People Shooting Far Less
 

Stopped & chatted with a range owner the other day on the Border and he told me that he made $20 for the entire day and this place is a virtual gold mine usually. People either:

1. are conserving what ammo they have

2. unable to obtain ammo

3. unwilling to pay higher prices.


Range traffic is in the pits. I see no signs of it letting up soon. :dunno:

All of the above....*But this one more so....for now...


~ "are conserving what ammo they have" ~

Yep. Thanks Feinstein, Obama and Biden.

Even the prices for range time are up around me. I used to be able to go shoot 100 rounds of .45 acp for about $60, all in. That is about $90 now. I simply won't do it. You can give in to the madness and be taken advantage of or say f__k you, you can have my business when things return to normal.

And no, I am not touching my small stockpile of ammo.

I am shooting very little now due to ammo shortage. I mainly shoot 9mm and .22, and I can't find any .22 anywhere now.

It's not the ranges fault.
 

If they cant make money now, then they won't be there for you when you're ready to shoot. Considering how ranges are hassled, it's not likely any new ones will open in their place.

You need to take it out on the pathetic socialists who are attempting to violate your Bill of Rights.

If not, just use the range feinstein and hillary will build for you.......:rofl:

I concur. I was at the Pima County shooting range today. Beautiful weather. Not very many shooters at all.

As for myself, although I have a good stock of ammo remaining, I'm being prudent in how often I shoot and how many rounds I fire.

It's be kind of silly to do otherwise.

Around here I've never seen the ranges so packed. 30-60 minute waits for a lane are becoming the standard.

Ranges near me have been packed. However I don't know if that's because folks are there shooting or buying stuff. When I go, the ranges are shutdown for the match (which is when I usually go to the range).

I would imagine they'd dry up due to ammo short supplies.

I started reloading last year and my weekly shooting has not slowed down any.

Conservation of ammo is my biggest concern. There's no .22 ammo around here and other calibers are marked up. Anything bought gets squirreled away.

Not around here. Went to the range at 3-4pm today, which is usually the quiet time, and I had a 15 minute wait.

$21 for a box of 9mm. Pistol shelves are 50% empty.

I've shot in the last 4 weeks than in the previous 6 months.

I have to disagree. They've seen an opportunity to make more profit that usual, so they are capitalizing on it. Business is based on profit and greed, nothing more. Don't over-intellectualize it.

Business planning involves planning for high AND low times of business, not raping people every time there is political strife. At least businesses that have morals and ethics. Most don't, I guess.

The current formula in the gun industry is: We've seen record sales so let's raise the prices. When the formula should be: We've seen record sales, so let's ride out of the profits of those record sales until supply is back to normal and not screw over our customers in the meantime. But again, that would take some kind of morals or ethics. But those times are gone, probably went the way of the dodo in about the late '60s.

A little off topic but I shot a lot of trap for my high school team, as do many other high schoolers in this state, and I'm wondering how this ammo and reloading component drought is going to effect the trap season. I know shotgun shells aren't as wiped out and their are still some 209 primers around but how long will that last?

IMO, you're painting with a broad brush here. The "industry" is multi-faceted and I don't include Walmart or Academy Sports in the same league as say ATK, Remington, Win., etc. In any field of endeavour you will always find one retailer charging more than another. That's the nature of competition.

That said, I wouldn't judge the entire industry by the profiteering done by a few end retailers and aftermarket sellers (re-sellers). Floyd R. Turbo reselling Win. White Box at the Wichita gunshow hardly equates with a true retailer, let alone with Winchester and his prices are not a good barometer as such.

The major players in the industry have hardly raised prices if at all beyond normal inflationary adjustments. Ammo makers prefer Gov't/LE contracts for that matter as that is money "bankable" now with no sitting idle in a warehouse awaiting a jobber's order. To be even more frank, I'd wager that ammo sold to civilians is less than 10% of ATK's (owner of Speer & Federal) profit.

Don't let a few bad apples spoil the barrel. I have faith that things will bounce back to normal this time and that there will be a lot of post Apocalyptic "fire sales". :cool:

The range near me has a waiting list of ATLEAST 1-2 hours at any time of day for the range.

The range does the smart thing. They allow 1 box of ammo with the purchase of range time ($10) ... They have 22/9/40/45 stocked just for range participants :) Smart business plan if you ask me :)

You are talking about the manufacturers. I consider the "industry" to be the manufacturers, the distributors, the retailers and any and all middle men. And I don't think it's the manufacturers that are the problem. They are all scrambling to keep up with demand as much as possible. It's the distributors and retailers who are the culprits. I know people wanna argue "economics 101," but that argument doesn't hold water. For example, if a guns shop sells 200 guns over the course of a month, but during the current craze sells 200 guns in a week and has to wait for resupply of desirable items, they are still selling 200 guns in that month. The only difference is the sales are condensed time-wise. The distributors and retailers have used that as an excuse to raise prices. Just because they can't be built fast enough is not an excuse to raise prices. If Chevy was behind on production, that's not an excuse to start selling Chevy Malibus for $50K, nor would any sane person pay that. The raw materials are there; the manufacturers just have to get their butts in gear. The retailers have not been hurt whatsoever. Quite the opposite in fact. When you can't keep product on the shelf, I'd say times are good. They shouldn't be taking advantage of those good times by raising the prices to make the "good times" even better. People wanna defend capitalism and the greed it proliferates. Capitalism isn't here to benefit us. Profit is the ONLY motive. But I guess half the country isn't obese, the majority of people aren't in debt, unemployment isn't high and poverty doesn't exist. JMO.

The range I go to has been packed as always. Ammo prices are still the same as they were pre hysteria days.

That depends on how the co. is financially structured and their line of credit to add shifts, eqpmt. and possibly expanding their facilities. One would logically think that in a time such as this that would be easy, however as we all know many American cos. see re-investment as a liability. A good example is that in late Summer of 2008 Federal laid off approx. 90 employees.

One would also assume that with Obama being reelected that the firearms/ammuntion makers would be keen to expand, however they are leary and awaiting the possible passing of new legislation before making any major changes which is the smart thing to do.

Remember, no one forces anyone to buy guns and/or ammunition, so if the prices are unacceptable then don't buy. Also, price "gouging" is definded legally as:

1. Period of Emergency: The majority of laws apply only to price shifts during a time of disaster.

2. Necessary items: Most laws apply exclusively to items which are essential to survival.

3. Price ceilings: Laws limit the maximum price that can be charged for given goods.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=1099567

Guns/ammo hardly meet these criterion at present.

I agree that you don't have purchase if you don't want to. Which is exactly what aggravates me. I have refrained and I wish a lot more people would also.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the rest.

Same here. I counted a 500,000 round mountain of 9mm ammo right in the center of the store. Yes...500 cases of 9mm. The prices sucked though. Nobody even touched it...well I did, I sat on it while I was waiting to be called for my turn at the range. :whistling:

I'm a member of a very nice private range here in South Florida. I go once a week and shoot mostly pistol. I am usually by myself on one of the three pistol ranges if I go on a Monday morning. I shoot my own ammo and have plenty of components so I haven't had to limit the amount of shooting I do. I do like it if a few other people who do not reload are there so I can get more brass. If I shoot my AR I just reload those same rounds again. I haven't had to touch my small stash of 5.56 ammo at all.

I haven't been to my range in months - mainly due to the VT weather. But I am not in a hurry to shoot up my 500 9mm 115gr FMJRN reloads. Or my WW/Fed 115gr JHP +p+ rounds.

^^ LoL

The prices are going up . . . . .