I stopped in where i get most of my reloading supplies. Primers are now 60.00 per 1000 and powder is now avg of 40.00 a lb. I didn't buy any. Im stocked good yet. I did get some 17hmr ammo for 15.00 per 50.
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I stopped in where i get most of my reloading supplies. Primers are now 60.00 per 1000 and powder is now avg of 40.00 a lb. I didn't buy any. Im stocked good yet. I did get some 17hmr ammo for 15.00 per 50.
One round at a time.
Member of the NRA,GOA and FAOC. Gun clubs Zerby rod and gun club. Keystone Fish and Game Association.
I got an e-mail notification from Sportsmans Whrhouse. Spp in stock, $130.00/brick, not including hazmat-shipping. I deleted the e-mail.
Deplorable infidel
Well things are losoning up here. Primers are becomig available. But the pricing! $10.99 - $11.99 per hundred Now that is Canadian dollars. Multiply by .7847 to get US dollars. That is before taxes (12%) and hazmet fee $15 and shipping ??? Those prices are for Federal and Win.
Personally I have enough for this years shooting. If I see some offshore "Tula" primers show up via the Ukraine or Bosnia at $4.75 per hundred I'll go all in. I think paying $12. for one hundred primers is just one step beyond reason.
Take Care
Bob
Its been months since I bought the book, "How to scam people online". It still has not arrived yet!
"If the human population held hands around the equator, a significant portion of them would drown"
It may not look like it to everyone, but things are improving.
It has been slower than I had predicted but the trend is encouraging. I had hoped to buy back in this winter, but I can hold off for years if necessary. With the GOP likely to win the mid-terms, prices will ease off.
Don Verna
Don, as soon as people have enough that they feel good about themselves they will stop buying completely because they won't use them up very fast, and that can make the prices go down rapidly. Most won't buy a case at a time like real shooters do.
Saw some for $75.00 per thousand today we passed on them! Dealer cost as we are an FFL, still wouldn't buy them though!
Semper Fidelis, to God, Country and Corps!
Still none locally for over a year at any cost.
Scored these today from my dad who needed me to watch his dog while he's in the hospital.
I can't imagine what the retail value of them would be.
Attachment 294131
"Luck don't live out here. Wolves don't kill the unlucky deer; they kill the weak ones..." Jeremy Renner in Wind River
I saw two boxes of a 1000 for $100,....each.
Green and Red box Kleenbore label. Must be collectible for that kind of premium.
It's stupid what the Bidet panic has done to primer prices.
I see 1000 auctioning for what I paid for 5000 not just 6 years ago. $150-160.
This panic is worse than the Old Bummer panic, in terms of price and availability.
Auctions where people pay $100-120 per POUND for Retumbo, PLUS shipping?! Out and out foolish.
A friend called me yesterday, he was in Phoenix and visited the Bass Pro Shop. He said there were Federal Pistol Primers for $90. The clerk said they were fresh off the truck. He picked up a brick, didn't say anything about limits.
Auctions ALWAYS tell you what the REAL price of a commodity is. Love it or hate it, foolishness it is not. Unless you really believe things will ever go back to what they were during the Trump administration. Dream on.
Be thankful you can get any at all. During WW2 there was no ammo, no primers, no powder all for civilians for four whole years. It was 1947 before the markets got back to "normal". (OK, you could get .22 ammo if you were a farmer or an authorized training program.)
Cognitive Dissident
This will pass just like the tp shortage
Just hope it passes before I run out. I could aways take up a new hobby like drinking. That would save me on primers. No wait that is a lie it would just cost me more as I would have to line the cans up to shoot afterwards. oh wellOriginally Posted by toallmy
Stop being blinded by your own ignorance.
Yes, it is true that an auction will tell you about market price.
It does however tell you Nothing about thinking choices of bidders at the auction.
I am firmly convinced that much of this is panic buying, and nothing more. But that is not the simple answer it sounds like.
You can find more powder on auction from private sellers on GB now than ever before. Why? It is price point elevation due to emotion, and savy folks taking advantage of this to make money. Notice that I did not say price gouging. They are getting what someone is willing to pay.
