All the ammo in Wal Mart, Academy, etc. is gone.

John, either you are a merchandizer and hate the idea of the true price returning to haunt your purchases,
or you don't understand how our ecomony fixes itself.

We, as the consumers have the right to bitch.
In doing so, we can get some things done in our favor.

As such, once the market cools back down and sales drop, you can expect the stores to remove the limits so they can once again sell all remaining stock to a single buyer.


If this was the Russia I think you mean, you wouldn't have the right to bitch, let alone buy any ammo.

So, if you want ammo to reappear on the shelves ... and be affordable again...
Harass your local store owners and managers.
Tell your friends to do the same.
"Making the sale" may be a good thing, but if the customer base is neglected, it is bad business.

Here where I live, CDNN had bought up ALL the 223 ammo from BOTH our Walmarts.... ~$34,000 worth.
No kidding.

Enough of the public complained and the manager of the southside store has put a limit on quantities.
Now, here I sit with a box of 100 Federal 223, 55gr FMJ's, and the store has plenty more. $40 per box.
Sometime soon, maybe a week, they will be getting in several hundred cases of Fed 223 55gr JHP's in 200 round boxes.... $76+change per box.
 
Maybe you do not know how our economy works.

At the moment everyone with a manufacturing license is doing everything they can to run 24 hours a day at full production.

Everyone with the ability is manufacturing components.

People who have not reloaded in years or never thought about it before are starting again.

Our economy is diverting resources from other industries into ammunition production.

That is how the economy is meant to work, and it is. It takes time.

This is not just stockpiling. Everyone I knew who shot before November is shooting much more seriously and I know quite a few people who have picked up shooting in the mean time. There are more rounds going down range.

Any rationing program whether government or retailer instituted will mask the severity of the shortage.

I am sorry your panties are in a bunch b/c you can't find blazer 9mm to rapid fire at the range. Go a day without eating then think about your situation again. Will give you some perspective.
 
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New Shipments

I have a cousin that is a manager at a nearby Walmart. He said that many Walmarts are going to get a huge shipment of ammo tomorrow morning. Each store will have two to three double trailer semi's full of all the bullets you can imagine. The first fifty customers at each such store will get a 50% discount on their ammo purchase. Be sure to get up very early and be in line. The trucks will start arriving at 5:30am.

Don't tell to many folks about this. This is considered insider information and my cousin could get in a lot of trouble.
 
I am glad to hear about the limits posted at Wal Mart, and Sad to hear about CDNN doing the dirty deed of buying up all the ammo and selling it for a huge markup. I recommended CDNN to alot of folks, and now I regret it. I Will never buy another thing from those crooks again. I wouldnt be bothered if yall didnt either.
 
My point John, is this isn't stock piling by just consumers...
The stockpiling is being acerbated by merchandisers driving the prices higher than they should be. Much higher.

Think more along the lines of the housing market. Adding a patio and deck in your backyard for $5k should not increase the value of your house by $10k.
It's asinine.
And we, as buyers, can (and did) force a reset of values.

I'm not sure where your point lies in your statement tho.
Ammo manufacturers were already running at full production.
Because, during the declared war, there was a shortage of ammo. But not bad.
Now, we are still over there, and we get a new Pres... and all of a sudden the shortage is "TERRIBLE!" ?

How?
A minor rush on ammo was "picked up" by merchandisers, at the consumers expense. (i.e. you and I)
(edit: please note that the increase in price by merchandizers DOES NOT get back to the manufacturers pockets.)
Those of us that waited it out, and asked for a change, are about to reap all our rewards.
That's the way it is here in my part of Texas. And it can be that way where you are too.
How that can be a bad idea John is either beyond me, or over your head, ...or both.
 
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Any Luck

You wouldn't believe all the ammo I purchased this morning at WalMart. There was hardly anyone in line either. Hard to believe, espically being that it is the first of April.:D
 
In this situation walmarts role is no different than a distributor. The fact that stores are buying from them for resale is entirely irrelevant. I have had clients in retail doing this for years. Almost all my drive-throughs sell wal-mart pop.

If the plans for "The War On Terror" were more clear that would help us out. Manufacturers do not want to invest only to see that demand plummet.

I hope the present system keeps up. I got a GPO100 pretty cheap then had to go find some 357 mag to try it out. No problem. Went to the local gunstore paid 150% what I would have a year ago, but walked out of the store with 50 rounds to play with my new gun. Worth it.
"There was a guy from Russia who used to claim he was a 5. His reasoning was that his wife was a ten and at least twice as beautiful as him. It was true. Everyone knew it. Everyone wondered why this woman would date him. Since arriving in the US he had made quite a decent living, but she could have been with richer guys. He was no physical specimen. No particularly witty, funny, or easy to talk to. One night after spending a year with him as a colleague I had the guts to ask his wife while we were drinking at their house what it was that captivated her. Her response 'he was the best "queing" in (whatever town they were from).'
This guy had won his wife by organizing people to wait in line for rationed goods. Whenever there was a fur coat, he got one. Steaks, he got one. TV, he got one.

