Okay, this whole ammo panic has gotten way out of hand. It seems that Double Tap has fallen off the wagon along with 1000 of his nearest and dearest ammo hoarding friends.
A while back (so long ago, in fact, that I forget exactly when), I requested that MidwayUSA notify me via email when they got some .22 LR CCI Mini-Mags back in stock. Well, today they sent me an email at 3:18 PM telling me that, yes, they really did have some in stock. By the time I checked my personal email at about 3:30 PM while in the midst of my second boring meeting of the day, they were sold out.
Again.
Not a scrap of brass, lead or powder with CCI's name on it anywhere on the website.
12 MINUTES to sell out even with a five box per customer limit.
COME ON PEOPLE. Cut a working guy a break. Some of us can't sit outside every gun store in town or hit refresh on our browsers every 30 seconds to see if there is any new stock to be hoarded. You people are worse than dragons.
"OOOOOooooo, it's shiny and it goes bang....must....hoard....ammo....."
Don't mind me...I'll just be in the corner...moping....
Showing posts with label Ammo Shortage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ammo Shortage. Show all posts
Monday, August 26, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Confessions of an Ammo Junkie
Alright, alright, alright, My name is Double Tap, but my friends call me 2X. I have a problem. I'm an ammo junkie. There I said it. First step to recovery right? Thankfully, my problem is limited, I only horde ammo for guns I have, so I can't be that bad right? I know many of you out there buy ammunition for guns you don't even own. You think it'll come in handy some day, but it doesn't it just sits out there and collects dust. So before you haters start judging me for my problem, pull up a chair and listen.
My addiction started right after Christmas 2012, before New Year's. Our Governor had stated that he was interested in gun control. My part time job at a gun shop exposed me to the horrors that became my addiction. The thin man came to the counter, asked for 22 and as I pointed to the rack of some 40 bricks of 22, he turned and and hustled double time across the store...the fat man and the bald man followed, each coming back to the register with 3 or 4 bricks a piece piled high in their arms. The signs went up proclaiming box limits, which made things worse. As the rules of the game changed, the buying behaviors changed as men drug their wives and girl friends in to purchase ammo for them. Gun Gals brought their boyfriends in and the store became twice as crowded. 2 box limit, here's my 2 and here's her 2. Damn, I thought, I better get some too before it's gone, so I put 2 bricks away to pay for later and just like that I began my spiral into uncontrollable ammunition purchasing. I felt guilty...don't ask me why, I couldn't tell you, maybe I was depriving some father from taking his kid shooting, or some grandmother from shooting a neighbor's noisy ass dog. Reluctantly, I put one brick back on the shelf and took the other home. I dwelled on that brick all night long, how it needed to come with me, how I might not be able to find another, what if I couldn't take my daughter to a match because we didn't have ammunition for her gun?
The next day, after my other job, I hustled back to the shop and to my horror found there were no more bricks, none, nada, zip. Ha I thought, I must not have needed it anyway...but it got worse. I grabbed 2 boxes of 9mm and a 40 for good measure (those would disappear soon). I didn't even own a 9mm, but I was going to get one, I wasn't going to be one of THOSE people. I had 200 rounds of 9mm before the Glock 17 made it off the shelf and into my hands. I was NOT one of those guys.
I thought it was over and that my flirtation with "using" was on the draw down, but no, 223 was flying off the shelves and I only had 3,000 rounds of that, so I better get another 500.....Ok another 1000 rounds for good measure. The zombie apocalypse might start any day according to DHS and I should be prepared....My Government told me to "be prepared, make a plan, get a kit", which translates to buy ammo, acquire ammo, and obtain ammo - I listened. It didn't take long for the disposable income to dry up, but just one more box....it couldn't hurt right? I could just find one more box for under $10 so I could end my hording on a happy note...but no, it didn't happen that way - $12.50 - damn them. Forget that supply and demand necessitated a price increase, I wanted to pay $8.50, but those days were gone. I looked for new suppliers and new dealers to satisfy this craving, but they all wanted $12.50...and some even wanted more. $12.50 plus shipping. Cheaper than Dirt became Cheaper than Gold, but I had to have it...oh and another 30 round magazine for my AR....and my basement office became my arsenal with ammo cans piled in every corner and hiding under my desk and even one box hiding behind a Coke in my tiny office fridge. Ssssshhhhhhh. Boxes from Magpul lay about the floor...