But Why are they willing to pay? The shelves are empty because of people buying to auction. They buyers are feeding the unruly machine.
There is No Way that people are utilizing the increased purchased quantities. Look at the responses to relevant questions posted here on this site. Many folks saying they have curtailed, or shoot 22 more often now. Reloaders shoot the most, and yet say they have curtailed or remain stable in what they shoot. Hmmmmm...
There will be a glut held in personal storage after this, and funny thing will be that much of the production bought with the sole purpose to auction will cost the seller nothing: they will have sold enough at 3-4x retail to have their hoard for free. They are smart, sure.
It's being driven by a willingness to pay higher than we should, by a great deal. The shortage wouldn't be this bad if people were "only" willing to pay 1.5-2x prices. More profit margin for speculators, more likely that when they are left holding stuff they can't use, it cost them nothing. Upside for the speculator, downside for the user.
Here's a question:
Does the rational person fill their gas tank of their vehicle every day when the price per gallon is on a slow constant upward trajectory, or wait until nearly empty?
9 of 10 people I have asked this before get this wrong.
We have been taught to listen to emotion and not think. That is what Bernays taught marketers in the 1930s.
There seems to be plenty for sale on gunbroker , over 400 pages of listings of primers for sale - if you really need them at their price .
My inventory of powder and primers is at "zero cost". Last year I sold most of it but not to guys "flipping" it.
One buyer was a competitive shooter in the state
One was a competitive shooter from Texas who was here visiting family
One was a commercial reloader in the state
One was a guy who put together a group buy for his club members.
I decided to cut down shooting CF when prices went nuts. I also cut down on consumption of .22 LR. By investing in PCP guns I can shoot inexpensively for the bulk of my fun shooting. It is not for everyone, but it works for me. I get just as much fun shooting a 1/2" group at 50 yards with pellets as shooting 1/2" groups at 100 yards with the CF bolt guns...and a lot more fun than shooting cast bullets.
I doubt there are many items listed on Gunbroker by normal Joe's "flipping" stuff. Most are not able to ship HazMat so that limits their market. I wanted to sell on Gunbroker, and was ready to take the training when I sold all I wanted to sell in about a month using an ad in the state gun forum. I would have been able to sell for a higher price on Gunbroker but decided not to get greedy.
Frankly, I do not know where the inventory being sold on GB is coming from. But I suspect some "retailers" may be marketing stuff through that site using a third party. It allows them to get a significantly higher return without upsetting their normal customers. My reasoning is thus....
I had a substantial amount of inventory, and it was gone in a month. I doubt very many people would be holding that much. But if they did, it would have run out in a month or two. So where is this stuff coming from? They are not running down to the LGS, buying everything on the shelves and flipping it. First, it is not there...second, when there is inventory nearly every LGS is limiting quantities.
Maybe people are smarter than I think. Maybe a handful of "investors" bought thousands of pounds of powder and tens of millions of primers before the panic and waited for this to happen.
GB sellers either had a huge store or they are getting it from someplace we average Joe's cannot buy from.
Don Verna
After months of diligent searching, I found 4500 LP primers last week at the LGS. First ones I’ve seen and they were $118/1000 - so I bought them. Mix of CCI and Winchester - they are now in the reloading cabinet.
I don’t think we will see cheap components again - it’s just like gasoline, the price doubles then goes down 25% and everybody breathes easier. I’m a shooter and don’t typically sell components unless one of my friends needs something so it won’t bother me in the least if the stores fill up again with primers at $30/1000…but I’m of the opinion they will settle out around $60-70/1000 and that will be the new norm.
Im still able to buy primers in very small quantities 1000 prices are $80.00 - 100.00 per thousand- 6.99 per hundred . Venders are holding primers for guys buying lots of bullets & brass I buy neither across the counter . Small shop's are starting to have primers on the counter one shop I deal with have Small rifle every time I stop in for pistol . IMO I don't believe 40.00 per thousand is in the near future why would you take less when you can sell all you can supply at current price . I have enough small rifle being its negative temps I don't shoot any AR -condensation . Pistol I shoot all year round on my range . So I will be making Ingots the next months my summer take of lead was over 1200 pounds no range scrap . Getting primers is problematic & will be for some time IMO Im still able to spend 4 hours a day gun related projects . Stay safe & Shoot well !
