Billion in December, ‘08. The factories are running full tilt but may not expand production due to political risk.
Save your brass.
They have, they are runnig mulitiple shifts. They may not want to increase *capacity* because they feel (1) The Surge in demand won't last, and (2) Obama et. al. may "obsolete" their production equipment with new requirements for "green" ammo, microstamped cases and bullets, etc, etc.