I think the ammo drought is over

[Ed Anger]

not gonna happen

Something is thwarting the basic law of supply and demand and it won't go away. The market can handle new gun buyers, prices for materials, etc. Production takes little time to satisfy demand. What it can't handle is government intervention.

 

[Biggfoot44]

Yes , as the overriding big picture , Free Market and supply & demand is highly efficient .

As we discussed extensively at the start of this panic cycle , ammunition production isn't totally elastic. . Once the existing producers essentially reach capacity working three shifts further increase requires quantum leaps .

To open new production lines takes significant time , and major $$$ . The risk is that once the new lines/ facilities get up & running , the normal panic cycle will have moderated , the extra lines not needed , and they're holding the bag with big debt , or lots of capital tied up being unproductive .

 

[Ed Anger]

Sir, you have great wisdom and are probably right, however, it sounds a bit like inflation. There are buckets of proximal and distal causes for inflation that forget that only one thing can cause inflation and that is the printing of additional money... The market works a lot faster than the ammo shortage would suggest.

 

[MTplinker]

I look at this Consumer Price Index inflation graph since 2000 and wonder how ammo prices would look (maybe 9mm, 5.56, 12 ga for example) compared to the commercial goods like TVs and cell phones.

If you look you can see the sharp inflation spike on the right for goods like clothes and cars.

In the longer term, economists explain that goods with less government regulation had decline in prices. Hmm, I wonder if ammo is heavily regulated?

 

[Pinecone]

I look at this Consumer Price Index inflation graph since 2000 and wonder how ammo prices would look (maybe 9mm, 5.56, 12 ga for example) compared to the commercial goods like TVs and cell phones.

If you look you can see the sharp inflation spike on the right for goods like clothes and cars.

In the longer term, economists explain that goods with less government regulation had decline in prices. Hmm, I wonder if ammo is heavily regulated?

Except it also shows hourly wages are up by a similar amount as the overall inflation.

So the numbers are up, but buying power is similar.

But they show new cars as flat, and we KNOW that is not true. Maybe MSRP is flat, but not actual selling prices.

 

[KRC]

"But they show new cars as flat" ???

Looks (to my aging eyes) like a sharp increase beginning in ~2021.

 

[gwchem]

Looks like Obamacare didn't change costs, as promised.

How nice that TV's are cheaper, while childcare is drastically increased. Kinda explains what's wrong with the kids.

I see that anything service related tracks with salaries, while goods are immune because we use cheaper overseas labor.

 

[Nickberg500]

Looks like Obamacare didn't change costs, as promised.

How nice that TV's are cheaper, while childcare is drastically increased. Kinda explains what's wrong with the kids.

I see that anything service related tracks with salaries, while goods are immune because we use cheaper overseas labor.

Free market baby. Nationalizing/tarriffing anything is bad for price, and discourages free trade of our goods and services to other countries.

 

[delaware_export]

Or things that are optional, and a customer can walk away from, are things that keep price pressure on.

Things that are less flexible and more human labor intensive, or provided in the higher cost labor markets , are not effected, or don’t go down as much or as often. And this explains China. And other places. The Cheap(er) labor where high tech manufacturing isn’t directly offsetting production line costs.

I can get by with the 200$ 40” vs the 2000$ 70” tv, or just use my computer screen which I already have for work and get neither.

Let’s face it. New air Jordan’s (or some other $$$brand) for $200, NO! I’ll take the cheap new balance ones for 40 on sales at khols.

Goto the hospital for a lot of money, or you’re gonna die… unless we treat cancer. Or the 500$/mon med. you’re gonna spend the money… or go home and wait for death. Or heart attack.

The regulations and edicts of .gov surely contribute to cost, but it’s not optional care. The one that gets involved here is the mandatory treatment for people who can’t pay. They argue they increase price on everyone to cover.

Same with college/technical educational expenses. To some extent, you may shop price, but when an education is a pretty big part of long term success, folks will make the choice to spend the money on education, their kids or themselves

An interesting study on the education thing would be if schools separated the “core” classes from the forced electives. How many people going for advanced technical degrees would bother with some of the ?ridiculous? Liberal arts classes.

Would advanced physics classes and womens studies cost the same $/credithour? Or any other nonsense course unrelated to their educational objectives.

 

[lazarus]

Or things that are optional, and a customer can walk away from, are things that keep price pressure on.

Things that are less flexible and more human labor intensive, or provided in the higher cost labor markets , are not effected, or don’t go down as much or as often. And this explains China. And other places. The Cheap(er) labor where high tech manufacturing isn’t directly offsetting production line costs.

I can get by with the 200$ 40” vs the 2000$ 70” tv, or just use my computer screen which I already have for work and get neither.

Let’s face it. New air Jordan’s (or some other $$$brand) for $200, NO! I’ll take the cheap new balance ones for 40 on sales at khols.

Goto the hospital for a lot of money, or you’re gonna die… unless we treat cancer. Or the 500$/mon med. you’re gonna spend the money… or go home and wait for death. Or heart attack.