Dad was a kid during War 2. People would come around to hunt in the giant swamp behind the buildings. Dad used to say sure if they gave him five 12 gauge shells. They were black powder but that was all anyone could get. He said he had to shoot and run around the smoke to see the pheasant fall. That and a great dog.
This was in Zerohedge of all places.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...bout-inflation
hat The Great Ammunition Shortage Says About Inflation
Tyler Durden's Photo
BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, JAN 07, 2022 - 11:20 PM
Authored by Matt Stoller via BIG Substack,
Concentration is increasing prices and keeping them high. The ammunition duopoly and the "Great Ammunition Shortage" is just one example.
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Covid has done a lot of things to our society. But talk to anyone who enjoys hunting, and they’ll tell you one of result is the ‘Great Ammunition Shortage of 2021.’ "5.56 ammunition for an AR-15 used to be about 33 cents a round," said Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. "Now you're looking at closer to almost a dollar a round. So it is much more expensive and it is much more difficult to find ammunition."
One of the more interesting questions in the discussion over inflation is the relationship between concentration and pricing changes. Most economists believe that supply shocks are increasing profits, but that this increase will serve as an inducement to more productive capacity. "Capitalism is on our side,” said economist Alan Blinder in the Wall Street Journal. “Shortages raise prices, but high prices create opportunities for profit, which attract capitalists to alleviate the shortages." If Blinder were correct, then one would expect lots of new productive capacity and new entrants into this market.
Ammunition is a highly concentrated industry. There are many ammo brands, like CCI, Federal, Remington, Winchester, and Speer, but they are all controlled by two firms - Vista Outdoor and the Olin Corporation. As Elle Ekman wrote in the American Prospect, Vista and Olin rolled up the industry through mergers, as well as taking advantage of the privatization of government facilities making ammunition and government contracts.
During the pandemic, a lot of people decided they wanted to buy and use guns, either for hunting or personal protection. The 12 million new gun owners, plus existing activity, meant that the industry experienced the same demand shock that lots of outdoor activity segments saw. The result has been a shortage of ammunition, and higher prices.
Like a lot of industries, there are cost pressures in ammunition; the price of raw materials, like brass, have gone up. Additionally, the State Department has blocked imports from Russia, adding to the pricing pressure. But the cost story is really a sideshow; the pricing increase is going almost entirely to profit. For Vista, margins skyrocketed in 2020, and continued to increase in 2021. As the CFO of Vista, Sudhanshu Shekhar Priyadarshi, told investors in November, margins rose to a record 27% in Q2 of 2021, on top of an already extraordinary 2020.
According to Blinder, and most economists, competitors should enter the market and invest in new factories, or existing firms should expand existing capacity to seize market share, eventually leading to reduced prices. But the industry hasn’t experienced such competitive dynamics. Profits, said Priyadarshi, have gone to share repurchases and paying down debt.
There are several reasons for this, but the main ones are consolidation and high barriers to entry in the industry. Ammunition is difficult to produce, as it requires careful manufacturing processes to safely handle explosive materials. Vista recently bought its competitor Remington out of bankruptcy, lowering the number of firms in the industry that could even build a factory and distribute ammunition effectively. And the limits on capacity were explicit. The head of ammunition for Vista, Jason R. Vanderbrink, explained that the “most important” reason for the Remington acquisition was “added capacity to Vista without increasing the overall market capacity."
This isn’t purely a story of informal cartel engaged in profit-seeking, but also risk-management. Like a lot of commodity businesses, the ammunition industry is cyclical, with shortages and price hikes when demand increases, followed by collapses as capacity increases and demand stays level or declines. Industry executives know this, and are intent on that not happening again. Here’s Christopher T. Metz, the CEO of Vista, talking about their purchase of Remington, a competitor in the industry.
Because of some of the consolidation we've done with Remington, even if you look long term, we don't see the same type of price compression the industry may have experienced in previous times.
