Interesting and Revealing Ammunition Article

[DaveTooley]

Does this logic apply to Hodgdon and other gun powder manufacturers as well? Will Varget ever be readily available in 8 lb jugs, albeit at a higher price?
Alrx

How much Varget was in the 24,000,000 rounds of 7.62 ammo that we left in Afghanistan?

 

[vonb]

When you look at Vista and think about what they're doing, take a macro perspective and look at Blackrock and Vanguard. They own interest in every market and usually a majority.

 

[wboggs]

Describes a little about Vista's business plan.


https://www.zerohedge.com/political/what-great-ammunition-shortage-says-about-inflation

Dave
Any ideas for a solution? A co op?

 

[Adam in WI]

How much Varget was in the 24,000,000 rounds of 7.62 ammo that we left in Afghanistan?

Approximately 154,000 pounds

 

[Bocephus]

I have said all along ,creating shortages by production is what i call crooked marketing.It is not just happening in ammo it is happening across a very wide range of common products we all need on a regular basis.It is simply put GREED. It is now the mindset of many of our industries. As long as they are allowed to price gouge it will only get worse. they blame it on supply chain disruption. I do realize Bidens energy policies that doubled the price of petrolium products did honestly cause wide scale price increases started the ball rolling then companies took advantage of that . thats when GREED took over. GREED is ugly!!!

At the risk of offending a few with the hard truth, please consider; big corporations are in business to make money. Period.
But also consider that ALL publicaly traded companies bow down at the “Wall Street Altar.” As the execs humbly and fearfully present themselves annually before the throne, they are told what their future earnings expectations are. Woe to all who fail to meet these goals!
So they cheat, they lie, they steal, they short the packaging, their employee benefits...whatever it takes. And no one realizes or blames those who really turned up the heat on the pressure cooker.
And however it works out, the wizard behind the curtain is forever blameless.

 

[Nick Caprinolo]

Approximately 154,000 pounds

that number hardly seems like it could affect market availablity. Depending on what source you use, 12 billion rounds are manufactured in the United States alone. Not a small number I agree but it is slightly more than .01%.

 

[ebb]

I think we all need to send an Email to the judge that allowed / made possible the acquisition of Remington ammo to give one owner a monopoly on the ammo industry. Does anyone know how to contact this nameless / faceless person?

 

[Adam in WI]

that number hardly seems like it could affect market availablity.

Agreed. At any rate, I'm sure that ammunition uses something other than Varget.

 

[Bill K]

Only problem with some of that Jimmy, is without Olin and Remington for years, we would not have the supplies and items out sport uses. They have kept sportsmen and women in good stead for hundreds of years.

Interesting read. Keep everyone scrambling and paying higher prices by controlling the market. We need more players not named Vista or Olin, but that doesn’t seem likely.

 

[DaveTooley]

Depends on the contracts for Mil ammo. They are very specific. Commercial ammo not so much.

 

[urbanrifleman]

This article is a great outline of the series of events.

One thing that I have learned from watching this covid bs unfold is that "capitalists" will not let a good crisis go to waste....

 

[jimmymac]

Only problem with some of that Jimmy, is without Olin and Remington for years, we would not have the supplies and items out sport uses. They have kept sportsmen and women in good stead for hundreds of years.

Just to be clear, I was not advocating that Olin or Vista dry up and blow away. I'd just like to see some actual competition. A handful of new companies that can do what they do, or some foreign imports allowed in to this country would go a long way. Unfortunately, I'm thinking that isn't going to happen.

 

[urbanrifleman]

I'd just like to see some actual competition.

"Competition is a sin"

John D Rockefeller

 

[Highpower-FClass]

I've never seen ammo or component prices EVER drop after rising. It won't happen after this current problem we're experiencing either in fact IMO it'll only keep going up. THIS is the new normal for shooters.

There are two examples of this exact thing happening, at least as it pertains to ammunition ;that is the last two panic induced spikes (spike after Obama being elected and spike after Sandy Hook).

