It’s been exactly two months since I last shared my insights into the gun and ammo situation as I see it as someone who works at the retail end of the industry.
Let’s start with the raw FBI background check numbers. NICS background checks have slowed some. There were 3,222,105 checks run in May. That’s down about 300,000 from April and around 1.5 million from the all time record month of March. It is important to note that those checks are not a one to one when it comes to gun sales. A large number, some estimates put it at half, are run for other purposes than firearms transactions. Many states, mine included, require a federal background check as part of initial pistol licensure and as part of the recertification process. Additionally, many buyers purchase more than one firearm per transaction.
The gun situtation seems to be resolving. At my store we have a wider variety of guns than we’ve had for close to a year. We are also getting multiples of the same gun in. Some brands are still scarce, but overall, the supply of guns seems to be loosening.
We’re still at the mercy of our distributors, and aren’t allowed to special order guns. Our gun buyers say that has to do with the lead times and overall availability of specific guns.
There is mixed news on the ammo front. The president of Hornady said recently that his company is back-ordered 3 years. The president of Vista Outdoors, the parent company of CCI, Speer, Federal and Remington ammo, said his company was back-ordered 2 years. Additionally, he said that he didn’t expect primers to be commercially available for at least a year. There’s more bad news, deer slug manufacturer Lightfield announced that they were not restarting production. I don’t know the specifics of why, but they announced two years ago that they were moving, and as far as I know, they haven’t produced a shell since that date.
All that said, it seems the ammo supply is starting to come back. I don’t expect to see some of the less popular calibers and loadings to be widely available for a year, but that has more to do with the manufacturing schedule than any shortage or the like.
I’m going to digress for a moment here and explain the manufacturing scheduling process for ammo, and why I think its going to be a while before you see that box of .257 Roberts or 7-30 Waters on the shelf. Under normal circumstances, ammo manufacturers have a fairly rigid production schedule due to capacity restraints, maintenance scheduling, tooling changeover, etc. The schedule will typically have a single run of certain calibers, generally the less popular rounds, while more popular calibers will be produced in either a continuous run or in multiple runs. Once the scheduled amount of a particular caliber/loading is reached, that particular combination isn’t run again till the next year. With the onset of covid last march, and all the attendant knock-on effects, that schedule got blown up.
Now, with things normalizing, the production schedule is back in place. It will take a full year to cycle through and for ammo to be back to the point it was in the before.
Honestly, if I stopped seeing the same two dozen or so faces every day I think we’d have a decent supply in stock. Except for a few weeks in January, we got regular shipments of ammo. They weren’t huge, but we did have a regular supply.
I’m also going to take aim (SWIDT) at everyone that’s price gouging right now. It isn’t just the small shops that are doing it now. Big retailers like Bass Pro have marked up their ammo 50% or more. How do I know? I know exactly what a box, flat, case and sleeve of all that stuff costs because I have access to our distributors sites. Our prices have gone up, but only because the distributors and manufacturers prices have gone up. I saw a box of 9mm the other day at Gander for $30+. The same box of ammo, same bullet weight, brand and all, is $20 where I work. I have to ask why? I don’t know about you, but I refuse to shop somewhere I know they’re gouging. People will remember this in the future.
Commentary From the Front Lines 3
It’s been exactly two months since I last shared my insights into the gun and ammo situation as I see it as someone who works at the retail end of the industry.
Let’s start with the raw FBI background check numbers. NICS background checks have slowed some. There were 3,222,105 checks run in May. That’s down about 300,000 from April and around 1.5 million from the all time record month of March. It is important to note that those checks are not a one to one when it comes to gun sales. A large number, some estimates put it at half, are run for other purposes than firearms transactions. Many states, mine included, require a federal background check as part of initial pistol licensure and as part of the recertification process. Additionally, many buyers purchase more than one firearm per transaction.
The gun situtation seems to be resolving. At my store we have a wider variety of guns than we’ve had for close to a year. We are also getting multiples of the same gun in. Some brands are still scarce, but overall, the supply of guns seems to be loosening.
We’re still at the mercy of our distributors, and aren’t allowed to special order guns. Our gun buyers say that has to do with the lead times and overall availability of specific guns.
There is mixed news on the ammo front. The president of Hornady said recently that his company is back-ordered 3 years. The president of Vista Outdoors, the parent company of CCI, Speer, Federal and Remington ammo, said his company was back-ordered 2 years. Additionally, he said that he didn’t expect primers to be commercially available for at least a year. There’s more bad news, deer slug manufacturer Lightfield announced that they were not restarting production. I don’t know the specifics of why, but they announced two years ago that they were moving, and as far as I know, they haven’t produced a shell since that date.
All that said, it seems the ammo supply is starting to come back. I don’t expect to see some of the less popular calibers and loadings to be widely available for a year, but that has more to do with the manufacturing schedule than any shortage or the like.
I’m going to digress for a moment here and explain the manufacturing scheduling process for ammo, and why I think its going to be a while before you see that box of .257 Roberts or 7-30 Waters on the shelf. Under normal circumstances, ammo manufacturers have a fairly rigid production schedule due to capacity restraints, maintenance scheduling, tooling changeover, etc. The schedule will typically have a single run of certain calibers, generally the less popular rounds, while more popular calibers will be produced in either a continuous run or in multiple runs. Once the scheduled amount of a particular caliber/loading is reached, that particular combination isn’t run again till the next year. With the onset of covid last march, and all the attendant knock-on effects, that schedule got blown up.
Now, with things normalizing, the production schedule is back in place. It will take a full year to cycle through and for ammo to be back to the point it was in the before.
Honestly, if I stopped seeing the same two dozen or so faces every day I think we’d have a decent supply in stock. Except for a few weeks in January, we got regular shipments of ammo. They weren’t huge, but we did have a regular supply.
I’m also going to take aim (SWIDT) at everyone that’s price gouging right now. It isn’t just the small shops that are doing it now. Big retailers like Bass Pro have marked up their ammo 50% or more. How do I know? I know exactly what a box, flat, case and sleeve of all that stuff costs because I have access to our distributors sites. Our prices have gone up, but only because the distributors and manufacturers prices have gone up. I saw a box of 9mm the other day at Gander for $30+. The same box of ammo, same bullet weight, brand and all, is $20 where I work. I have to ask why? I don’t know about you, but I refuse to shop somewhere I know they’re gouging. People will remember this in the future.