Soon, the range that I took my kids to were selling 22 only to those people that were going to use the range, so I would take my daughter and her 22, buy a box of CCI mini mags - gal behind the counter would sell me the 100 round count box because she liked my daughter, but I would make my daughter sit in the chair while I shot my 45 (only 1/2 a box) and I'd take the 22 home in my range bag to satisfy a future itch. The look on my daughters face said it all, the pain and the misery, and I knew that...I just had to do this 3 or 4 more times to build up a satisfactory 22 stockpile. She could tough it out, she is young and strong and....could keep her mouth shut for just bit longer. Ice cream - that would do it, ice cream on the way home. We amassed another 600 rounds of Mini Mags. That itch finally ceased, but other more exotic calibers awaited and called to me every time I walked down the ammo isle....I could hear them call my name.
I got desperate, Cabela's website told me they were out and my heart began to race and I did something I never do, I went to Dick's Sporting Goods, then Wal-Mart, and even to Sportsman's Warehouse but only to find empty shelves and the laughter of store clerks and the ghost boxes ringing in my ears. "You could have had us last month, but you were too good to come here..." They laughed at me and I heard them, I heard each and every 38 special and 357 mag round mag round that could not be had. Sleep became an all consuming nightmare, where to go next, when, how, why? Do I go to a match and use my precious rounds or do I turn into a Gringgots Goblin and sit on my piles?
My problem was just not with the 9mm, 22 or 223, no it went beyond that. I had to have 38,40 and 45 as well, I'm an instructor right? I had to have this stuff for class, how can you teach if you don't have ammunition? How could you offer a quality class if you couldn't shoot the gun, dry fire only gets you so far and snap caps do a great job of giving you look and feel, but you need to feel the power and hear the roar and feel the recoil. Yes, you do, so with credit card in hand I went shopping. When stores ran box restrictions I would get my limit and circle back around in 30 minutes if they had inventory, and if they didn't I'd bribe a kid with an icee and give them the cash to buy me a box of 38. You know how hard it is to dodge security cameras in Wal-Mart? Man, I never thought I'd use that knit hat with dreadlocks wig again...It's tough to disguise a middle aged, white haired, white guy with dreadlocks and sunglasses, but cut the hair short, stuff it under the cap and some brown shoe polish for the beard and with my Jamaican accent and best tie died peace shirt...Good thing I took up running too. Security guards give up after 1/2 mile.
I had it bad, but as bad as I had it, the guys that shot the exotic stuff had it worse. The hipsters and their 5-sevens and the guys looking for AK or worse AK-74 - those guys looked like skeletons with a twitch and pasty. Plastic in hand and ready to pay, but they couldn't even find fulfillment in a dream. They didn't believe the run would last long and even if they did, they couldn't buy enough inventory and soon they were going through range withdrawal. I wouldn't let that happen, I kept to the "easier" to find and limited myself to once a week, I limited my students ammunition count and shot the extras when they had left for the day. What they didn't know...
I'm better now. I'm feeling secure in my abilities to scrounge if needed and with the quantities at hand. It's been a tough slog, but the stuff is back on the shelves and the ghosts have dissipated. 22 while still scarce is making a come back, and for old time sake I picked up a 1600 round count of 22. I could have passed it by - I could have. No, I could have...well maybe... I'm getting better I'm on a program now.
I'm 2X and I've not purchased ammo in 6 days.
Shoot straight,
Double Tap.
My addiction started right after Christmas 2012, before New Year's. Our Governor had stated that he was interested in gun control. My part time job at a gun shop exposed me to the horrors that became my addiction. The thin man came to the counter, asked for 22 and as I pointed to the rack of some 40 bricks of 22, he turned and and hustled double time across the store...the fat man and the bald man followed, each coming back to the register with 3 or 4 bricks a piece piled high in their arms. The signs went up proclaiming box limits, which made things worse. As the rules of the game changed, the buying behaviors changed as men drug their wives and girl friends in to purchase ammo for them. Gun Gals brought their boyfriends in and the store became twice as crowded. 2 box limit, here's my 2 and here's her 2. Damn, I thought, I better get some too before it's gone, so I put 2 bricks away to pay for later and just like that I began my spiral into uncontrollable ammunition purchasing. I felt guilty...don't ask me why, I couldn't tell you, maybe I was depriving some father from taking his kid shooting, or some grandmother from shooting a neighbor's noisy ass dog. Reluctantly, I put one brick back on the shelf and took the other home. I dwelled on that brick all night long, how it needed to come with me, how I might not be able to find another, what if I couldn't take my daughter to a match because we didn't have ammunition for her gun?
