Thursday, March 28, 2013

Logistics: Speaking of ammunition . . . "We are sold out for 2013."

Fear of purchase limits sends bullets flying — off the shelves.
The big question: Why?
“There is no good answer for this,” said Kevin Jamison, a Gladstone lawyer and spokesman for the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance. “Panic buying seems to account for some of the shortage, but I don’t believe it can be all of it.”
Some point to concerns that the government might limit ammo purchases in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Others blame the Department of Homeland Security, which has a big purchase in the works.
The rush to buy isn’t rational, said Larry Swickard, a member of the Western Missouri alliance.
I disagree. I was taught in Economics One-Oh-One by Professor William Jennings Bryan, Jr. (son of a Lebanese Christian refugee who changed his name to the one American politician he revered above all others) that except in cases involving sex and love, ALL ECONOMIC TRANSACTIONS ARE RATIONAL. All you have to understand, he said, was the rationality behind the transaction. It is that rationality that is keeping the analysts in the bowels of the three-letter agencies up at nights, including those at the CIA. Or so I'm told.
“We are sold out for 2013,” said David Shaw, marketing director for Fiocchi, an international ammunition manufacturer with a plant in Ozark, Mo.
Fiocchi added an extra shift to increase production, but Shaw said the plant can’t get in front of the demand.
This isn’t the first time Shaw has seen a spike in demand.
“But it has never happened to this degree,” he said. “Industrywide, we are not able to keep up.”
Are you reloading yet?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reports on US retail shortages of reloading components too, so reloading isn't a perfect answer either. Biggest bottleneck is primers, which are only manufactured by a few.

RSR

Anonymous said...

"Are you reloading yet?"

It no longer matters to those who didn't or couldn't make their purchases before now.

EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING, is gone. There's nothing left on the shelves. It's been that way for weeks. I've stopped wasting my gas looking.

I watch others heading in to any store heading for ammunition and reloading and then turn around and leave, just like me. DHS and their bosses knew this would happen and that's why they did it, used our money to buy their bullets and deprive us of ours.

Anonymous said...

Am I reloading yet? Well, I have a nice press all ready to go. Brass, bullets.... but no primers. Zip. Zero. The primer shortage seems just as bad as the ammo shortage.

Anonymous said...

Me also.
Brand new press still in the box.
Nothing to use it on.
No primers no reloading.

Anonymous said...

No bullets, no primers, no powder. "Out of stock -- no backorders". Hopefully at some point things will get better before they get one heck of a lot worse and/or my stash runs out.