Image 01 Image 03

Nation running out of ammo

Nation running out of ammo

Reaction to threats by Senator Dianne Feinstein and others to ban certain weapons and severely restrict ownership of guns generally has caused a run on gun stores, as is widely reported.

Less reported is the run on ammunition, leaving ammunition inventories down 93% since election day.

So reports Traction Control blog, Plunge! Ammunition Levels Less Than 10% of Pre-Election Levels:

Ammunition Stock levels have fallen by more than 90% from the pre-Election Day levels. Less than 10% remains available. Available Ammunition links will be updated throughout the day.

Handguns are down by 80%, Long Guns by 63% for an overall 72.2% reduction in firearms inventories.

AR pattern rifles are becoming particularly difficult to source.

Plunge902

In some locations, ammunition is hard to find:

Gun buyers in Houston have bought up the entire inventory of AR guns. It is not just the guns. The ammunition is sold out. The magazines are sold out, and not just the magazines that hold 30 or more rounds. Even finding a 10-round magazine is elusive. And ammunition? The smaller boxes of ammunition in the 223-556 calibers may be found, but not the larger boxes. Try calling Top Gun, Academy, Carter Country and other stores and you will get more or less the same answer: “We are sold out entirely, we have no idea when we are getting new stock in, and we have no idea what the pricing will be.” Even the online sites that deal in guns and ammo are now low on inventory as sales have spiked.

Investors are noticing what it will mean for ammunition manufacturers in 2013:

Right now, ammo is severely constrained in all major retail stores and online. Local checks by the author at multiple Academy Sports and Outdoors, (which is owned by (KKR), Walmart (WMT), and Dicks Sporting Goods (DKS) have all meet with the same feedback — gun sales, especially of AR-type weapons and pistols, are highly elevated, with some places being sold out of AR-type weapons. Ammo is scarce for popular rounds such as 9mm, .40 cal, .223, and 7.62×39.

Online stores such as cheaperthandirt.com are also sold out on many popular rounds. We had to go all the way to the 9th product page to find 9mm in a 50 round box for sale! …

Clearly, ammo is in high demand right now, and from our point of view, it has never been harder to find.

DONATE

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.

Comments

Get em while you can /sarcasm
The law of unintended consequences strikes again

      JackRussellTerrierist in reply to EBL. | December 29, 2012 at 5:09 am

      “As the nation debates whether more guns or fewer can prevent tragedies like the Virginia Tech Massacre, a notable anniversary passed last month in a Georgia town that witnessed a dramatic plunge in crime and violence after mandating residents to own firearms.

      Ads by Google

      “Must Reading” – RushTownhall Magazine – “Must reading for conservatives” – Rush Limbaugh Magazine.Townhall.com
      Top 10 Golf Swing KillersThese Faults Make It Impossible To Play Good Golf. Fix Yours, Today! http://www.RevolutionGolf.com

      In March 1982, 25 years ago, the small town of Kennesaw – responding to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill. – unanimously passed an ordinance requiring each head of household to own and maintain a gun. Since then, despite dire predictions of “Wild West” showdowns and increased violence and accidents, not a single resident has been involved in a fatal shooting – as a victim, attacker or defender.” …

      Read full story at http://www.wnd.com/2007/04/41196/#a7IxvJRq7Vte7jKl.99

      http://www.wnd.com/2007/04/41196/#1RVheYfoM6ZyhA9m.99

I see that Cabela’s (CAB)(and ammo) is undervalued.

Have you identified who you will need to use that ammo on in the near future? Or do you still believe that they are there to “serve and protect”?

MaggotAtBroadAndWall | December 28, 2012 at 8:19 pm

A non-stop run on guns and ammo since the election doesn’t seem like the behavior you’d expect from people confident about the next four years.

Maybe that “Obama mandate” the corrupt media has talked so much about is a myth, huh?

BannedbytheGuardian | December 28, 2012 at 8:21 pm

I read that theColt & Wesson was manufactured close to Newtown during the days when it won the wild west.

If so ,it leads to that nice wealthy area being the long term beneficiary of guns & mayhem &not a little bit of genocide at least until the Injuns got them some heat.

So perhaps Lanza was a. Cowboy & Indian Call of Duty type.

Or more likely he was a The Hunger Games believer . Interestingly the author of this highly influential young persons literature /film series lives in ……”

Sandy Hook.

Now why has this been overlooked as a cause /effect ? The series has very strong survivalist / tyranny themes gleaned from ancient Greek myths applied to a central power .It couldeasilyhave been DC vs the NE provinces albeit written under the Bush “Regime”.

I fully recommend reading it.