The next day, after my other job, I hustled back to the shop and to my horror found there were no more bricks, none, nada, zip. Ha I thought, I must not have needed it anyway...but it got worse. I grabbed 2 boxes of 9mm and a 40 for good measure (those would disappear soon). I didn't even own a 9mm, but I was going to get one, I wasn't going to be one of THOSE people. I had 200 rounds of 9mm before the Glock 17 made it off the shelf and into my hands. I was NOT one of those guys.
I thought it was over and that my flirtation with "using" was on the draw down, but no, 223 was flying off the shelves and I only had 3,000 rounds of that, so I better get another 500.....Ok another 1000 rounds for good measure. The zombie apocalypse might start any day according to DHS and I should be prepared....My Government told me to "be prepared, make a plan, get a kit", which translates to buy ammo, acquire ammo, and obtain ammo - I listened. It didn't take long for the disposable income to dry up, but just one more box....it couldn't hurt right? I could just find one more box for under $10 so I could end my hording on a happy note...but no, it didn't happen that way - $12.50 - damn them. Forget that supply and demand necessitated a price increase, I wanted to pay $8.50, but those days were gone. I looked for new suppliers and new dealers to satisfy this craving, but they all wanted $12.50...and some even wanted more. $12.50 plus shipping. Cheaper than Dirt became Cheaper than Gold, but I had to have it...oh and another 30 round magazine for my AR....and my basement office became my arsenal with ammo cans piled in every corner and hiding under my desk and even one box hiding behind a Coke in my tiny office fridge. Ssssshhhhhhh. Boxes from Magpul lay about the floor...
Soon, the range that I took my kids to were selling 22 only to those people that were going to use the range, so I would take my daughter and her 22, buy a box of CCI mini mags - gal behind the counter would sell me the 100 round count box because she liked my daughter, but I would make my daughter sit in the chair while I shot my 45 (only 1/2 a box) and I'd take the 22 home in my range bag to satisfy a future itch. The look on my daughters face said it all, the pain and the misery, and I knew that...I just had to do this 3 or 4 more times to build up a satisfactory 22 stockpile. She could tough it out, she is young and strong and....could keep her mouth shut for just bit longer. Ice cream - that would do it, ice cream on the way home. We amassed another 600 rounds of Mini Mags. That itch finally ceased, but other more exotic calibers awaited and called to me every time I walked down the ammo isle....I could hear them call my name.
I got desperate, Cabela's website told me they were out and my heart began to race and I did something I never do, I went to Dick's Sporting Goods, then Wal-Mart, and even to Sportsman's Warehouse but only to find empty shelves and the laughter of store clerks and the ghost boxes ringing in my ears. "You could have had us last month, but you were too good to come here..." They laughed at me and I heard them, I heard each and every 38 special and 357 mag round mag round that could not be had. Sleep became an all consuming nightmare, where to go next, when, how, why? Do I go to a match and use my precious rounds or do I turn into a Gringgots Goblin and sit on my piles?
My problem was just not with the 9mm, 22 or 223, no it went beyond that. I had to have 38,40 and 45 as well, I'm an instructor right? I had to have this stuff for class, how can you teach if you don't have ammunition? How could you offer a quality class if you couldn't shoot the gun, dry fire only gets you so far and snap caps do a great job of giving you look and feel, but you need to feel the power and hear the roar and feel the recoil. Yes, you do, so with credit card in hand I went shopping. When stores ran box restrictions I would get my limit and circle back around in 30 minutes if they had inventory, and if they didn't I'd bribe a kid with an icee and give them the cash to buy me a box of 38. You know how hard it is to dodge security cameras in Wal-Mart? Man, I never thought I'd use that knit hat with dreadlocks wig again...It's tough to disguise a middle aged, white haired, white guy with dreadlocks and sunglasses, but cut the hair short, stuff it under the cap and some brown shoe polish for the beard and with my Jamaican accent and best tie died peace shirt...Good thing I took up running too. Security guards give up after 1/2 mile.
