Hornady ammo price increase.

rabbit assassin

Hey lads,
Was in my local RFD today buying a few boxes of ammo. He was asking me if I wanted any more bulk batches of my usual stuff (I mostly shoot Hornady in everything). Long story short he was saying that the Irish importer for Hornady ammo is raising the price of everything by 5% in the very near future, I think he said something to do with the euro being so weak...not sure though. Anyway he passed on the heads up to me and Im after ordering bulk in a few calibres, just thought Id pass it on !

Glensman

I got an email from Brownells saying similar.
But it's because the US Mils contract for ammo is up, so they are stockpiling by 20% to cover negotiations...

Grizzly 45

Can confirm that RE the ammo contract.It is the big news story in the US shooting circles for the last month.Everyone is buying now while they can.

declan1980

Feck

Glensman

Dear Folks,

Those of you shopping for economically priced .223 and 5.56 ammunition may be discovering that it is getting harder and harder to find. There is significant demand for these calibers at this moment, with the US Army the main buyer of the lower-priced ammunition. From our various sources, we are hearing that the Army is bringing their reserves back up to a reasonable level in anticipation of the perceivable conflicts our military may be engaged in over the next 24 plus months.

At this time, the military gets a significant majority of their ammunition from the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Missouri. Every couple of years, the contract for manufacturing ammunition is sent out for bids, and the quotations are reviewed. The re-bid time for the next contract is coming up - due October 2013. While that is more than a year away, whenever a military contract of this magnitude comes up, there are significant uncertainties of change in operations by the new winner of the bid. And, with any change in operations, there’s also the strong possibility of a significant delay in supply.

What the military is doing right now, then, is a very reasonable response to an uncertain future supply chain and a possible change in their manufacturing base. They are stockpiling more ammo than may be needed by the military, but which might actually be available to the commercial market once the contract is all settled and the new contractor is in place and up to full operation. So, it's kinda a bucket of worms . . . strong possibility of uncertain ammo manufacturing capacity during this time of real transition – probably – maybe.

It just so happens that Lake City is also a main source of component parts for aftermarket reloaders and resellers of ammunition, too. With the military buying nearly everything Lake City is producing right, the resellers and aftermarket reloaders are finding their supply is getting mighty tight, too.

To make the situation a "perfect storm of uncertainness", we're finding that the commercial ammo market is growing exponentially, with consumers wanting more and more ammo, raising the demand curve even higher. We talked about what might be causing this in the last WebBench – basically, more folks shooting the AR-15, with more need for ammo. Other causes are the "election effect", a possible presidential fiat to ban military rounds to the civilian market (I do not believe this to be a real factor, but it is a motivator in the market place), and finally what economists call "scarcity demand". Scarcity demand is when we go the store, and there is nothing on the shelf. We feel that momentary panic, that "I've gotta get some . . . the store doesn't have any" response.

And finally, we really have to accept the fact that these are "uncertain times". Uncertainty is going to be with us for a great many more months. The media is hitting us with that every day in every venue available to them. Just in the last few days we've been smacked with the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare, the Fast and Furious scandal, and the most damaging wild fires in history both in Colorado and the Northeast. Sorta makes you want to turn off the noise, retreat to the patio, find some shade and something cool to drink . . . except the West and Midwest and much of the South are having a record-setting heat wave.

Well, not much we can do about most of this, but we can help out with the ammo shortage problem. When you order on brownells.com and it comes up that we are out of that item, you are given the choice of "Back Order" or "Notify". In addition, our gang in Marketing and Web Development has figured out a way to let you know when preferred ammunition comes back in stock. We'll take care of the backorders and notifies first, of course, but when we actually have stock we can ship you, we will send you an email alert, and you can decide if you still want the item or not. In these times of unknown outages, the program gives you the chance to be "the first to know", which has gotta be better than just gettin' hit with a stick! Click here to sign up for our Preferred Ammo Alert Emails. We hope it helps you get the ammo you want.

EWQuinn

http://www.natchezss.com/specials.cfm?contentID=specials&spcGrp=2

And yet .223 continues to be available, at least one of my usual suspects in the US ammo market continues to show it in stock in bulk, along with certain others. Fortunately when it comes to components, I "got mine" back in the day.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/aap-lakecity.htm

Lake City AAP is an interesting place and noteworthy for its rather unique place in the world. Being relatively recently retired from uniformed service and some years ago serving in a capacity that allowed for it, I had the pleasure of unofficially touring Lake City one evening when production was not in progress, and salivating at all the components, ammo and measuring equipment in the place. Reloader's heaven.

"And finally, we really have to accept the fact that these are "uncertain times". Uncertainty is going to be with us for a great many more months. The media is hitting us with that every day in every venue available to them. Just in the last few days we've been smacked with the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare, the Fast and Furious scandal, and the most damaging wild fires in history both in Colorado and the Northeast. Sorta makes you want to turn off the noise, retreat to the patio, find some shade and something cool to drink . . . except the West and Midwest and much of the South are having a record-setting heat wave."

To some extent, regarding fires, weather etc, these may be record setting in our recorded memory, but in the grand scheme they are what happens. In the Missouri River basin affecting much of the western US, its a long established cycle of extremes in drought and flood for as long as records have been kept. And finally, as my relations in the health care industry relate, America has a BIG surprise coming that the rank and file won't like once Obamacare truly kicks in.

The only thing that is certain is uncertainty, yet in many ways, the more things change the more they remain the same.

FISMA

Glensman wrote: »

I got an email from Brownells saying similar.
But it's because the US Mils contract for ammo is up, so they are stockpiling by 20% to cover negotiations...

Printing obamabucks like they are going out of style doesn't help either.

QE 3 appears to be inevitable.

In all fairness to American manufacturers, why should they take diluted dollars for the same merchandise?

Technically, ammo didn't go up, the dollar has gone down. The only reason we're not seeing this is because the Euro is in much deeper trouble and the dollar is a "flight to safety."

Right now the markets are in "beat up the EU" mode. Soon they'll be back to "beat up the US" mode - probably in time for elections.

Price of metals doesn't help either. Have you seen the copper ingots in pounds?