    I don’t know if you intended your statement to be so offensive, but if not, your choice of words could not be more sloppy. To murder children.. to intentionally plug them with multiple bullets to insure that they’re DEAD, to kill everyone he could see has NOTHING at all to do with any book or movie or video game. This was a barbaric act done at a school … a gun free zone where it is ensured 5 to 10 minutes of killing before a gun shows up.

    Nice to have an agenda and push it at every tragedy, huh?

      turfmann in reply to RobM. | December 28, 2012 at 9:53 pm

      Gauging by the sloppy typing, I think that “Banned” might have been indulging himself with some adult beverages whilst typing.

      It’s been a long week…

        BannedbytheGuardian in reply to turfmann. | December 29, 2012 at 12:36 am

        Hehe . Outdoors typing . I need a better pair of sunnies .

        I don’t know why the guy above is so upset – Adam Lanza did not just fall out of the sky. He had interests & Internet pursuits & quite likely spent a lot of time on them. I also think young men of 20 are obsessive .

        I am not buying he smashed his computer . A simple request to his Internet provider will get all his travels. They say he as smart . There has been no official disclosure of any mental disabilities.

        There are many traceables eg credit cards , Nancy’s emails , house contents.

        And to Mr Upset, not everyone is shocked into a stupor. Life goes on.

Cheaper Than Dirt has some bulk 5.56 back in stock and they’re the only place I’ve seen that does. This case, now $999, was $400 a month ago. Definitely a seller’s market.

    Sanddog in reply to Pablo. | December 28, 2012 at 11:18 pm

    Lake City isn’t bad but I wouldn’t pay a buck a round for it. Of course, that’s easy for me to say since I’ve got a couple thousand rounds in the garage.

    I made my bulk ammunition purchases this summer, figuring it would be better to stock up before the election.

      Pablo in reply to Sanddog. | December 29, 2012 at 8:57 am

      Yeah, a buck a round for 5.56 is ridiculous. A buck a round for bulk 5.56 is lunacy. But I’ll bet they’re getting it.

I went by Gander Mountain in Knoxville, TN today and the ammo section looked like a plague of locusts had hit it. There was hardly any handgun ammo. And Gander Mountain ammunition is very overpriced anyway!

Anyone needing ammo should check out this site to search for and compare price, shipping, and availability:

http://ammoseek.com/ Better yet, learn to reload.

Better still, join the NRA and find a local range to practice.

    nemesis43 in reply to KVertexo. | December 28, 2012 at 11:31 pm

    Right now the NRA is running a special. One year membership for 25.00 and you get a 25.00 gift card from Bass Pro Shops. I renewed mine today.

As in the desert where the best place for your water is inside you, the best place for the nation’s ammunition supply is in the hands of the civilian population.

This harks back to earlier when I made a point (not here) about the large purchase orders of ammunition by agencies that seemed unlikely to need those large a quantities.

I posited then that it was a move by the government to strangle the ammunition market to slow or impede the purchase by civilians.

Folks don’t understand that once a contract has been accepted by a vendor, they are under strict limitations and deadlines. Not meeting those quantity/quality deadlines can mean punishing fines above and beyond the value of the contract.

What this means is that the government orders may have to be filled before any stock is released to the public.

They may not have foreseen this particular situation but perhaps some bright spark did foresee the usefulness of limiting civilian access to ammunition without any EO’s from Obama or a law from Congress.

I know many say not to ascribe to intelligence what can be easily seen as stupidity or ignorance but in this case, I think it was intended.

    Lina Inverse in reply to jakee308. | December 29, 2012 at 11:00 am

    For a county who’s civilians buy more than 11 billion rounds of ammo every year, the Federal government’s non-military purchases are a drop in the bucket. For every million rounds the government purchases, imagine 1,000 civilians buying 1,000 rounds in bulk, which would be 5 trips to the range shooting a modest 200 rounds each time.

[…] THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Americans Buying Out Ammo Stocks. Ammunition inventories are down 93% since the election, […]

I’m much better prepared for this ammo drought than I was for the last one.

You would think that the industry would be ramped up after the last time. If so, then the shortages won’t last nearly as long. Here’s hoping.

    jakee308 in reply to Same Same. | December 29, 2012 at 5:42 am

    Understand that they’re as leery about any bans as the public is.

    However they can be caught with excess capacity or stock that they can’t sell if things go badly.

    Thus they have not ramped up production that would normally follow increased demand.

    Plus, in this case, it would actually work against them as now they are assured a market (for a limited and unknown time) and can raise prices while overhead remains low.

mmmm… perhaps it almost time to start swapping ammo for gold coins.

http://www.ammoseek.com has already been mentioned. Another is http://www.ammoengine.com and there are similar sites that can help with the search.

Me?

I’ve boatloads of pistol and main battle rifle ammo as I’ve been collecting Curio & Relics since the late 80s. I not only bought & traded firearms, but made it a point to buy ammo every month, as well. In hindsight, a good straegy.