Vista has set up two pricing programs to ensure high prices and stability. The first is a subscription service for ammunition, which gives them a steady flow of ammunition demand and lets them plan production more easily. The second is, well, an informal form of price-fixing, or output reduction. They aren’t totally explicit about it, but they use code words to make the point. Here’s Metz explaining that they collude with their competition to keep capacity lower than it should be.
"Now with ammunition being the largest part of our business. I mean, clearly, buying a Remington, we've created what we feel like is an even more disciplined industry now as we go forward. We've got, I think, like competitors in the sense that they watch growth, they watch their margin profiles. And we feel like we've got a disciplined industry."
And I've mentioned previously that we studied, as best we can…industry capacity and making sure that we're not only managing our capacity, but very mindful of what's being brought into the industry, so we don't get over our skis, if you will.
In other words, Vista executives are planning to ensure that prices won’t come down. They have expanded some capacity on the margins, but because there are only two real firms now, they can easily pull that extra production offline if necessary. We’ve seen the management of pricing across economic cycles in other concentrated industries. Chris Leonard wrote about Tyson Food’s control of the poultry business, and how during the financial crisis this meant the entire industry could raise prices by all cutting production at once.
No one in the room was excited about the idea of a production cut. It was Tyson’s nuclear option. It meant the company would intentionally scale back its business, cutting down its sales. It also meant farmers would get fewer deliveries of chickens, reducing their income even as their debt payments stayed the same. But Smith decided that a cutback was inevitable.
Ultimately, Tyson cut its production by 5 percent in December. Around that time, the industry as a whole was estimated to have cut back the placement of new eggs between 6 and 7 percent.
In a matter of weeks, the price of a boneless, skinless chicken breast rose by about 20 cents, according to an industry estimate. Within a short few months, Tyson’s chicken business was profitable again.
What was remarkable about this plan was the fact that Tyson executives could even consider it. Decades of lax antitrust enforcement allowed Tyson Foods to buy most of it competitors, giving executives at company headquarters the ability to control production on thousands of farms and dozens of major poultry plants across the nation. In 2008, Tyson Foods and its competitor Pilgrim’s controlled more than 40 percent of the national market. The third-biggest company controlled just 8 percent. Modern American farming was run out of the central office.
If meat-packers were doing this fourteen years ago, then what is happening in the ammunition industry shouldn’t be a shock. Vista and Olin, in other words, are following the legal framework laid out more than a decade ago. In fact, we can see that within the ammunition industry itself, since Olin is more a chemical conglomerate, and its ammunition division is something of a sideshow. But that firm’s leaders are also excited about margins and price increases across their whole suite of products.
Barriers to Entry
When economists like Alan Blinder, Jason Furman and Larry Summers, discuss inflation and concentration, they are relying on the idea that markets are competitive, and that new entrants will drive down margins of existing players. This is not a crazy theory. Some bottlenecks will go away; Congress is acting to reduce the problem at the ports, otherwise known as the world’s most profitable traffic jam.
But in terms of concentrated industries, is it really true that there will be mass entry with high profit margins? As we see with ammunition, the answer is, probably not.
This relates to an interesting question in antitrust law, which is the idea of barriers to entry. Such barriers can be financial or technical, such as the expertise and expense needed to enter many industries. But as antitrust law has weakened, it’s also made it much harder for new firms to come into concentrated markets. Let’s keep going with Tyson Food. As New York Times reporter Pete Goodman tweeted, independent meat-packers actually can’t enter the market to compete with Tyson, even if they can built out facilities.
That doesn’t mean inflation is going to keep rising, only that concentration means that price signals are less responsive to underlying supply and demand. Tommaso Valletti, formerly top economist at the EU Competition Authority, noted that there are likely impacts on inflation of competition - the more competition the more quickly prices adjust.
This makes sense, and it’s consistent with what is happening in the ammunition market. Vista executives are trying to stop price adjustments downward by controlling output.
Still, the problem of market power hasn’t penetrated the world of macro-economists trying to understand price adjustments. When economists say that inflation is unrelated to market power, what they really mean is that they don’t have models of inflation that incorporate market power. Market power isn’t under the lamp post, so it must not matter.
But of course, that’s ridiculous. It does matter. The only question is, how much?
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