Yeah, well .....

It depends on the anatomy of them (the shortages).

I'm only 60 years old, so I don't know bout no coffee shortage (although I would FREAK if that happened).

There are forces at work (or "play") here that none of us are fully aware of.

For starters, I can't believe that the FTC approved Vista Outdoors buying Remington ammo. With Federal, CCI, and now Remington all under one roof, isn't that a 'monopoly' ?

Being spoon-fed daily footage of riots, and America's cities on fire by the "you know who" media, then hyped-up pandemics, etc., it's no wonder why there's a gun/ammo buying panic. I think they are many more forces at work today, than there were in say, 1968 when everyone thought America was breaking down, and on the verge of a civil war.

I honestly don't believe that this will pass. I hope it does, but I'm doubtful this time.

If/when it does pass, it would have been a huge opportunity to control 'price point', especially since it's al under one roof now (except for Olin/Winchester).

How many here kept track of the last .22LR crisis/shortage ? Right before the crisis, a 550 'Valu Pak' of Federal .22LR bulk ammo at WalMart was $17 and change.

After .22LR came back, it was about double at ~$30.

If 9mm (and/or .22LR for that matter) does come back, it will be almost double in price. Mark my words!

Monopoly? Hardly. Ever hear of Olin Corporation? By the way, they are back in the drivers seat at Lake City

Never heard of them ....


So what does that mean to me, in my quest for small pistol primers, and new pistol ammo ?

I saw that notice.

I hear how socialist we’ve become, , but we contract out running our big Lake City ammunition plant to Oilin, and Federal gets the boot.

The late seventies coffee shortage began, because of frost killing a lot of the 1975 crop in Brazil.

I was seventeen that year, and cared a lot more that gasoline had doubled from a quarter to fifty cents. That didn’t stop me from wanting muscle cars, but it killed the muscle car market. People bought Vegas and Pintos and all kinds of crappy little cars.

I was driving a 1974 Vega GT in 1978, when I moved my grandmother. I’d wrecked all my better cars, and by late 1976 people had adjusted to fifty cent gas, so my two year old Vega was cheap.

Coffee went as high as four dollars a pound can in 1977.

The coffee makers silently started fluffing up the coffee, or not filling the can all the way, and the three pound cans dropped to 40 ounces.

I’d have not noticed the shortage except in the spring of 1978 my grandmother, my girlfriend, the women of the welcoming committee, and my mother must have seen huge displays of big coffee cans on Buy Three For The Price of One specials.

The price of coffee really never, has fallen much for long, since the 1970’s coffee shortage.

The biggest metal Yuban can I have reads 36 ounces (2lbs 4 oz) and the latest plastic one reads 31 ounces (1lb 15 oz).

They’ve always cost about six to ten bucks, depending on the coffee market.

But you can buy all you want.

Capitalism produces all the good coffee and bullets you want.

You just have to pay the price needed to keep the merchants in business.

Not remotely close. Vista has about an 11% market share.

Olin makes both SPP and pistol ammo...........

Then I’ll ask the question another way. Ever heard of “Winchester”

11% of what?

US ammo production?

US shotgun ammo production?

US sales of ammo (shotshells plus metallic)?

US sales of shotgun ammo?

A report on firearms and ammunition manufacturing released in October by market research firm IBIS World indicated Vista Outdoor's market share stands at 8.4%. The report notes the company has divested its interest in firearms to concentrate on its ammunition lines which benefit from strong brand recognition and strict quality tolerances. The report predicts going forward Vista will see increased ammunition demand in the civilian market and in 2021 will see its market share increase to 9.4%.

That stands to reason with such small supplies available these days a higher demand is
created for (hopefully) the near future but , is there enough raw materials to meet this demand ?
Shipping and Transporting could be a missing spoke or Gov regulations in bringing it to the plants
that make it , might be a problem ? It's going to be a NEW world out there , hope for the Best !

My old dead pilot machinist inventor philosopher buddy Jack, back when he was alive, say 25 years ago, had his factory across the street from the back door of my office.

Back then your cell phone was in a bag in your car, and to get privacy to visit all you had to do was sit on the loading dock of Jack’s factory. Sooner or later one of our wives would come and fetch us, but we had so many good conversations back then, after work.

Jack was born in January 1920. He joined the Navy on December 8, 1941.

Jack said he could remember good times as a small child, then the desperation and despair of the Great Depression, but the Great Depression ended when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor.

Jack said that the older folks all thought the Depression would come back after the war ended.

Instead they knew property like never, ever before.

Jack pointed out, that the raw material and resources of the world were greater the day he was born, than then.

Capitalism is a mighty engine for prosperity for everybody, from lowest to highest.

Our government has spent more borrowed money fighting the Corono than they did the Great Depression and World War Two, combined, using constant dollars.

