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I think we can dispense with the argument that there's not enough constant demand for ammunition to expand production capacity.
This is the third or fourth ammo-panic in recent years.
What I put to the ammo makers who keep telling us that the constant demand isn't sufficient the justify increasing production is:
When you're completely out of stock, you're not selling anything.
Also, it takes far too long for stocks to recover after an ammo panic with current production paradigms.
The way the ammo is disbursed from the distributors in these shortages tends to screw the smallest gun-shops. Small, but steady, sales are reliable sales. But if they don't have anything to sell, they can't sell anything and that leads to their closing. The rule of small numbers says you should be addressing this.
You guys are leaving money on the table, something no business should do.
As I understand things, the real key to ammo manufacture is the primers. The first part is that primers are the most dangerous of the components to manufacture, the second is that only 4 companies manufacture the (Rem, CCI, Win, Federal). Then, primers are split into 4 or 5 major sizes. Small pistol primers are useless if you want to make .223 rifle cartridges, and large rifle primers are useless in making 9mm cartridges. All this makes primer production the major bottleneck in ammo production.
ReplyDeleteThanks to the bankruptcy, Rem ain't making any right now. Happily they weren't the largest maker.
DeleteStill, regardless of the supply bottlenecks, we've been hearing, literally, for years that it's not worth it for them to expand production at any level... But we keep having shortages because of the lack of production because of panics and every panic brings more shooters.
The steady increase of new shooters is showing up and the panics exacerbate the problem.
The ammo market was 'stable' for pre-2001 years. Then 9-11 came, the Global War on Terror and multiple 'not terrorist attacks on US soil because shooter wasn't a terrorist (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more... (cough *Nidal Hassan* cough)) and civilian (private citizens and mil contractors) and .gov and mil 'needs' went through the roof. Without corresponding increases in production capacity, just increases in production time and overall productivity.
DeleteAnd then 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 all came along and just the 'elections' caused increase overwhelmed the maxed-out production capacity.
Add to that all the actual increases in actual gun owners, and the increase in the number of people who actually want to shoot and practice with their weapons, and ammo needs are off the wall. (And so are demands for places to shoot, meanwhile shooting places are closing due to regulations and just stupid government intrusion, forcing people to go 'illegal' in finding shooting places (would not surprise me if somewhere under NYC were private shooting galleries set up in old tunnels...))
So the need, even non-panic times, for increased production has been there since 2001. Aquila in Mexico has responded, increasing their production capacity continuously, including a new shot-drop tower, new .22LR production equipment, new this, new that.
What's killing the US side is... the suits (MBAs) control all the manufacturing companies. And it's been Gospel (the Economic Gospel according to useless MBAs and Grasping Account Managers) that one should never spend money on new equipment to expand production or to back up machines that have been running since WWI or WWII while said olde tyme machines are still running. And then to close businesses when the old machines go tango uniform. Spend money to make money? What a shocking and heretical concept! Burn the Heretic! Yada yada yada.
It's not just the Ammo world that's affected. You see it in any industry where they rely exclusively on ancient machines, and refuse to retool to modern equipment.
Funny, one of the first adopters of modern CNC systems was the weapons manufacturing industry, both aimed at the Military and civilian markets.
We do not see the same adoption of modern manufacturing processes or at least modern machines for production in the same old way in reference to the manufacturing of ammo.
Very strange...
Another thing is CCI and Federal are both owned by Vista Outdoors, so even if they have seperate production facilities, ultimately they are controlled by the same parent organization. That really means right now if Remington is shut down due to their bankruptcy, there are only two companies in the business. That's really not enough players for it to be a vibrant competitive market.
ReplyDeleteFor a while, there was a flood of inexpensive foreign surplus ammo coming onto the US market, but with the Democrats in charge, that'll dry up, mark my words. This would be a good time to be seriously into reloading.
ReplyDeleteFor a while, there was a flood of inexpensive foreign surplus ammo coming onto the US market, but we bought all of it and shot most of it. No anti-gun boogieman dried up that supply.
DeleteFuture imports of surplus ammo are effectively banned by the EU's laws concerning small arms and ammunition. Not our Congress doing it.
Now is not a good time to get into reloading because the exact same bottleneck from primer manufacture will stop you from making rounds as surely as it stops Hornady.