This Whole Ammo Shortage Thing by the Numbers

Ammo Land ^ | 6/26/13 | Alan Korwin

[Nachum]

PHOENIX, AZ --(Ammoland.com)- I haven’t seen anything that suggests foul play of any kind, to me, it’s strictly supply and demand, and it shows you what panic in a market looks like.

Rationing and price spikes are the result of demand far outstripping supply.

Sure, government ammo purchases should give you pause, it’s the reason we’re all armed.

A trusted source provided this:

“Take for example .22LR ammunition. The industry as a whole (all manufacturers combined) is setup to produce 4,200,000,000 (4.2 Billions) .22 LR annually. That is running all the machines, full capacity all the time, all manufacturers together.

There is NOTHING they can do to produce more.

That corresponds to 230,137 cartridge per State per day, which is 460 bricks of 500 .22lr per day per State. That means that if less than 50 people per day in each State are buying 10 bricks of .22, it is enough to dry up the entire supply as it is being manufactured.”

News from ammo makers seems OK too, but it’s right to be wary. Trust but verify. How do you do that?

If you don’t have ammo, you’re stuck in a high market. If you’re like many Americans, you’ll comfortably ride this out until the market corrects.

[Chode]

space for new equipment is prolly part of the problem in existing plants also

[FreedomPoster]

That’s part of the equation. Floor space, production machinery, upstream suppliers, it take a lot to make new capacity happen, and all of it takes time.

[Cuttnhorse]

I plead “Guilty” as well...I have a Sig in .40 S&W that has a drop-in 357Sig barrel, which I haven’t shot in a couple of years. Last time I was in Sportsman’s Warehouse I bought 4-boxes of 357 Sig just because it was the only ammo in the entire store...all 4-boxes!! They haven’t had any ammo for about 8-months now. Same with the local Wallyworld.

Interestingly, my Sportsman’s Warehouse did have a small number of scary black guns and I picked up a Colt M4 for slightly over what they seem to normally go for. A nice rifle.

[husky1]

one of my Distributor Reps {jerrys SPorting goods} told me there normal Volume of rim fire Ammo is 250,000 500 round BRICKS Nation wide [not boxes } A WEEK !!!!!!!!!!!! . There sales on 22 ammo is down not up 60% for 2013 so far because they cant get the stuff FROM ANY MANUFACTURER !!!!!

[Nachum]

But there are still ammo sales?