The regulations and edicts of .gov surely contribute to cost, but it’s not optional care. The one that gets involved here is the mandatory treatment for people who can’t pay. They argue they increase price on everyone to cover.

Same with college/technical educational expenses. To some extent, you may shop price, but when an education is a pretty big part of long term success, folks will make the choice to spend the money on education, their kids or themselves

An interesting study on the education thing would be if schools separated the “core” classes from the forced electives. How many people going for advanced technical degrees would bother with some of the ?ridiculous? Liberal arts classes.

Would advanced physics classes and womens studies cost the same $/credithour? Or any other nonsense course unrelated to their educational objectives.

In my experience, those electives are pretty darned important. I wish colleges actually required more English classes. I know my skills in writing are well above average, but one of my biggest annoyances with work is how much time I have to spend "helping" and correcting people's writing. This is for people with white collar jobs, college degrees and generally a decade plus of experience. But what they really need is to spend a few weeks (or months!) on some business writing classes.

That said, the downside you'd have is that the more technical and science related classes, the things you'd likely consider "more important" cost a LOT more for the university of college to teach between facilities, faculty costs, etc. So if you really paid per class what the class costs were (or at least the relative cost differential), you'd likely end up paying roughly community college prices at a big university for things like women's studies and history. And you'd be paying 2x what you are now for degrees like Physics and Computer Engineering.

Not that it is necessarily a solution, but IMHO what more people should be doing is starting their degree at a community college and then transferring. Take a lot of those elective classes local, living at home and at much lower cost, before focusing on the core course work those last 2-3 years at the big university.

My kids I am encouraging (and will likely force) them to take community college classes before they go to college. It helped with the COVID mess and home schooling my kids through a lot of it (they are back in school now). My oldest, who is 14 (and extremely smart), took a fundamentals of astronomy (for science majors) class last semester. He pulled in A in the class and really liked it. Total cost as a county resident? Just under $300. Settling back into 8th grade this spring I talked my wife out of twisting his arm in to taking another class, but over the summer we are going to have him take a class. Depending on how his freshman year goes, probably do the same for next spring (give him the fall to get used to high school). Even if he is only taking a class every summer, maybe the occasional winter class that still sets him up for college with somewhere around a semester or a little more of college credit, for community college prices. If he mixes in a few extra classes or takes some AP classes in high school, he may end up with a year or more of college credit before ever starting.

That either gives him more flexibility when he goes to college, or saves us ~1 year of tuition in exchange for maybe $2-3k of community college.

Our younger kids we will be encouraging them to do something similar.

I got screwed when I was in high school with one of the classes I took because of how it was structured, the University I went to wasn't willing to accept the college credits from HCC because it was a class offered through the high school, taught at HCC for college credit (but it was high school students only, which is why the University wouldn't accept the credit). If I had just taken those C++ programming classes direct through HCC they would have given me the 6 credits. F-ers. But anyway, between taking one summer semester and AP credits going in, I graduated a year (and one semester less classes) early. That's having a real job a year early and saving a semester of tuition. Which even 20 years ago, was a BIG thing (and didn't help I went out of state).

 

[slsc98]

Just snagged 5,000 rds CCI Std Vel for $434 - that’s <9-cents ppr - delivered: https://images.kygunco.com/22/22_on_22.html

 

[Jimgoespewpew]

yeah but at what prices?

Exactly. Several shops by me now have stuff on the shelf and it is staying there because they have raised the prices to exorbitant levels. At 40 bucks for a box of 45 ACP they can keep that s***

 

[Ammo Jon]

Again I’m going to disagree. If you can find it for prices that aren’t hateful and you need I think it makes sense to stock up. Supply and demand at wholesale levels is still an issue.

 

[Ed Anger]

Privi Partizan 270 ammo can be had online for something like $1.06/round... Not great, but better than before

 

[Trepang]

The only .30 Carbine I can find is CMP and its not exactly cheap.
I'd love to hind some Hornady and American Eagle.

 

[gm1ll]

LGS I was in and talking to just last week was telling me they can't get anything in .44mag, which just happens to be what I need. I haven't seen any in stores either. If I do see it, the price immediately turns me away.

 

[SkiPatrolDude]

Ammo Drought ? Reasonably priced ammo? over priced ammo?
They could have ended the "drought" 1a year ago, raise the prices 300%,, no one would by any and the shelves would have been full.

Currently the shelves are packed because the ammo is still over priced. Lower the 9mm to 2019 prices ($9-10 box of 50 FMJ) and the shelves will be empty of 9mm.

Supply and demand,, ammo is just starting to "Sit" on shelves,, wait another 6 months when more suppliers are online or more imports materialize.
unless of course ammo manufactures cut back production

Oh what I would do for $8.99 boxes of Winchester White Box 9mm again.

 

[db32]

Yeah, I noticed I was able to get 38 special again after having trouble for a few months.

 

[Neutron]

Yeah, I noticed I was able to get 38 special again after having trouble for a few months.

At what cost? There's the rub....

 

[Variably1913]

+1 on prices need to come down