In both cases prices for ammunition, especially 22lr, 9mm and 223/556 skyrocketed.. After Sandy Hook, 223 was running $1 / round of it could even be found. After the panic subsided I again bought 22lr at 3 cents a round, 9mm at 10 cents and 223 at 25 cents.

Even with the current panic spike the prices of ammo has already subsided significantly. 22lr was selling for 20-25cents / round on GunBroker right after the 2020 election. Now running ~10 cents / round and is now somewhat available on store shelves.

As soon as enough people stop buying ammo and components simply because it is there, inventories will build and prices will come down. It has already happened for ammunition, it will happen for components too.

Will BR4s be $50/K again? Perhaps not but the $150 / 1000 with a limit of one nonsense will go away once inventories start to rise

 

[INTJ]

The challenge in running any business is to be consistently profitable. There are times when the market is good and you make money, and times when the market is bad when you lose money. You have to make enough money when times are good so you can survive when the market is bad. As much as companies try to smooth that out with long term contracts, inventory management, and strategic planning; there are always big up's and downs. So many just settle on having a high demand product with a long order file.

Take McMillan for example. For around 20 years or so they have had 4-6 month order file. They refused to add capacity, most likely because they had been burned in a down market before. If you add capacity, when the market goes down you may well go out of business. At the best you have to lay people off and hope you have enough cash to survive the downturn.

As a consequence of McMillan not adding capacity, several other quality stock makers have entered the market. Retailers started buying ahead, and McMillan started making to inventory a little. We have seen the same thing with barrel makers.

This is going to be tougher with ammo, powder, and primers. I'll bet it would cost $1.0 Billion to build a new ammo factory today. There is great risk with that. None of the people who have created enough wealth to afford to build a new plant are likely to do that just to help out a few reloaders and shooters. I doubt if even the Trump family would take such a risk.

 

[urbanrifleman]

The challenge in running any business is to be consistently profitable. There are times when the market is good and you make money, and times when the market is bad when you lose money. You have to make enough money when times are good so you can survive when the market is bad. As much as companies try to smooth that out with long term contracts, inventory management, and strategic planning; there are always big up's and downs. So many just settle on having a high demand product with a long order file.

Take McMillan for example. For around 20 years or so they have had 4-6 month order file. They refused to add capacity, most likely because they had been burned in a down market before. If you add capacity, when the market goes down you may well go out of business. At the best you have to lay people off and hope you have enough cash to survive the downturn.

As a consequence of McMillan not adding capacity, several other quality stock makers have entered the market. Retailers started buying ahead, and McMillan started making to inventory a little. We have seen the same thing with barrel makers.

This is going to be tougher with ammo, powder, and primers. I'll bet it would cost $1.0 Billion to build a new ammo factory today. There is great risk with that. None of the people who have created enough wealth to afford to build a new plant are likely to do that just to help out a few reloaders and shooters. I doubt if even the Trump family would take such a risk.

Ammo Inc groundbreaking for new state-of-the-art facility, to bring new jobs to Manitowoc

MANITOWOC, Wis.(WFRV)- Ammo Incorporated held a groundbreaking ceremony at the construction site for their brand new state-of-the-art plant in Manitowoc. “We sat there and said we’re go…

www.wearegreenbay.com

 

[urbanrifleman]

Demolition underway for new ammunition plant in Kanawha County

The groundbreaking for the new facility is set to happen on June 1.

www.wsaz.com

 

[sdean]

With over 60000 members on this site, I would hope some of our younger self employed go getters would take a serious look at doing this.
I know I would consider buying a few shares of our new company.
Steve Bair

Good luck with that. Can only get 3 percent to spend $25 bucks on the site. This is for a hobby that very small number of people compared to the population care about. You will hear more about rent and toilet paper in the media.

 

[urbanrifleman]

The only people seeing an ammunintion shortage is consumers... the government is well supplied.

 

[rockhound78]

Talk about smaller packaging, I went to one of the dollar type stores yesterday. Get small screw top containers to hold small parts. Usually 3/$1, now its 2/$1