I had it bad, but as bad as I had it, the guys that shot the exotic stuff had it worse. The hipsters and their 5-sevens and the guys looking for AK or worse AK-74 - those guys looked like skeletons with a twitch and pasty. Plastic in hand and ready to pay, but they couldn't even find fulfillment in a dream. They didn't believe the run would last long and even if they did, they couldn't buy enough inventory and soon they were going through range withdrawal. I wouldn't let that happen, I kept to the "easier" to find and limited myself to once a week, I limited my students ammunition count and shot the extras when they had left for the day. What they didn't know...
I'm better now. I'm feeling secure in my abilities to scrounge if needed and with the quantities at hand. It's been a tough slog, but the stuff is back on the shelves and the ghosts have dissipated. 22 while still scarce is making a come back, and for old time sake I picked up a 1600 round count of 22. I could have passed it by - I could have. No, I could have...well maybe... I'm getting better I'm on a program now.
I'm 2X and I've not purchased ammo in 6 days.
Shoot straight,
Double Tap.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Ammo Shortage - An Example By The Numbers
Okay, I know some out there really hate the new math especially when it translates into a 50 round box of Winchester White Box 230 grain .45ACP going for 40 of my hard earned dollars, and I know many of us would like to blame the evil government like any good conspiracy theorist would. We can blame the government INDIRECTLY all we want. BUT, let's take a step back an look at some real numbers for a second.
According to the May 2013 issue of American Rifleman (that'd be the NRA's membership magazine for those of you who are not NRA members), somewhere between 1 billion and 1.5 billion rounds of .22 long rifle ammunition is produced by all manufactures ANNUALLY. That's up to 1,500,000,000 .22 pills of all sizes and flavors from my personal favorite CCI Stingers to your cheap, dud infested, big box store, bulk pack stuff made to supply the whim and demand of every man, woman and child over a 365 day span of time. And, last I checked, the goobermint wasn't sending out orders for .22 bullets by the ship load.
So, assuming for the moment that the smallest size box you can buy is a 50 round box of formerly cheap fun in a gun, that's 30,000,000 (30 million for those getting tired of seeing zeros like I am) boxes of .22 caliber satisfaction hitting the streets every year.
But, wait, that amount of ammo doesn't hit the street all at once. There's twelve (12) months in a year. 30 million divided by 12 is 2,500,000 boxes hitting the streets a month on average. If we assume that there are an average of 30 days in each month, we get that narrowed down to 83,333.33 50 round boxes of ammo arriving on store shelves somewhere every day (setting aside the fact that deliveries don't happen every day).
And where is all that ammo going? Well, the USA is a big place. There are literally millions of gun owners spread across 50 states clamouring for a piece of that action every day. I know that reality is different, but let's assume that the 83,333.33 boxes a day gets spread equally among the states. That leaves us with 1666.66 boxes per state per day.
What's the likelihood that you're going to be one of the lucky ones to snap up a box or two on any given day when every other Cletus in town is waiting at the gun stores doors on delivery day with cash in hand? Um, yeah. Not good. Do those per purchase limits make a little more sense now?
What does all this mean? That's an excellent question. I'm glad you asked. I don't know much, but I do understand basic economics.
Ammunition manufacturers and their suppliers are and have been working at or near capacity according to every report I've gotten a hand on including perusing some of their websites. That means that supply is pretty well maxed out; or, at the very least, it's as good as it's going to get for the near future. That leaves us with two options: increase supply or lower demand.
As long as the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania is in office, lower demand is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Maybe ever. As long as there are gun banning politicians clamouring to relieve us of our Constitional rights, people are going to be stockpiling ammo. Truth be told, I don't blame them. If I had the extra cash in my budget, I'd be stockpiling too. Which makes me part of the problem.
On the other side of the coin, supply is harder to predict. For the near term, we can expect it to be relatively constant. In order for there to be an increase in supply at this point, one or more manufactures would have to invest in additional facilities, equipment and the manpower to staff the production line as well as getting their raw material suppliers to ramp up too. The likelihood of those stars aligning comes down to a cold, hard, cost/benefit/profit/loss calculation. If a company foresees that investing the necessary capital to increase production by adding another plant will yield a net profit over a period of time that makes sense to them, it will happen. If not, don't count on it.