About the only resources we’ve depleted doing it, is primers and canning lids.

When this ends, there will be an explosion of pent up demand.

The capitalists have learned how to operate more efficiently just like they did when 16 million boys went off to war.

We will see better times, than before.

My old dead pilot machinist inventor philosopher buddy Jack, back when he was alive, say 25 years ago, had his factory across the street from the back door of my office.

Back then your cell phone was in a bag in your car, and to get privacy to visit all you had to do was sit on the loading dock of Jack’s factory. Sooner or later one of our wives would come and fetch us, but we had so many good conversations back then, after work.

Jack was born in January 1920. He joined the Navy on December 8, 1941.

Jack said he could remember good times as a small child, then the desperation and despair of the Great Depression, but the Great Depression ended when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor.

Jack said that the older folks all thought the Depression would come back after the war ended.

Instead they knew prosperity like never, ever before.

Jack pointed out, that the raw material and resources of the world were greater the day he was born, than then.

Capitalism is a mighty engine for prosperity for everybody, from lowest to highest.

Our government has spent more borrowed money fighting the Corono than they did the Great Depression and World War Two, combined, using constant dollars.

About the only resources we’ve depleted doing it, is primers and canning lids.

When this ends, there will be an explosion of pent up demand.

The capitalists have learned to utilize labor more efficiently just like they did when 16 million boys all needed uniforms and went off to war.

We will see a prosperity not seen since the end of WW2, after this Corono ends.

We thought that your phone was ringing off the wall and you were going to be too busy to hang around here.

Tomorrow morning we put on another secretary.

In the last few months, our doors have been locked and we’ve been forced, to do everything remotely.

The courthouses are either closed or open with severe restrictions, so we’ve learned to do all our filing and even some hearings online.

Since we no longer are bound to the office, we calm clients at home in the evening. It’s surprising what you can do over the phone, or Zoom.

Jack kept a huge crew of workers making wore marker balls out of fiberglass, the same way he made boats in Arkansas.

Today his son sells about twice the number of product Jack did.

About half of Jack’s orders were customs. His son has an online catalog and the customers pick out a selection from a huge variety of clamps (the only difference between round balls clamped to power wires, when you think about it) and then the size and color ball they want.

Most are still the 20” blaze orange standard ball.

His son has a guy hired to watch the vacuum molding machine make balls, and help load product.

The business world has already changed because of the Corono, but people and lack of resources have not.

Jack used to muse about how the same idle factories in 1934 were running full tilt in 1928 and again full tilt in 1944. Almost all the product they made in 1944 was worthless in 1946, what hadn’t been used up or blown up during the war.

Capitalism really works, because of ever increasing productivity and ever increasing consumer demand. There are plenty of natural resources, to make into battleships or guns or airplanes or pressure cookers or reloaders, whatever is in demand. People demand things when they have money to spend.

Our government has borrowed and spent over four trillion dollars in the last year.

https://www.usdebtclock.org/

If the government only borrows and spends half that this year, it will still amount to about a couple of World War Twos.

What happened after WW2 was prosperity beyond anybody’s wildest hopes.

It should happen again, only more so.

By this time next year all the airports, restaurants and movie theatres will be packed, and we’ll be able to buy all the primers and canning lids we want.

I have several hours of phone appointments, but right now I have 59 6.5 x 55 Swede cases to trim.

There is more to this situation too than just the factories and levels of production versus consumption.

Though we all may have brand preferences and loyalties, we aren't buying directly from Federal or Remington or Winchester etc. The produced ammo passes thru several hands and accounting systems before we see it. Every set of hands also involves logistical time in warehouses, repacking and trucking to the next destination. I can picture in my mind countless truckloads of assorted ammunition in distributer warehouses, cross docks and in truck boxes.

Also, as much as I don't like being a conspiracy theorist, there is some logic that this current and the past shortages is good for the distributers in that with heavy demand as it is and the real or perceived shortage that a price correction can be implemented and accepted. We have all seen evidence of a measurable increase on many things during the pandemic and target ammo and other ammo like handgun has increased quite a bit. An opportunity to come out of this with high demands and enhanced margins for the survivors of this mess can't be unattractive to these businesses.

In most things in life, there are eventual corrections. Some favor the consumer and many don't.

My wife was a manufacturers rep until the manufactures decided to eliminate the middle men. Maybe it's time for ammo makers to sell directly to end users.

here it is almost 4 months later, still no ammo on the shelves. He's a liar!

It's going SOMEWHERE; their 28 gauge ammo is on the shelves at Academy

My local Field and Stream has had 12 and 20 ga Federal blue and white box shells in 7-1/2s and 8sin great quantiles for a couple months. The price as increased from 6.99 to 7.50 to 8.99 currently

They do. I have bought straight from Federal in the last month. Check their website. Add to cart. Ship to home.