But, to the point. In those years I’ve never seen the price of ammo go down, never. So learn the lesson – buy ammo (or reloading supplies) on a regular basis. Find a temperate location to store it and do so. Make it a habit and when shortages occur, you shrug it off.

Learn from this shortage.

Well, I have thousands of rifle and pistol primers, several caddies and canisters of various powders and lots of component bullets. I have at least one bullet mold per cartridge.

It’s just a crying shame that all of my firearms went to the bottom after my canoe tipped over in the deep part of the river.

    BannedbytheGuardian in reply to Peter6067. | December 29, 2012 at 2:05 am

    Not quite Neil Young’s Powderfinger but at least you did not drown going after them.

    Ps – kayaking is better for storage.

David Gregory joke:

A cowboy-themed young ventriloquist is touring the clubs and one night he’s doing a show in a small club in at a NBC News part. With his six-shooter clad dummy on his knee, the ventriloquist and his dummy start making media bias jokes, when David Gregory stands up, shouting:

”I’ve heard enough of your stupid right wing jokes! What makes you think you can stereotype journalists that way? Its guys like you, with their guns and their bibles, who keep people ignorant, foster violence and murder! You and your kind continue to perpetuate discrimination and hate not only against blacks and women, but teachers and unions! — All in the name of humor!”

Embarrassed, the ventriloquist begins to apologize, when Gregory yells, ”You stay out of this, asshole! I’m talking to that jerk on your knee!”

[…] Legal Insurrection has a great roundup of different investor sites who are somehow surprised that Americans are buying guns. […]

[…] Those who’ve been looking at guns for more than a week already know this, though some business types are late to the party, as Legal Insurrection notes. […]

I took my son, and my daughter’s boyfriend to a store called
“Guns and Ammo”. It was a private lesson on the unintended consequences of
governmental threats against the civil liberties of its people.
Well, to start with, the parking lot was not just full….it was bumper to
bumper parking not only in the store’s lot, but also on every side street
within 2 blocks of the store. Inside it looked liked Walmart on Black
Friday’s first hour. To say that the place was packed would be a disservice
to the word “packed”. BUT…it was the most genteel crowd you could
imagine. “Pardon me…Excuse me” was a common refrain, but with half the
crowd openly packing what do you expect?
What had been a wall full of AR-15’s behind the sales counter now looked
the part of a vacated area with only a hand full of rifles left. Yet, men
and women were lined up 5 deep buying other guns, ammo, and magazines. 
As I got up to the checkout to buy my 30rd PMags ($50 each, limit 3) I
mentioned to the guy behind the counter that they seemed to have quite a
“Christmas Rush” today…”Hell, you don’t need to be PC with me….this
ain’t no Christmas Rush, this is an Obama Rush”. Which it was. His other
statement was even more foreboding, as he openly expressed his fear about
all these new gun owners who had no idea how to shoot what they had just
bought. “There may be a thinning out period later”, I said. He nodded in
agreement.
As of yesterday , Walmart has sold out of guns in at least 5 states.
Probably more by today. This is a very telling confluence of events that we
are witnessing. People see their liberties taken away, and maybe by
purchasing a gun they are showing their common fear with their wallets.
I have begun to miss the America of my youth more and more. Maybe I am
just old and jaded. That’s what I thought about my Grandfather many years
ago when he would lecture me on our decadence and the dependence of
Americans on government.

[…] » Nation running out of ammo – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion […]

Somebody tell Feinstein that her bill isn’t necessary-with ammo being hard to find assault weapons can’t possibly be used.

Just don’t tell her that the ammo is missing because the riff-raff who didn’t vote for her or the little O already bought it.

Do you think the “price gouging” police will show-up in the future, worried about evil profiteering?

[…] So, are gun owners just laying down, ready to “take what’s coming to them”?  Hardly – they are arming themselves EVEN more if you look at the image (H/T: Legal Insurrection). […]

[…] Bad Guy” — is the Left now claiming that the Newtown massacre is a story about gun control, and that any other discussion is deliberately […]

BannedbytheGuardian | December 30, 2012 at 12:40 am

Another day & not a single bit of info coming out from the investigators.

Slip slip sliding away .

TrooperJohnSmith | December 30, 2012 at 1:59 am

I have a huge stash of 7.62 x 65, still in the Soviet/Russian, Czech and Polish packaging. It has appreciated faster than any other investment, especially since I bought most of it in the 1998-2002 time frame.

I love to buy American, but give me AK any day.

[…] that distrust and fear cause more to take this stand? Concerns are growing, and this is starting to have an Oathkeepers feel to it. Time will […]

[…] Nation running out of Ammo… Inventories down 93% […]