If you’ve tried to buy ammo over the last year, you’ve notice that a lot of shop are struggling to keep up with demand. Many places have impose limits.
Stephen Gutowski reports that these manufacturers are still working through “several years’ worth of orders that have already been placed.”
Gutowski report at TheReload.com:
“On certain products, we are certainly seeing backlogs that stretch out two years and beyond,” Brett Flaugher, president of Winchester Ammunition, told The Reload. “For those who shoot 9mm and 5.56 ammunition, which are both in high demand, it’s very uncertain how long it will be before people will consistently have ammunition readily available.”
“I’m looking at two and a half years’ worth of demand already on order,” Jason Hornady, vice president of Hornady Manufacturing Company, told The Reload. “So, I’m not seeing a slowdown for two and a half years.”
The shortage has become bad enough that many gun owners have simply stopped shooting for months on end. Some ranges have even run out of ammo to sell not just to customers who want to take it home but also those who want to use it on the range.
“People have been saying for a long time they haven’t shot guns because there’s no ammo to shoot,” Brandon Wexler, owner of Wex Gunworks in Delray Beach, Florida, told The Reload. “And they don’t want to shoot what they have right now.”
Retailers like Wexler said they still have trouble stocking their shelves. Lucky Gunner, one of the largest online ammunition dealers in the country, said it faces wait times to get ammo unlike anything it has experienced before...
Flaugher said the industry is simply struggling to keep up. He said three main factors have driven sales and continue to drive them beyond the industry’s ability to expand supply. The first was pandemic-induced safety concerns that drove millions of Americans to purchase guns for the first time. The second was the increased participation in recreational shooting and hunting during the lockdowns. The third was concern over new gun-control legislation after President Joe Biden won the 2020 election and Democrats who favor new restrictions took control of the Senate.
“We have certainly experienced unprecedented demand for all categories of ammunition over the past year—rimfire, centerfire rifle and pistol, as well as our shotshell products,” Flaugher said. “Over the past year, we’ve seen more than 21 million firearms sold, with over 9 million to first-time gun buyers. This is an incredible number. Overall, more than 52 million people in the U.S. participate in the shooting sports, which is actually 2.5 times higher than the number of people who golf.”
Hornady estimated demand jumped to a degree that most industries could not keep up with, let alone a centuries-old one built around physical manufacturing...
Hornady said the industry is already at max capacity, and increasing supply is difficult.”