Don't ask me to figure out what that magic profit/loss number is...I don't have enough information to figure it out. For example, if you assume those 30 million boxes sell for an average of $8.00 a box (don't quibble with me about prices for match ammo...this is an example), that's $240,000,000 ($240 million) in gross retail sales. A guesstimated SWAG of the manufactures net profit out of that would be 10% or $24 million. Split that among however many ammo manufactures there are based on market share, and the picture gets even bleaker for the chances of a new ammo factory sprouting from the earth anytime soon.
Now, go ask your buddy who's bragging about his 1000 round score to sit back and let the rest of us have a shot.
According to the May 2013 issue of American Rifleman (that'd be the NRA's membership magazine for those of you who are not NRA members), somewhere between 1 billion and 1.5 billion rounds of .22 long rifle ammunition is produced by all manufactures ANNUALLY. That's up to 1,500,000,000 .22 pills of all sizes and flavors from my personal favorite CCI Stingers to your cheap, dud infested, big box store, bulk pack stuff made to supply the whim and demand of every man, woman and child over a 365 day span of time. And, last I checked, the goobermint wasn't sending out orders for .22 bullets by the ship load.
So, assuming for the moment that the smallest size box you can buy is a 50 round box of formerly cheap fun in a gun, that's 30,000,000 (30 million for those getting tired of seeing zeros like I am) boxes of .22 caliber satisfaction hitting the streets every year.
But, wait, that amount of ammo doesn't hit the street all at once. There's twelve (12) months in a year. 30 million divided by 12 is 2,500,000 boxes hitting the streets a month on average. If we assume that there are an average of 30 days in each month, we get that narrowed down to 83,333.33 50 round boxes of ammo arriving on store shelves somewhere every day (setting aside the fact that deliveries don't happen every day).
And where is all that ammo going? Well, the USA is a big place. There are literally millions of gun owners spread across 50 states clamouring for a piece of that action every day. I know that reality is different, but let's assume that the 83,333.33 boxes a day gets spread equally among the states. That leaves us with 1666.66 boxes per state per day.
What's the likelihood that you're going to be one of the lucky ones to snap up a box or two on any given day when every other Cletus in town is waiting at the gun stores doors on delivery day with cash in hand? Um, yeah. Not good. Do those per purchase limits make a little more sense now?
What does all this mean? That's an excellent question. I'm glad you asked. I don't know much, but I do understand basic economics.
Ammunition manufacturers and their suppliers are and have been working at or near capacity according to every report I've gotten a hand on including perusing some of their websites. That means that supply is pretty well maxed out; or, at the very least, it's as good as it's going to get for the near future. That leaves us with two options: increase supply or lower demand.
As long as the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania is in office, lower demand is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Maybe ever. As long as there are gun banning politicians clamouring to relieve us of our Constitional rights, people are going to be stockpiling ammo. Truth be told, I don't blame them. If I had the extra cash in my budget, I'd be stockpiling too. Which makes me part of the problem.
On the other side of the coin, supply is harder to predict. For the near term, we can expect it to be relatively constant. In order for there to be an increase in supply at this point, one or more manufactures would have to invest in additional facilities, equipment and the manpower to staff the production line as well as getting their raw material suppliers to ramp up too. The likelihood of those stars aligning comes down to a cold, hard, cost/benefit/profit/loss calculation. If a company foresees that investing the necessary capital to increase production by adding another plant will yield a net profit over a period of time that makes sense to them, it will happen. If not, don't count on it.
Don't ask me to figure out what that magic profit/loss number is...I don't have enough information to figure it out. For example, if you assume those 30 million boxes sell for an average of $8.00 a box (don't quibble with me about prices for match ammo...this is an example), that's $240,000,000 ($240 million) in gross retail sales. A guesstimated SWAG of the manufactures net profit out of that would be 10% or $24 million. Split that among however many ammo manufactures there are based on market share, and the picture gets even bleaker for the chances of a new ammo factory sprouting from the earth anytime soon.
Now, go ask your buddy who's bragging about his 1000 round score to sit back and let the rest of us have a shot.
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