Why is ammo so scarce

With the way the incoming administration has acted towards guns in the past, I am afraid this is what we will be facing come January. This may not bring the good news you wished to hear, but hopefully it will shed some light on the situation as a whole. Our editors have hand-picked these essential pieces of gear to make you a more successful hunter when you hit the game trails this season. Give a Gift Subscriber Services. See All Special Interest Magazines. All Petersen's Hunting subscribers now have digital access to their magazine content.

This means you have the option to read your magazine on most popular phones and tablets. To get started, click the link below to visit mymagnow. Get Digital Access. Subscribe To The Magazine. More Articles From Ammo. The ammunition shortage of is staggering but manufacturers are putting out more ammo than ever before. December 31, By Joe Ferronato. Learn More. Sign Me Up. New 6. Is the. Richard Mann. Skinner Sights Gear Skinner Sights. Browning X-Bolt Mountain Pro in 6.

See All Videos. Digital Now Included! Buy Digital Single Issues. Despite many faults, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do not accept that manufacturers are in collusion to limit supplies, deprive us of ammunition, or raise prices to inflate their bottom lines. Quite the opposite: All traditional domestic ammunition manufacturers, joined by new suppliers and hitherto-unknown import brands are doing everything possible to increase supplies and get ammunition to us, the consumers.

This does not apply equally to all calibers. Oddballs that I shoot, like. Manufacturing is not without hiccups; there have been COVID-required quarantines, causing plant and production line shutdowns. This applies to almost all industries, and there are ripple effects. Few ammunition brands manufacture all four components of a metallic cartridge primer, case, propellant and projectile. When one component runs short, product is delayed.

Despite the challenges, by expanding production and adding new suppliers, ammunition production is up and is exceeding by millions of cartridges the quantities produced in previous years. And yet, shelves remain empty, and prices are skyrocketing to stupid levels. Must be a grand plan, right? The simple answer — demand. No industry can be prepared for a sudden, unprecedented, exponential increase in demand.

Even if manufacturers had seen this coming, preparation would have meant storing vast inventory — a very costly measure. Then, when demand returns to near-normalcy, the manufacturers would have to scale back, preferably without closing doors or cutting jobs. As well, manufacturers and dealers alike risk getting stuck with excess inventory that will need to be sold quickly and probably at a loss. Hunting buddy Gordon Marsh, a storefront and e-commerce retailer, tried patiently to explain some of this to me on a recent deer hunt.

The industry has done a pretty good job; estimates are that every manufacturer is up 30 to 50 percent. The reality is: No one can afford to have an extra, idle factory sitting around waiting for these scenarios. We get all kinds of nasty comments about how we should stop making T-shirts and make more ammo.

Despite huge efforts, there is escalating demand, there are shortages, and prices are soaring. Demand and shortages go together. There is a finite supply, which developed to meet typical demand.

Public concern is a major factor. An unprecedented number of new gun owners have joined our ranks. Ammo shelves are pretty thin and so are gunshop display cases, even the used-gun racks that I haunt. Reports suggest there are at least 7 million new gun owners! I see this as a good thing: Millions more voting-age Americans exercising their Second Amendment freedoms. Dan Morton who operates an ammunition service called Ammo Squared , theorizes that once gun owners had enough handgun and self-defense ammunition, they started working on building stockpiles for their other firearms.

Manufacturing During the Ammo Shortage Manufacturing had to take a step back at the beginning of the pandemic. Overseas manufacturing in countries with strict lockdown measures had to totally shut down, which especially affected primer production. And I am positive that all of our colleagues in this industry are doing the same thing.

Ammo Shortage Conspiracy Theories Despite what internet conspiracy theories claim, both Hornady and Federal have flatly denied that the companies are stockpiling ammunition for the government, selling only to wealthy individuals, or price gouging. Some theories are less outlandish. Morton wondered if the shortage of hunting ammunition has been caused by companies shifting production from less popular cartridges, like 7mm, towards screaming hot cartridges, like 9mm.

Davies admitted that there is some truth to this claim. Ammunition manufacturing machines produce only a limited range of sizes and lengths of brass and bullets. The machines that produce 6. In his video message, Vanderbrink held up a handful of.

However, Davies did admit that, since they make their ammunition to order, they prioritize the cartridges for which they have the most orders. If the same press can produce both. Production can be increased, but only to a point. When Will Ammo be Available Again? Everyone we spoke with predicted that the shortage will last well into and perhaps longer , but no one could say for sure. Both Davies and Oliva mentioned that the actions of the Biden administration will affect whether the supply can catch up to the demand.

If the administration is quiet on gun control, Davies envisions demand leveling off in the next 12 months to a point when ammo makers can start to catch up. If not, then this will drag out longer. Over 20 million firearms were sold in , breaking the previous annual record of As Vanderbrink pointed out in his video address, 8 to 10 million new gun owners will force ammo makers to come up with hundreds of millions of new rounds of ammunition. Morton suggests to try branching out to new calibers , for example.