Like gun control or taxes, you can complicate the system as much as you want, but a shortage is a shortage and some people will be willing to play the games. Clouding the market with policies like rationing just exacerbate the problem.
 
Maybe you do not know how our economy works.
I know how the ammunition industry works.

If you're expecting the output of the ammo industry to expand until it eliminates the shortage you're going to be disappointed.

It's not a huge industry, and most of the time demand is relatively constant. Occasionally, for various reasons there are surges in demand. When that happens the industry has two choices.

1. Work longer hours and up output by several percent.
2. Expand (hire more workers, buy more expensive machinery, purchase more buildings & floorspace) and up output by a truly significant amount.

Guess which of the two options puts them in danger of bankruptcy if the demand surge turns out to be only temporary.

Guess which option the industry will take.

That means unless this panic-induced shortage lasts a long, LONG time there will be no truly significant increase in the ammo supply because it would be suicidal for ammunition manufacturers to pour large amounts of money into permanent expansion until they're certain that they're not responding to a temporary surge in demand.

When the panic buying calms down the "shortage" will disappear. Always has before and it will this time too.

In the interim, the more people who see empty shelves, the more panicked people there will be and the longer and more severe the shortage will be. Rationing can help prevent some of the panic by helping to insure that the shelves aren't constantly empty. A lot fewer folks will panic if they see they can get ammo whenever they want it and a lot of the panicked folks will calm down.

You're seeing the shortage as the problem and want it to persist so that the ammunition companies will fix the problem. That is not reality.

The problem is the panic that is creating the shortage. The ammunition companies realize this and they're not going to make expensive investments to fix a temporary problem. They're going to up production as much as they can without expanding or making expensive investments--in other words they're going to respond to the temporary shortage with temporary measures.

The shortage will stop when the cause of the shortage wanes. When the panic dies down the shelves and stocks will gradually refill and the prices will gradually come back down.

In the mean time, rationing helps address the panic and panic is the the real problem.
 
JohnKSa...

You are saying what I have been trying to say for a while now. The ammunition shortage is the buyers faukt at this juncture. The shortage was created by panic buying brought on by the impending innaugaration of President Obama and the fear that he would immediately, upon becoming president, impose a new ban on certain guns and ammo. The shortage has simply fed on itself. Hoarders and panic buyers emptying the shelves has convinced others the shortage is real so they do the same and buy all of whatever caliber they need and the shortage gets worse. Some of the gun owning public has become our problem by feeding both the shortage and the panic.
 
I dont really see a shortage, only a Walmart shortage. Meaning a cheap ammo shortage. What is odd tho, is that Walmart....who seems to have retail merchandising fundamentals mastered, and who has nearly redefined retail stocking and pricing....can't get a handle on ammo. They have more pull than any retailer, and its selling like holy water....and they act as if its hard to get. Yet every other gun store i know is flooded with ammo. Im starting to chalk it up to the past Hillary connection, or a basic contractual struggle between manufacturers and Walmart over pricing. Insert any other commodity instead of ammo, and Walmart's demands dictate the market, not the market dictating Walmart's empty shelves.
*see Rubbermaid.

Oh well, i just get it elsewhere,:) gave up on Walmart ammo months ago so everything is zen.
 
They have more pull than any retailer, and its selling like holy water....and they act as if its hard to get
They are getting a huge chunk of the ammo, at least all the types they stock. Your local shop's supply of ammo probably came from wal-mart, at least what is common to their regular stock.
Not much JHP 9mm or HP 357 available online.

1. Work longer hours and up output by several percent.
2. Expand (hire more workers, buy more expensive machinery, purchase more buildings & floorspace) and up output by a truly significant amount.
Hiring new workers is not a long term investment. Especially right now. Many people will jump at a decent job, even if it will only last a few months. There are a number of manufacturer out there and not all of them were running at full production(full capability of their capital goods).

Lets ask another question:
Why should wal-mart, or any other retailer, take actions to stop this shortage? THey are making tons of money. All they have to do is make sure there is no more than a 10 boxes on the shelves and everyone who walks in will buy that ammo.

We won't be long in Iraq(at least not at the levels we are currently).
Production has picked up a bit.
My neighbor almost has all his closets full.
 
I dont really see a shortage, only a Walmart shortage.
Go browse some of the online ammo sellers. It's not just Wal-Mart.
Hiring new workers is not a long term investment.
That's only part of the equation. You have to have machinery and facility space for those employees to use or they can't be put to good use.
Why should wal-mart, or any other retailer, take actions to stop this shortage?
They're not taking action to stop the shortage, they're taking action to cut down on customers complaining that they're always out of ammo. It's just a coincidence that their actions are likely going to help the overall situation.
 
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