Yes, the explosion in gun manufacturing is good for the economy, but it especially good for the U.S. Constitution.
The ability for about any small size machine shop to be able manufacture weaponry is a big plus for staying armed.
The weak link isn’t arms though, its ammunition. Making cased ammunition from scratch is much more difficult than making the gun that it goes in.
Yep. Ignoring the chemical components, just stamping out the cases requires large and specialized machinery.
It depends on the ammo and how much you’re willing to spend.
For straight-walled cases (eg, a .45-70 or something similar for a black powder cartridge rifle), .45 Colt/.44-40 revolver rounds, etc... you can make your own cases quite easily with a lathe and a boring bar or pre-sized tooling.
There’s a guy over in Cody who has a tidy little business cranking out cases for obsolete chamberings from brass stock. They’re very expensive, but when you have a gun for which ammo is no longer made, they’re the only option, really.
With a CNC lathe, you can crank out hundreds to thousands of pieces per day.
And when you’re done making cases, you can make lead bullets by either casting or swaging. If you want solid copper pills, you’re back to the CNC lathe.